Someone Has Found a New Use for the Flipper Zero: Controlling Taylor Swift’s Tour Wristbands

Thousands of videos of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour are circulating on social media. Some of the clips are particularly striking because a kind of light snake can be seen moving through the audience. The secret behind this visual effect is the bracelets that the singer's fans carry with them.

As told by Wired, there’s an operator in the venue who’s in charge of controlling the bracelets through wireless signals. They can change colors and draw various patterns. Now, someone has found a way to control these wristbands once the concert is over. And they’ve succeeded using the so-called “Tamagotchi for hackers.”

Controlling a Taylor Swift’s Tour Wristband Outside the Venue

In a blog post, CloudFlare CTO John Graham-Cumming mentions that The Eras Tour is using PixMob X2 wristbands. PixMob has previously supplied similar products for tours of other bands and artists like Coldplay and Lady Gaga. The way these wristbands work is relatively simple.

Each wristband is equipped with a signal receiver, a small processor, and LEDs. This model, in particular, responds to an infrared remote control during the show, allowing for various lighting effects and patterns, such as snakes or hearts.

Graham-Cumming also explains that a Flipper Zero—a portable tool used to interact with access control systems—can be used to control wristbands like the ones used on Swift’s tour. However, this process involves some effort, and the Swiftie community has had to resort to reverse engineering to analyze the infrared protocol.

Several projects on GitHub detail how to use the “Tamagotchi for hackers” to transmit signals to the bracelets and give them a second life after the show. This process, however, requires patience and fans to input the correct codes.

Image | Taylor Swift via Instagram | Calemerilla0 via eBay

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