Talkboy-Inspired Breathalyzer Badge Measures DEF CON Inebriation
DEF CON 2022 kicks off on Thursday, August 11th in Las Vegas and this is the perfect badge SAO for the occasion.
In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Macaulay Culkin’s character Kevin uses a Talkboy voice recorder to alter his voice, convincing a hotel’s reservation line that he was his father in order to book a room. But the Talkboy wasn’t a real consumer device at the time; it was a prop made for the film. However, demand was so high after the film’s release that Tiger Electronics ended up creating a production Talkboy to sell in toy stores. Since then, the Talkboy has remained one of the most iconic movie props of all time. Now DEF CON attendees can relive that nostalgia with this Talkboy-inspired breathalyzer badge that measures inebriation and more.
DEF CON 2022 kicks off on Thursday, August 11th in Las Vegas. As in previous years, the convention will host many different hacking events. And as is tradition, attendees will create and wear all kinds of custom badges. Over the years, badge-making has become a hobby of its own — I even made one, even though I’ve never been to DEF CON. This “Boozeboard” badge built by MakeItHackin is available for purchase now and buyers can pick up their badges in person at DEF CON. It will include three basic functions: the breathalyzer, a simple video game, and a blinky LED mode for strutting around the conference.
While MakeItHackin stresses that you shouldn’t use this badge for anything serious, it does contain a real MQ303A alcohol sensor. Users blow across that sensor through a 3D-printed mouth piece meant to resemble the microphone on the Talkboy device. We shouldn’t need to say this, but you probably don’t want to let anyone else put their mouth on your badge if you want to avoid COVID — though mouth covers are provided. The badge also contains a small OLED screen, a few buttons, and two programmable RGB LEDs.
This badge is an SAO (Sh*tty Add-On) and is meant to be mounted to another badge that contains a battery. Boozeboard will only be available at DEF CON for now, but any excess inventory will be sold through Tindie after the event.