How I over-engineered Halloween with two hacked Furbies

A new post from ben.balter.com · Read it on the web →“Happy Halloween! Take one!” chirped the blue Furby by my front door. Then the pink one, eyes glowing red, answered: “Take two… if you DARE.” One Furby wants you to follow the rules. The other wants all of your candy. They bickered all night. The opening exchange in the browser simulator that rehearses the show. It's muted because the voices are cloned from Hasbro's recordings, so captions stand in for them. Over-engineering things is a pattern for me: see my home network (twice) and my book. A normal person buys the 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot. I spent two weeks teaching a pair of 2016 toys to do a comedy routine over BLE. Furbies were creepy before I touched them Furbies already have a reputation as the creepiest toy of the ’90s. The Furby Connect is the 2016 version, with LCD screens for eyes, a light-up antenna, and an app.1 That app talks to the Furby over Bluetooth, which means anything that speaks Bluetooth can talk to…

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