 Okay this week in the Python on Hardware Newsletter and by the way if you haven't please subscribe Adafruit Daily completely separate website if you don't spam you know do anything. There's no ads. Yes we don't there's no ads. It's just really good content. We don't sell you anything. The theme is Python on Hardware and one of the things that we like to use this for is for our own use which is where do the trends, where are things, where are things going, what's happening and one of the things that we were noticing is conferences are coming back and people are now able to safely go to events, share code, share projects, do things and there's conference badges. So there was a couple events. Hackaday Supercon was last week and... Europe Python is well the videos just got posted and if you look at what's in the newsletter we're starting to see more and more badges now it's probably because they're easier to do. You can make a badge and a kind of an e-ink display and there's code that works on it now. MicroPython, Circuit Python, all the Python flavors are out and that just means you might be able to program it on-site. You don't have to download software it could just show like a USB drive. So this week I wanted to show you a cool badge that we saw. This is from Pymeroni and this is for GitHub Universe which is going on right now and this is neat because I'm going to zoom in on the badge here if I can. I like this design because it has the cutout of Mona the the OctoCat and then it has the person's name and there's yeah and then there's also a QR code. So I was going to ask you lady because we get asked this all the time and now I would like to just send a link. If someone's thinking of doing a conference badge what are the right now in the current state of chip shortages software that's available you know should they do it or you know should they do it in Circuit Python or MicroPython? What would you suggest to someone? Well I'm glad you asked. Well I think you know this I think this badge particularly runs MicroPython but I think Circuit Python is is also an excellent excellent use for badges and there you know before the pandemic stopped there were a couple of very cool Circuit Python based badges that were you know for Defcon and for Pycon and stuff and the reason is is that you know having having taught in your workshops or attended a lot of conferences most people don't have like they're not going to install IDEs the internet is going to be really weird everyone's got their own computer. If you want to have an electronic badge that is customizable having it so that you could just plug into a USB cable and then the files are easily editable you don't have to install any special software it works on Chromebooks you know you can use phones on iPads if you have the adapter cable I think is really powerful and in here you know if you would I think it doesn't even have a battery. If someone has to do like a thousand badges right now what chip would you suggest they look at because that that's the thing that really burnt a lot of folks they were about to do a conference and they couldn't get parts or they were they committed to something and then the price changed or availability changed what what processor would you pick right now. Well the RP2040 which I think is what this badge is running is is very easy to get it's a very available it's low cost you can also use the Pico or the Pico W and just solder it onto the back so it's like a little bit easier to manufacture maybe if you have if you don't want to solder in the very small point for millimeter pitch. Or you know you can have it surface mount on you know and then and then because that's cast-related pads I also really strongly recommend the ESP32 S2 or the S3 but the S2 is a little cheaper actually the S2 is cheaper than the original ESP32 and you don't have a to have an external USB serial converter so it's actually like a really good deal and the ESP32 S2 is available in modules that are like FCC certified they're really easy to pick and place on you can hand solder them they're available through like quick turn PCB assembly houses so I would say you know ESP32 S2 I personally I think Wi-Fi is really great you know it's it's fun if you can have some like internet connectivity on the badge and CircuitPython has great support for the ESP32 S2 if not the S2 then the S3 that's secondary because it also has native USB and also has like Bluetooth but it's a little bit it's not as stable as because it's a little newer than the ESP32 S2 and then those have native USB you know we of course support ESP32 without native USB but if you want to use that use that too and then you can try out the Wi-Fi workflow but I think with USB it's just easier to do the deployment you know it's like you can type in the SSID you know over USB and then the RP2040 if you don't need Wi-Fi connectivity and you want you know such ship that's easily available okay now tough question and this isn't a dunk or anything what chips would you avoid if someone has an event coming up in the next three to six months well you're definitely I mean I think you might be able to get some low cost STM32's but I think it's a little risky and there's definitely no Sam D's like you can't get the Sam D's really at all so you're not gonna be able to do those there I think that I think STM32's might be okay but I have to look because it depends on what flavor but none of the ones that are circuit Python friendly like the F the STM32F4 series which is what we won circuit Python and best on those are either very expensive or they're very unavailable so I think I think to be honest the ESP displays have you seen that they've been available if someone says well which display should I have on it like is the ink okay the only thing about yanks is I'll warn you is it just like every this has always been true about yanks they're constantly changing the chipsets it's very you know the vendors that I'm using to get ink displays it's like it's like every six months they're like this chip is discontinued as a new chip so you're gonna have to kind of be very flexible with like the display chips that they're always similar but the commands do vary like our drive we have like 17 drivers for ink displays TFTs the prices have come down quite a bit so I recommend TFT displays those are very good displays to avoid you know one thing that I do warn people on is neopixels are very very fun but they are very tough to pick in place because you know if one LED is bad you can't throw the whole thing away and they they crack very easily if you don't have like perfect humidity we've definitely had that so have even though it's fun to have an LED matrix display I'd actually not recommend it on a badge I mean if you're gonna do that I would use the 2020 sized LEDs the ones that are not like 50 50 or 35 35 because those don't crack they don't have the the lensing the epoxy lens they're just like fully epoxy those are more likely to survive reworking although of course they're smaller but I don't I don't the one thing I've I'll just say like neopixels they love to crack off they love to break and you know if one breaks all the ones downstream break so you know eating displays TFT displays people love OLEDs like the low-cut you can even get OLEDs with the headers already soldered in and I see that all the time people just they put four holes and you solder in the OLED and OLED drivers are of course a dime a dozen they're you know very very popular okay so this is our like public service that we wanted to do because it's conference season again folks are asking us to make custom badges we really don't want to do custom badges there are companies that do that but there's also a lot of questions and I think I can just point to this video be like well here's stuff to consider because it's usually what's available what display should I use you know pricing like how do I how do I coordinate all the stuff first time they've ever done this you know and there's all the complexity of a event and then you add now release a product at the same time so hopefully this will help someone and that is this week's oh one thing I will say sorry I'm not done yet one more thing another great reason you circuit python is we have full font support for every kind of font and the QR code generator so if you do want to have people have custom fonts for the images we spent a lot of time on getting your code unit code support so foreign character sets work so if you have you know we showed a badge demo we if you have your name is in Japanese or your name is in Urdu that display just fine if you're looking just to have something that works you can also just use the clue as is and there is a project that we have that just turns it into a badge yeah it's busted okay now I'm done that's black on our