Xiaomi really doesn’t want us to unlock the bootloader: here are the new rules

Xiaomi has just introduced a new rule, making it more difficult to unlock the bootloader on its devices with HyperOS and therefore limiting the development of the best ROMs on the brand’s phones. For the average user, this news isn’t a big deal, but for developers and enthusiasts, it will certainly be met with frustration. A phone’s bootloader is actually the component that decides which software to run and in what order when the device boots up. By default it is locked, as this is very important for security, and touching it can also risk breaking your phone. This is why this normally shouldn’t be done, but for those who want to have full control of their device, it is essential. Xiaomi phones have always been highly appreciated by developers, due to their high quality/price ratio, but the Chinese manufacturer is increasingly closing its doors to the community. Indeed, if unlocking the bootloader on a company phone requires an online procedure, after the launch of HyperOS things changed and very restrictive rules were introduced last year.

Until December 31, 2024, you had to be a member of the level 5 community on Xiaomi’s Chinese forum (i.e. with a certain number of posts), and you could only unlock three devices per year. You also had to request authorization every year (permission granted only for accounts and devices registered outside of China only). Now, as XiaomiTime shares, the manufacturer has set the bar even higher and from January 1, 2025, only one phone per year can be unlocked. Xiaomi justified the change by the need to guarantee the security and stability of the devices, but we know that at the end of 2022 a Chinese law was approved to standardize the behavior of software preinstalled on phones. In addition, with the expansion of the brand, they obviously want to limit the ability of users to remove advertising content from the operating system, a practice that Xiaomi has been implementing for several years. The news revives the old online question of who the real owner of a device is, the manufacturer or the user who paid for it, but we’re not sure there’s a definitive or clear answer. For those who want to unlock the bootloader of their Xiaomi, we can only recommend choosing very carefully on which device to do it on and sharing the Xiaomi guide: https://new.c.mi.com/global/post/710306