ROOTCON 20 · Philippines · 2026
ESP32-S3 Meshtastic LoRa badge with Type-B fallback
The ROOTCON 20 con-goers guide documented a September 2026 badge distribution model: electronic badges distributed first-come during on-site check-in while supplies last, with a simpler Type-B non-electronic badge fallback. After the September 23-25 event, ROOTCON's official media server published a post-event ROOTCON 20 drop on September 28, 2026, including rc20-human-fw.bin, a compiled ESP32-S3 firmware image that identifies itself as the ROOTCON 20 Badge and runs a Meshtastic LoRa mesh stack on an SX1262 radio with an SSD1315 OLED, four WS2812B LEDs, and Tetris and Breakout games.
People
The official ROOTCON XX Homecoming Edition magazine names Mr. Blinky Bling as the hands behind the ROOTCON 20 badge, bringing #badgelife hardware experience to the twentieth anniversary. Individual design, firmware, and manufacturing roles are not broken down.
SourceOfficial publisher of the ROOTCON 20 homepage, con-goers guide, FAQ, Black Badge policy, and the September 28, 2026 media drop containing the rc20-human-fw.bin badge firmware.
SourceIt turns ROOTCON's twentieth-anniversary badge from a distribution policy into an organizer-published firmware artifact, placing the Philippine lineage alongside other LoRa mesh conference badges while keeping first-come scarcity and the Type-B fallback explicit.
The official firmware image carries an ESP32-S3 chip identifier and a boot banner listing an SX1262 LoRa radio, an SSD1315 128x64 display, and four WS2812B LEDs on GPIO37, with a ROOTCON 20 region lock forcing the PH_433 band. No schematic, PCB, BOM, production count, or board photo has been published, so the hardware description stays at the level the firmware strings declare. ROOTCON's guide still distinguishes these electronic badges from simpler Type-B non-electronic fallback badges.
rc20-human-fw.bin is a 1.5 MiB ESP-IDF 5.5.5 application image built on September 6, 2026 from a PlatformIO environment named rc20-human-fw. Its strings show a Meshtastic-derived mesh stack with a ROOTCON 20 region lock, beacon and hop-scaling logic, NimBLE Bluetooth, libpax Wi-Fi and BLE device counting, Tetris and Breakout with saved high scores, and a hidden test menu. Only the binary was published; no source code, licence, flashing guide, or release notes accompany it.
The 2026 guide repeated ROOTCON's scarcity-managed badge culture: attendees who want the electronic badge need to check in early, while black badge and electi badge traditions remain part of the broader ROOTCON badge hierarchy. The ROOTCON XX Homecoming Edition magazine, released in the same September 28 media drop, credits Mr. Blinky Bling as the hands behind the ROOTCON 20 badge. The firmware file name ties the build to the Human tier; production volume, per-tier variants, and how many attendees received the electronic badge rather than the Type-B fallback are not published.
Lifecycle
The firmware includes Tetris and Breakout with high scores saved to /prefs/tetris.dat and /prefs/breakout.dat, a GAME OVER screen, and a games-reset option.
SourceROOTCON's FAQ and Black Badge policy define electronic, non-electronic, black, and electi badge categories used to frame the RC20 badge record without inventing unpublished hardware details.
SourceThe RC20 con-goers guide says electronic badges will be first-come at on-site check-in while supplies last and that a Type-B non-electronic badge will be provided as the fallback.
SourceThe official firmware carries a Meshtastic-derived mesh stack on an SX1262 radio, with node database, beacon, and hop-scaling logic and a ROOTCON 20 region lock that forces the PH_433 band.
SourceOperational history
The record does not imply every attendee received the electronic version.
Hardware and feature claims are limited to what the ESP32-S3 image header and embedded strings declare, and the record does not describe the board layout or unpublished variants.
The entry stays image-free rather than publishing lanyard art, social-media photos, generated art, placeholders, or unlicensed images.