With the new Microsoft Band 2 now available, Microsoft released a developer update for the Microsoft Band 2 and the original Microsoft Band. According to Microsoft, the updated Band SDK for the Band 2 includes:
- Five new sensor-based subscriptions for Microsoft Band 2 – In addition to nine sensor-based subscriptions exposed for both Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2, the updated SDK exposes five additional subscriptions that are only available for Microsoft Band 2: galvanic skin response (electrical conductivity of the skin in kohms), barometer, altimeter, RR interval (time between heart beat peaks), and ambient light.
- Creation of PDF 417 barcodes with alpha/numeric data on Microsoft Band 2 – The previous SDK supported only 0-9 digits. The updated SDK extends support for more ASCII characters.
- Increased the icon limits for tiles on Microsoft Band 2 – The updated SDK increases the icon limit for tiles from 8 to 13 for only Microsoft Band 2.
The Microsoft Health and Microsoft Band team also added improvements to the Microsoft Band Web Tile Preview functionality released in June 2015. Based on user feedback, two new functionalities were added to the Band SDK for Web Tiles:
- Creates simple conditions that trigger sending notification to web tiles. You can now make web tiles more informative for your users by sending notifications to the band whenever the web data meets predefined conditions. Want a weather web tile that notifies you when there’s a high chance of rain? You can create one now.
- Extracts data from a web service that requires basic HTTP authentication. Until now, web tiles supported only publicly available web content. With the new update, web tiles can now support authenticated resources, opening up the opportunity to make the web content more secure and personalized.
The updated Band SDK works on the Microsoft Band 1 or 2; web tiles can be created on either Microsoft Band version. To take advantage of these new updated SDK features, and create web tiles on the Microsoft Band, download the Microsoft Band SDK.
