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Case study

PixMob IR reverse engineering: controlling event wristbands at home

Recovers enough of the infrared protocol used by PixMob event wristbands to light them at home, starting from Flipper Zero recordings made at concerts and games and replaying them to bracelets. Pulse-timing analysis found 38 kHz signals with bit intervals of roughly 700 µs, and targeted brute forcing from an ESP32 discovered hundreds of colour, fade, random and motion-mode commands, now sent through Arduino, Python and web tools. The README calls the result far from exhaustive and points to a later repository that decoded most of the full IR protocol through MCU dumping.

Requirements & limits

  • Reviewed at the 2026-02-06 main head; there are no releases. The write-up covers IR bracelets, while the rf folder adds 915 MHz and 868 MHz OOK recordings and notes for RF wristbands, where a further encoding layer and a likely CRC remain unresolved. The project reports testing six IR bracelet versions made between 2014 and 2021, and a hardware table lists boards and MCUs where known.
  • Needs the user’s own PixMob bracelets with fresh batteries and an Arduino-compatible board or ESP32 with a 940 nm IR emitter, using the IRremote or IRremoteESP8266 library; a Flipper Zero can instead send codes from a separate repository. The Python tools need pyserial, PySimpleGUI and clipboard, and the web interface runs in Chrome and connects directly to the Arduino.
  • The evidence is recordings and observed bracelet reactions: the repository holds raw Flipper IR captures from several events, edited RF captures, the discovered effect definitions, a record of brute-force attempts and a dump of one bracelet’s 24C02 EEPROM. The README says brute forcing targeted only a few packet lengths, so the code list is far from exhaustive, and the programming and choreography signals used at events remain undiscovered.
  • Python unit tests cover the conversion functions and Flipper-file parsing; there is no CI. Effects are reported by the author and contributors from their own bracelets, and this source review ran no code or hardware.
  • MIT (LICENSE). PixMob’s hardware, firmware and trademarks are outside that license, and the X-ray images are credited to Samy Kamkar. The reviewed sources establish no AI or REA use.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
Protocol

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

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Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  2. rf/README.md GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  3. hardware-table.md GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  4. python_tools/README.md GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  5. python_tools/requirements.txt GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  6. python_tools/pixmob_conversion_funcs.py GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  7. python_tools/tests/test_pixmob_conversion_funcs.py GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  8. arduino_sender/README.md GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  9. raw_wild_ir_captures GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420
  10. LICENSE GitHub · danielweidman/pixmob-ir-reverse-engineering · Revision b372420

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