Hello everyone!
To begin with, I would like to thank you all for the wealth of information provided in this site for our watches. Even just reading the threads can help solve a lot of wuestions anyone might have (like I have been doing for the past two weeks).
Now that this is out of the way, on to the story. about a month ago, a friend gave me a Thor 4 Dual as a gift, knowing that I love all things related to technology. Having my pc fried due to some electrical problems, i needed something to get my mind off things till i can scrounge enough money to buy a new one. Anyway, after being disappointed that BT calling and my sparkling new watch don’t mix, I dove to the internet to find apps and a way to root it, because, let’s face it, the stock applications are too basic. From my comments, i think you can imagine my disappointment that there is no root and recovery available for this model and that I would have to get. Yet, that is.
Thinking about tweaking the base firmware is not possible without a computer with the nescessary tools installed to first extract the rom, so I contacted zeblaze about getting a copy of the firmware. Yeah, no such luck. Their reply was negative, so I kept looking.Thankfully, i found a copy of the firmware somewhere (iirc, it was a video on YT that was about fixind a google play problem). So, I downloaded it, some of the tools needed and borrowed a friend’s computer for a bit.
With the firmware being older that what was on my watch at the time, I first flashed the rom and checked that it was working as intended, Then I installed Magisk Manager and, after trying several times, created a patched boot image that had Magisk installed. I transfered it back to my friend’s computer, installed the latest OTA update on my watch and flashed the patched image.
Success!!! The firmware timestamp may be wrong on my watch, but I am now a proud owner of a rooted Zeblaze Thor 4 Dual running the 20190508-1132 update. Still no TWRP available, as I didn’t have that much time available to build one from scratch using the loaned computer, but I did manage to get access to the system and installed some of the goodies I had my eye on.
So, without further ado, I am posting all the tools needed to root this lovely piece of hardware:
Thor 4 Dual 20190115 Firmware - Thanks to whoever posted it, none of this would be possible without your contribution, Sorry that I don’t recall your name.
MTK USB Drivers - This is the version I used to get the drivers, no idea if there are better ones out there. As mentioned my research capabilities are a bit crippled for now.
SP Flash tool - I used it for the whole flashing procedure, the scatter file needed is provided in the firmware.
Patched Boot.img - Patched image I created on my watch with Magisk v20.3 installed.
Magisk Manager v7.3.2 apk - The apk I used to create the patch and, of course install/update modules post-flash.
Sidenotes - Usage observations:
- I don’t know if the OTA update is installable if the patched image is flashed beforehand.
- For anyone’s convenience, use Titanium backup to disable the native file chooser and use another app for the job. I use ES File Explorer for the job.
- If you want to turn any user app to a system or orevilidged app without much fuss, use App Systemizer (Magisk Addon) and a terminal emulator of your choice, it works wonders.
- To get more out of the watch, energy-wise, I recommend using Greenify as a previlidged app in conjunction with NFS Injector (the ballanced mode works wonders).
That’s all for now, I hope I get another chance to make a more detailed guide for the whole procedure in the future, but I sincerely hope I helped.