No Badge, No Problem

The talk opens with a short history of electronic conference badges, from an early DEF CON design built around a small microcontroller to recent boards based on ESP32-class chips with expansion ports. The speakers explain why badges matter for immersive events and how a chip's documentation makes the hardware approachable for hobbyists.

The middle section covers why this year's volunteer badge run did not happen. Sponsorship commitments fell through, tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty raised costs, and moving the event to an annual schedule shortened production planning to roughly six months. Only a few component donations came through. The speakers outline possible funding routes for future runs, such as badge pre-sales or ticket-price arrangements with the event organizers. The second speaker then walks through firmware options for the badge's ESP32-C3 chip: the Arduino framework, ESP-IDF, ESPHome, WLED and MicroPython. He shows how ESPHome describes hardware in YAML so pin mappings can be reused, and demonstrates personal add-ons such as a display, an infrared controller and a Wi-Fi-connected setup.

The closing takeaway is that the project will keep developing its firmware, is looking for volunteers and sponsors for the next run, and wants to lower the barrier to badge hacking. Documentation, a wiki and a link tree of project resources were shared, and the Q&A covered future puzzles and how the team tests its hardware and software.