After doing some 'extensive' research I've decided to ask here to verify or reject my findings in regards to connecting the MS Band to the emulator for development.
My findings: Bluetooth options is disabled on the emulator (something I suspect has to to with the image being a Hyper-V VM), and a second option which would be (if it is a WP WinRT app) to use a Store application won't work as currently the preview does not not support Windows Store at the time of writing. Windows Phone has a USB option, and so does the Band, but testing on a device I've been unable to successfully connect to the device so this might be desktop only option.
And there is no simulator or emulator for the band.*
*(I have been working on a simulator, with most the features added, and I want to make sure I'm not wasting my time :) )
The question(s) is, can the band in any way be connected to the emulator (any clever bluetooth hacks more than welcome), and/or is there any alternative options besides running the application on the phone with the band connected to it.
Not to my knowledge (as someone who develops with the Band on a day-to-day basis). The Band can connect via Bluetooth or via its USB connector, neither of which are supported by the Windows Phone emulator. When testing the application in the emulator we use a combination of configuration flags and mocks to allow us to run through Band-related scenarios. Final validation of those scenarios, however, is done by running the application on the Phone with a Bluetooth-paired Band.