| title | Welcome to Badgeware! |
|---|---|
| summary | An introduction to Badgeware and the Badgeware SDK |
Badgeware is a MicroPython-powered platform for our family of programmable badges — Tufty, Badger, and Blinky. Write a short Python script, copy it to your badge over USB, and it runs. No toolchains, no compilers, no fuss.
Your badge comes preloaded with a set of apps, but the real fun starts when you write your own. Everything is built around a simple update() function that the badge calls once per frame — draw to the screen, read some buttons, and you've got an app. If you've ever written a few lines of Python, you already have everything you need to get started.
This site is your guide. You'll find step-by-step tutorials to get you up and running, feature guides that go deeper on topics like sprites, text, and vector shapes, and a full API reference for when you need the details. Whether you're building a name badge for a conference, a tiny game to pass the time, or a dashboard that pulls live data over WiFi — it all starts here.
Each badge runs the same API, so code you write for one model will mostly work on the others. The main differences are screen resolution, colour, and refresh behaviour — see Coding for the different badges for the full details.
A full-colour IPS LCD badge with a 320x240 display (or 160x120 in low-res mode for extra performance). Tufty is the most versatile of the three — its high refresh rate and RGB colour make it ideal for graphics-heavy apps, games, animations, and rich user interfaces. The screen redraws continuously, so your update() function runs as fast as your code allows. If you want smooth movement and vibrant visuals, Tufty is the one to reach for.
An e-paper badge with a 264x176 display in black, white, and two shades of grey. E-paper only draws power when the screen updates, so Badger is designed around that — it sleeps between updates and wakes on a button press or RTC alarm. This makes it perfect for things that don't need to change often: name badges, conference schedules, dashboards, to-do lists, and e-readers. A single charge can last up to 100 days in standby. The trade-off is speed — full screen refreshes take a moment, though a fast-update mode is available for more responsive interfaces.
A 39x26 LED matrix badge with 255 levels of brightness per pixel, making it essentially a greyscale display you can wear. Blinky is compact, eye-catching, and great for scrolling text, pixel art, simple animations, and notification displays. Like Tufty, it refreshes continuously so animations run smoothly. The matrix has cutouts for case corners and buttons — anything drawn into those pixels is automatically ignored, so you don't need to worry about them in your code.
Despite their different displays, all three badges share the same core hardware and software platform:
- Processor — RP2350 dual-core ARM Cortex-M33 @ 200MHz with hardware floating point
- Memory — 16MB flash for firmware, code, and assets plus 8MB PSRAM for runtime use
- Connectivity — 2.4GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 5 for downloading data, syncing, or communicating between badges
- Power — 1000mAh rechargeable battery with USB-C charging
- Expansion — Qw/ST port for connecting breakout accessories, SWD port for debugging
- Inputs — five front-facing buttons, plus RESET and BOOTSEL on the back
- Software — the same Badgeware MicroPython API, so code written for one badge runs on the others with minimal changes
- Disk Mode — double-tap RESET to mount the badge as a USB drive, drag your files on, eject, and go
Every app is built around a single update() function that the badge calls once per frame. Here's a quick example — a bouncing ball with a greeting, in about 20 lines:
x, y = 80, 60
dx, dy = 2, 1
def update():
global x, y, dx, dy
x, y = x + dx, y + dy
if x < 5 or x > screen.width - 5: dx = -dx
if y < 5 or y > screen.height - 5: dy = -dy
screen.pen = color.navy
screen.clear()
screen.pen = color.orange
screen.circle(x, y, 10)
screen.pen = color.white
screen.font = rom_font.smart
screen.text("Hello, Badgeware!", 24, 50)
run(update)That's a complete, runnable app — copy it onto your badge and it just works. Everything else is building on these ideas: drawing to the screen, reading buttons, and letting update() do its thing.
