Microsoft Band: Building Custom Notifications

Since the launch of Microsoft Band, many people have stepped forward looking to create custom notifications on a device where the SDK has yet to launch.  Is there a way to receive a custom text like “Hello World” based on a feed from a local or remote app?

The answer is not only yes, it’s been tested already.  This a simple solution involving both Azure Mobile Services and a custom developed-app on any phone such as iOS, Android or Windows.  For our test we leveraged Windows Phone and built a custom app that simply takes in a text prompt from any data source (it could be from the app itself through a command line interface).  We wanted something a bit more sophisticated, and instead went with a remote PC with a Windows 8.1 app that pushed commands to a remote Windows phone via Azure Mobile Services.  The custom phone app would easily push these notifications to the Band. 

There is a minor caveat – Microsoft Band comes out-of-the-box with disabled push notifications, and simply requires a minor change on Windows Phone under settings. 

The application works great if you’re looking to build business solutions that push custom alerts, messages or reminders.