After attending an apparently badge-intensive convention in 2022, Jeremy Geppert was impressed to construct his personal badge-format machine. What he got here up with is a badge that passively scans its environment to point out a graph of Bluetooth units within the space.
This new badge makes use of an ESP32-based dev board for Bluetooth sensing and machine management, together with an SK6812 8×8 LED matrix and a small OLED show for consumer suggestions. The LED matrix reveals the variety of Bluetooth units as a graph of blue dots. LEDs within the lower-left of the display screen present what number of “pages” of LEDs are current, accommodating greater than 64 units as wanted. The OLED exhibits a numerical machine rely, as a easier, if not as visually fascinating, reference.
To slot in with its badge theme, the machine contains 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 principle parts on show, which might not solely give it some additional hacker curiosity, however would facilitate troubleshooting as nicely.
The newest model of the machine additionally has a 10x mode, which represents 10 units per pixel, permitting it to point out as much as 640 units on the matrix. It’s a reasonably enjoyable little hack, and whereas code and construct recordsdata don’t look like accessible as of this writing, it shouldn’t be too exhausting to make use of this as inspiration in your personal badge!