Poco X3 is no longer viable

kln_nurv

Re: Ubuntu Touch Installation Guide for Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC / X3

For those looking to use a Poco X3, it is now much more difficult to unlock the bootloader, especially on MIUI 14.

To unlock the bootloader, you MUST:

have a China region Xiaomi account (if yours is global, you need a new account)
have a SIM card in the phone
link your phone to the account and add the phone number (SMS verification often fails)
request unlock authorization at midnight China time (limited to 2000 requests worldwide daily)

All known methods to bypass the 7 day waiting period still need a code that is generated server-side only after linking a phone number. A phone number can only be added to your Xiaomi account if your region is set to China. And you cannot change the region of an existing account. While you can use a phone number from any country, the account region must be set to China.

Information is Xiaomi community is outdated and unlikely to be updated.
Xiaomi is making it more difficult to unlock bootloaders across all models, but has not yet explicitly banned unlocking. They have also instructed their service centers not to unlock bootloaders for any reason other than when necessary for repair, and to ensure they are re-locked when returning the device to its owner.

aimar

Can anybody confirm this issue please?
It is getting more and more difficult to find spare parts for my BQ Aquaris E4.5. (Yes I am still sticking to it ).
I have found a second hand Poco X3 very affordable, but besides being a hassle to wait 30 days (because I have yet not a Xiaomi account), unfortunately I think is quite improbable that I visit China just to get a China region Xiaomi account.

Eric H

@aimar
I suggest asking this question also on ut_pocox3 telegram group (bridged to #ut_surya:matrix.org on Matrix) to increase the chances of getting an answer.

aimar

Thank you @Eric-H.
I am not very fond of social networks such as Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram and the like. Hence I do not use them .
I haven't found in the web any topic regarding this issue.
I will wait in case someone pops up here with more information.
Thank you for the advice anyway.

TotalSonic

fwiw - I made the huge mistake of updating to Hyper OS1 when I first got my Poco X3 NFC, the only way I was able to get it unlocked was using "Hypersploit" on a PC running Windows 10 https://github.com/TheAirBlow/HyperSploit

Best regards,
Steve Berson

aimar

Thank you @totalsonic
Actually I pretend to swap to ubports as soon as I get it, so I have no intention of upgrading anything.
In the meantime, the prices has increased, just as the plane flight websites do.
I will wait a little longer in case it drops again and I gather more information.

wally

@aimar It should just be a one week (168 hour, they'll say) wait.

I can't confirm what @kln_nurv said exactly, but it does kinda fit with my experience.

I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro from the EU for delivery in Canada. I made a Xiaomi account, synced it to the phone, waited 168 days, but where it failed was as part of something Xiaomi called SIM sync or something similar. There was supposed to be a verification SMS from Xiaomi. This would never be received, and SIM Sync / SIM Activation would fail.

Then when I'd try Mi Unlock Tool even after 7 days, it would say the phone isn't "Activated".
A few emails with Xiaomi and a couple calls with my cellular carrier later, I gave up.

The best they could come up with at the time is that "short-code SMS", the type commonly used for 2FA, wasn't coming through maybe because either Xiaomi didn't have servers in Canada, or because it wasn't in its original market. They said short-code SMS don't work internationally. None of this made very much sense to me.

So I dunno, it's possible it now only works from within China.
I still have the phone. I will try to find time to make a new Xiaomi account via a Proton VPN server in Hong Kong and see if that works.. best I can do.

Any recent reports from others unlocking Xiaomi devices could be helpful. This was in 2026 that I was trying. Clearly people succeeded at this in the past. But anybody done so this year?