Common problems

Detecting hexpansions

Normally, hexpansions are detected immediately on being plugged in, indicated by a light illuminating them. Sometimes they may not be detected automatically. Rebooting the badge can help with this, but there is an additional method on firmware v1.6.0 and above.

If you press and hold the boop button, then press the edge button to the left of the hexpansion port you've inserted something in to, it will force a detection.

For example, if you plug a hexpansion into the port on the right-hand side of the badge and it doesn't detect, you can press boop and button B at the same time to trigger detection. Once you've finished with this hexpansion, pressing boop again will trigger a removal.

Unable to update

If your badge fails the update, try moving to a spot with better WiFi. If the updates continues to fail, you may have to follow the steps to flash your badge.

Update says "No update needed" despite a newer version being available

The badge may incorrectly report "No update needed" even when a newer version is available, for example, showing Current: v1.4.0 / New: v1.12.3. This is caused by a version string comparison bug where versions like 1.4.0 are sorted as greater than 1.12.0 alphabetically.

In this case, you must flash the badge manually using the web flasher to install the latest firmware.

Broken components

See Replacing badge components.

Turn off badge with broken screen

Option 1: Buttons only

1. Restart the badge by pressing the Reboop button until the light pattern restarts.
2. Press D (down) three times.
3. Press C (confirm) twice.

Option 2: mpremote

Install mpremote and follow the steps in Debug your app on your badge to get a shell on your badge and then run the following commands:

import power

power.Off()

import machine
import bq25895

bq25895.bq25895(machine.I2C(7)).disconnect_battery()

After running the command, disconnect your badge from the USB cable and your badge will be turned off.

I entered my name wrong

If you want to retain your data, you can install mpremote and follow the steps in Debug your app on your badge to get a shell on your badge and then change the setting by running the following commands, replacing YourNewName with your name:

import settings
settings.set("name", "YourNewName")
settings.save()

If you don't have any important data on your badge you can flash your badge which will erase all your data.