Badge

Badge is a wearable LED matrix display system for communicating visually.

Hardware

The current prototype is built with a few inexpensive, readily available components. See separate document for details.

Development

Development is via the Espressif ESP-IDF toolchain. The Get Started guide provides all the details for setting up the toolchain on Windows, Linux, or MacOS.

Hardware-specific settings

Depending on the hardware, make the following configuraton settings using idf.py menuconfig

Sparkfun ESP32 Thing

Component config > ESP32 specific > CPU frequency: 240 MHz
Component config > ESP32 specific > Main XTAL frequency: 26 MHz
Serial flasher config > Flash SPI speed: 40 MHz

Adafruit ESP32 Huzzah

WeMos D1 clone "LOIN32"

Component config > ESP32 specific > CPU frequency: 240 MHz
Component config > ESP32 specific > Main XTAL frequency: 40 MHz
Serial flasher config > Flash SPI speed: 80 MHz
Serial flasher config > idf.py monitor baud rate: 115200 bps

USB Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART bridge

Old Project Setup

As of April 2021, much of this is obsoleted. After the ESP_IDF toolchain is setup, this project can be flashed to an ESP32 device as follows:

open a command shell
navigate to this project where it's been cloned from GitHub
attach the device via USB
determine the USB device address, depending on the host platform being used (on MacOS, /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART)
run make menuconfig
navigate to Serial flasher config > Default serial port
enter the appropriate serial port and press Enter
press Q, to update the ESP-IDF project configuration
run make flash
a lot of compiling is done the first time
eventually, the following output indicates the device is flashed: Hard resting via RTS pin...

Since ESP_IDF 4.4.2, the flash command figures out the COM port on Windows 10.

Development workflow

Once the project is setup, the following elements comprise the workflow:

viewing the application log stream
modifying the code
flashing the code
testing the code
synchronizing (push/pull) with the GitHub repository

Viewing the application log output

Run the following to view the application log steam make monitor

Modifying the code

TBD

Synching with the GitHub repository

TBD

Client Tools

It is intended that the device wiil be controlled from a mobile phone. For testing, the following tools can be used. There are many other tools with similar capabilities.

Nordic nRF Connect

Full access to the GATT characteristics.

List of the GATT characteristics: TBD

Flashing the bin file

Update firmware on device from bin file. On Windows. Download the ESP GUI

run "flash_download_tools_vn.n.n"
select SPIDownload tab
in first row, click "..."
navigate to and select "badge.bin" file
after the "@", enter "0x10000"
select the checkbox for the first row
power up the badge device
connect the device to the computer via USB
select the COM port
click Start
wait until "Finish" is displayed in the Download Panel 1

Links and References

Conversation about reliably driving WS2812B with ESP32 RMT with Bluetooth: https://www.reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/e7ixoh/adjust_ble_priority_or_synchronize_advertising/

https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=576

fweiss / badge

readme