Troll Your Neighbors with This Espressif ESP8266/ESP32-Based Wi-Fi Rickroll Beacon
By updating its SSID every 20 seconds, this neat firmware will treat those nearby to a textual rendition of Rick Astley's classic hit.
Pseudonymous microcontroller enthusiast and wit "NoMoreImFull," hereafter simply "Full," has drafted an Espressif ESP8266 and its on-board Wi-Fi radio in to play a little prank on the neighbors — with a station name Rickroll.
"Tonight my boredom has brought me to making a dynamic Wi-Fi beacon that updates the SSID (name) with the lyrics to 'Never Gonna Give You Up,'" Full explains of his simple yet devious device design. "The average scan interval for devices is ~20 seconds. I wrote this for an ESP8266/ESP32."
Rickrolling, for those who have somehow yet to experience the joke, is the act of fooling a fellow internet user into visiting the music video for Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, as released on his 1987 debut album Whenever You Need Somebody. Spin-off Rickrolls include building devices which play the audio or sneaking the lyrics into seemingly-innocuous places — in this case, your Wi-Fi network list.
Full's code launches an Espressif ESP8266 or ESP32 microcontroller into wireless access point (WAP) mode, advertising its presence by broadcasting the Service Set Identifier (SSID). The twist: the SSID is updated every 20 seconds to a new line from Astley's song, meaning that if you leave your device's network selection menu open long enough you'll see the full lyrics — whether you wanted to or not.
For anyone who fancies trying the gag out for themselves, Full has published the source code to Reddit — and, we promise, that link is not a Rickroll.