The new team chose to remake the design, which they didn’t have to. The original design was available and almost done. Also, no pressure was put on them to stay with that design. Don’t blame the old badge team for the current situation. Both teams worked their asses off. Mistakes were made.
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.
This is a small personal instance of Bonfire in the Fediverse.