The Coldplay Xyloband was given away at their concerts in 2012. The wristband contained LEDs which flashed in tune with the music, controlled over an RF frequency.
Nothing like a good teardown, I love cracking stuff open. Not often cools bits of tech are given away at events, usually you will get a free flashy pen if you are lucky.
Thanks very much James! I've always loved taking things apart and finding out how they work so when I saw the live "Charlie Brown" performance on RU-vid, I had to find out what was inside one :-)
Hi Carl. Just found your videos recently and am currently working through your historical videos. I didn't know anything about these bands until i saw your video, However I do remember it being discussed on the Amp Hour podcast(Dave Jones from the EEVBlog) and i'm sure they mentioned it was triggered from massive IR canons, which clearly isn't the case with this product(although they should have because production costs may have been reduced!) I have been planning to produce a number of tech videos myself from my equivalent of a "tech Shed" and think i will try and find one of these on ebay and do some reverse engineering of my own! I noticed, while you were detailing the pins mainly the RX and TX that the other side of the board had MOSI and MISO, i am slightly disappointed you didn't try hooking up some form of serial console and see if the unit spat out any serial debug data.. I may try this myself. Keep up the videos! I am very much in favor of more British tech people producing youtube content!!! Tom.
Hey Carl, I just did a follow up video where I started to look into the serial interface of both the IC's! I'd1 love for you to have a watch and see what you think? Iv been doing some research and if i am able to determine how the RF IC "talks" to the micro-controller i may be able to emulate it and get the device flashing again! Keep up the videos! their really good!
Well it was listed as "For spares or repair" so most likely the batteries had just run out. If I had an RF signal generator, I would have taken the time to test it properly.
