Dust off that SkyDogCon 2016 Badge...

SDC#7 New Firmware, New Functions, Oh My!

One of the biggest frustrations for me as a badge designer last year was that I missed the opportunity to re-program a lot of the 2016 badges with firmware so that people could continue to use their badge at home post-con.

So let's fix that and a few other things in the days up to con!

Show me the code!

It's out there on github for your perusal but I will be flashing it all con long.  Find me!

New Features?

  1. Configure WiFi.  If you press the "B" button during the first 5 seconds of boot, the badge will bring up its own AP and captive portal to let you move it onto the WiFi Network of your choice.
  2. UDP Baby!  When we got on-site last year we got a little skittish about how the network gear was going to handle UDP through firewalls and NAT so we switched to TCP.

    After much testing, we're back as nature intended. 

Protocol the same as last year?

Pretty much, except now the transport is UDP instead of TCP and there is a secret function hidden in there which nobody should pay any attention to at all.

There's another write-up of the protocol on my website which you are welcome to peruse.  The badge-server is Internet connected and already up 24/7 so feel free to beat on it some.

Final Words

Bring thy badge.