Overall, I think this is an OK looking Star Trek Comm Badge. I do honestly think it looks like the badges in "The Next Generation", but that's where I think my positive review ends, I am very sorry to say.
I plugged it in to charge it, and it charges fast! Unfortunately, after the indicator turned blue to indicate it was charged, connecting to a bluetooth device showed it was at 90%. After only 2 minutes of testing it out, this was down to 70%. So, if that curve is an accurate linear representation of the battery drain rate, that's 10 minutes of battery with frequent use.
It connected ok to both a Linux PC and to an AOSP device (though Google is killing Android come Sept 2026, see: keepandroidopen DOT org).
However the button is the biggest problem with this commbadge. There seems to be no haptic feel to the pressing of the button, so pressing it once I could not tell if the press registered or not. Same thing with tapping it twice or holding it pressed for 3 seconds, I could not tell if I was actually getting the button to be recognized by the chip inside. The spring mechanism that should keep the press-able button cap in the open position until pressing it does not keep the cap still, so it rattles with the slightest movement. The button press mechanism is a plastic knob sticking out from the internal mounting space, and is no more than maybe 1 mm in diameter, probably less.
The next worst part is the magnet base that you wear inside the shirt to clip to the badge and hold it in place on the shirt. From the pictures I saw I thought there would be two very strong neodymium magnets on both the plate and the badge, to help with keeping it oriented correctly. Instead, there is only a single neodymium magnet on the base and I'm not sure if there is one in the badge itself. The magnet on the base appeared to have fallen off the base at one point, as there was some paint missing in a circle around the magnet, and this appeared to have then been glued back in place. The base is also plastic, so the glued in place magnet may easily come loose from the glue if not extremely careful.
Finally the audio quality from the built in speaker to me did not seem all that bad, but I would not consider it something to make phone calls with or to listen to music with. It worked well enough with my custom open source offline assistant bot and the TTS and STT, but it did not always understand me well enough to call the correct commands.
The chirp was actually not bad, but I do think it could be louder, and would benefit from being able to adjust its chirp volume, as well as the types of Star Trek chirp sounds and other LCARS sounds that a badge from the show might make.
I could not get the "cosplay" mode to work, which is just supposed to chirp when pressing the button and nothing else. It would try to play or stop music, or hangup phone calls or start them.
I consider this more a toy than an electronic device. Maybe I'll make my own...?
