After attending an apparently badge-intensive convention in 2022, Jeremy Geppert was impressed to construct his personal badge-format system. What he got here up with is a badge that passively scans its environment to indicate a graph of Bluetooth gadgets within the space.
This new badge makes use of an ESP32-based dev board for Bluetooth sensing and system management, together with an SK6812 8×8 LED matrix and a small OLED show for person suggestions. The LED matrix reveals the variety of Bluetooth gadgets as a graph of blue dots. LEDs within the lower-left of the display present what number of “pages” of LEDs are current, accommodating greater than 64 gadgets as wanted. The OLED exhibits a numerical system depend, as a simpler, if not as visually fascinating, reference.
To slot in with its badge theme, the system encompasses a 3D-printed shell to which a lanyard clips on with two hooks. The LED matrix sits above the ESP32 board and OLED, that are each soldered right into a perfboard. This places all the primary elements on show, which might not solely give it some additional hacker curiosity, however would facilitate troubleshooting as nicely.
The most recent model of the system additionally has a 10x mode, which represents 10 gadgets per pixel, permitting it to indicate as much as 640 gadgets on the matrix. It’s a slightly enjoyable little hack, and whereas code and construct recordsdata don’t look like out there as of this writing, it shouldn’t be too onerous to make use of this as inspiration in your personal badge!
