I keep wondering why there seems to be so much infighting with the dutch hacker community (the warehouse team responsible for dealing with collecting all the stuff at takedown after the event also rage-quitted on the last day of the event) instead of working together.
While there is not a lack of conflict in CCC-events the scene usually finds solutions not creating any bad blood.
However, the new badge team was apparently picking up the pieces trying to finish in time.
They kinda made it but they were late. Some got their badge only on the last day of the event, not sure if all promised devices could be delivered at all.
Things were bad because of a design flaw that probably happened because the original team dropped the ball. The device lacked some safety measures with open contacts so there was the possibility of the batteries creating potentially fire hazards.
So that was the main reason for the delay as all devices got an extra epoxy layer.
I got my badge rather early. It was included in the ticket price, so i did not pay for it separately. Would I have ordered one if it was a separate thing? Probably not. But it wasn't so I tried it. TLDR: I was not impressed.
Well the specs are nice: ESP32 SoC, a huge color display, a backlit (!) full qwerty keyboard, huge battery, Wifi and LoRa radio. A nerd's dream. What is not to like?
Well, the problems started at setup.
After the "sponsor" app was finished showing fancy logos a rather bleak window showed up offering "software updates". And updates i got. Many updates. Sometimes they worked, sometimes not. The device restarted many times, sometimes it just hanged.
Then it looked bricked but I could make it work again by unplugging the power cord (and run it on batteries). More updates came but i never saw more than a bleak list of apps. So they must be cool right?
Well, you know: the device had Doom, Snake and a C64 emulator on it. Also a Micropython app. Most apps did not work, nothing was useful in any way.
After the third update the "name badge" app showed up and I could enter a name and some text. Hooray, I finally caught up with the usefulness of a piece of paper.
Then WHY2025 was over.
So here is the problem: this device did NOTHING for the event (apart from people getting into a fight with each other).
Only the nerdiest of nerds would actually hang a A5 sized device around the neck to show the name (actually, it seems nobody did). Apart from that app there was nothing the device could be used for.
I am sure some day somebody will write some fancy program for it but the event is long gone so who cares. With LoRa onboard a meshtastic chat for would have been nice.
But the core problem is: the device does NOTHING for the event. It does not solve any of the problems you have at open-air events. No chat, no location finder, no collab game, no incentive to do anything with it.
I know the people who designed it were well-meaning. But the aim was wrong: do not build unicorn-hardware for top-nerds nobody can use.
Instead: solve a problem, build something that is truely easy to use and easy to make. If the ticket pays for it, make it supercheap.
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