Introduction

Flashiibo Pro’s main purpose is to emulate NTAG215 which is the NFC technology amiibo figures use. However, it’s capable of emulating other NFC/RFID technologies.

For example, it’s also capable of emulating Mifare 1K, the NFC/RFID technology Skylanders use. You may follow the following instructions to emulate Skylanders.

Known Issues

  1. The support for Skylanders is partial. It doesn’t work in all scenarios. There are so many different combinations of games, portals and consoles. It’s hard to enumerate them all and list what works and what doesn’t.
  2. In particular, placing two Skylanders (even if only one of them is emulated by Pro) on a portal at the same time, is a scenario that’s not supported at all. Games relying on that mechanism, e.g. Swap Force, wouldn’t work.

Install the Latest Firmware

Make sure you are on firmware version 26.2.17 or later. See firmware upgrade instructions here.

Upload Skylander Dumps

You can do this via the app.flashiibo.com website using a computer or laptop with Bluetooth.

  1. On your Flashiibo Pro with the latest firmware, navigate to the “Other RFID/NFC” menu.
    • If it’s your first time accessing this menu, it may take a while to initialize.
    • The device will also create a “chameleon” folder with two subfolders: “dumps” and “slots”.
  2. Return to the main menu and select the “User Manual” or “Manual & Bluetooth” option.
  3. Open app.flashiibo.com and connect it to your Flashiibo Pro device.
    • Check this guide for more detailed instructions using the tool.
  4. Click the “Refresh” button, and you should see contents of drive “E:/” appear.
  5. Inside this drive, locate the “chameleon” folder and its “dumps” subfolder.
    • These were automatically created in Step 1 when the “Other RFID/NFC” menu was initialized.
    • If you skipped Step 1, you can manually create these folders.
  6. In the “chameleon/dumps” folder, click the blue “Upload” button.
  7. Select the desired dumps from the Skylanders Ultimate NFC Pack.
    • You can upload drag and drop multiple files or folders. However the following limitations apply.
      • None of the file paths should exceeed 64 characters.
      • Each folder should not contain more than 100 files/subfolders.
  8. The upload popup window can be a bit tricky.
    • Wait for all the dumps to upload, indicated by a green check mark on the right.
  9. Once complete, close the window.
    • You’ll get a warning message, simply confirm by clicking OK.
  10. All your uploaded dumps should now appear in the “chameleon/dumps” folder.

Emulate Skylander Dumps

  1. On your Flashiibo Pro device, go to the “Other RFID/NFC” menu.
  2. You can use any slot you like, but for the sake of this tutorial, slot 1 is used as an example.
  3. Select “Slot 01”, then go to “Type” and make sure “Mifare1K SK” is the type of this slot.
  4. Navigate to “Data…”, then “Load…”.
  5. Select a Skylander dump from the “chameleon/dumps” folder and you should see “Load File Success”.
  6. This step is ONLY necessary if you are playing on Nintendo Switch. Skip it for all other gaming platforms.
    • Go down to “Advanced…” and set “Custom Mode” to “[ON]”. This will change the SAK from 81 to 08 which is important for NS to recognize the skylander.
  7. That’s it! You don’t need to adjust anything else. Simply return to “[Tag Details]” menu.
  8. You should now see your Skylander’s name followed by “.dump”.
    • This is the emulation screen, and your Flashiibo Pro device will now emulate the selected Skylander.
    • To use a different Skylander, select a different slot and repeat the steps.
    • The current card emulation limit is 8 slots, but this may be expanded in the future.
  9. Place your Flashiibo Pro device on the Portal of Power to bring the selected Skylander into the game.
    • The device will also automatically save character progress, gold, and so on.
    • Keep in mind, however, that the game doesn’t save data instantly.
    • Here’s a list of when data is written to the tag:
    • 30 seconds have passed since the last write
    • A Skylander gains a level
    • 100 gold pieces have been collected by a Skylander
    • A Skylander gets a skill upgrade
    • The currently equipped Hat or Trinket equipped by a Skylander is changed
    • The owner of a Skylander is changed
    • The nickname of a Skylander is changed
    • A Skylander is reset
    • A Skylander is placed on a portal for the first time
    • A Skylander gets a stat boost after completing a challenge

Using It In Games

  • Keep the Tag Details page of the slot you’ve selected open
  • Place it on the Skylander Portal, with the screen facing up.
  • If you experience disconnects from time to time
    • Please try to move the antenna part of the Flashiibo Pro closer to the cable of the portal.
    • The antenna of Flashiibo Pro is on the left side.

Notes

  • Do not use more than 1.5 MB of the device’s total 1.83 MB capacity.
    • Exceeding this limit may lead to hard bricking of the microcontroller, causing constant freezing on startup, among other issues.
    • Additionally, the device may slow down if you store too many small files.
  • Avoid placing too many files in the same directory.
  • Use short file and directory names to ensure the full file path does not exceed 64 characters.

Credits

This is not possible without the wonderful work by @SkylandersNFC, who has done the heavy lifting of researching, data collection and hosting.