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.