How to Build a Wearable Simon Game: The Full ESP32 + Conductive Fabric Tutorial
Simon was one of those childhood games that taught you pattern memory without you ever feeling like you were being taught anything — four colored buttons, a sequence that gets longer every round, and that little jolt of panic when you almost remember what came after green. I've wanted to build a wearable version for ages, and this fall I finally did. It works, it's genuinely fun to play, and I filmed the whole build so you can make your own.
Watch the full build here: I Built a Wearable Simon Game (It Actually Works). Below is the rundown of how it goes together, plus the parts list if you want to follow along or skip straight to building.
The concept
Four touch zones, four colors, one ESP32 running the game logic. Each zone is a patch of conductive fabric wired to a touch-capable GPIO pin, and each has its own WS2812B addressable LED sitting behind it for feedback — the classic Simon "light up and beep" pattern, just soft and sewn instead of molded plastic.
What you'll need
The short version: an ESP32 dev board, a handful of WS2812B addressable LEDs, conductive fabric for the four touch pads, conductive thread or fine silicone wire to connect everything, a base fabric to sew it all onto, and a soldering iron for the LED connections. If you want the exact list — down to the specific gauge of thread I used — I put every part of this build into one bundle: the Wearable Simon Game Video Kit. It's genuinely everything from the video, in one box, so you're not hunting down four different suppliers for four small quantities of stuff. Stock on this one is limited, so if you want to build along, don't wait too long to order.
The build, step by step
1. Plan your layout first. Before any fabric gets cut, sketch where your four pads and four LEDs will sit relative to each other and to your ESP32. On a wearable, wire runs are your biggest source of headaches later, so shorter and simpler beats clever every time.
2. Cut and place the conductive fabric pads. Each touch zone is a patch of conductive fabric — I used our own stock for this, cut into rounded squares roughly two centimetres across. Tack each one down with a few stitches, leaving a small gap to feed a connection through.
3. Wire the LEDs. WS2812B modules are individually addressable, which means one data line daisy-chains all four — solder them in sequence, keep your data wire, power, and ground consistent, and test each LED before you sew anything permanently in place. It is much easier to fix a bad solder joint before it's buried under fabric.
4. Connect touch pads to the ESP32. Run conductive thread or fine silicone wire from each fabric pad back to a touch-capable GPIO pin. This is the step where patience pays off — a loose connection here reads as a phantom touch or a dead zone, and you won't know which until you test.
5. Write the game logic. In PlatformIO, the code is really two systems talking to each other: a state machine that tracks whose turn it is (device playback vs. player input) and a rolling sequence array that grows by one color each round. Read each pad with touchRead(), debounce it the same way you would a physical button, and light the matching LED whenever a touch registers.
6. Test the whole loop. Play it yourself, badly, on purpose — hold a touch too long, touch two pads at once, walk around while wearing it. Wearable input is noisier than a breadboard button, and you'll want to tune your touch threshold once it's actually on a body instead of sitting on your desk.
Where people usually get stuck
Two spots trip up almost everyone the first time: touch thresholds that are calibrated on the bench and then read false positives once the fabric is worn (skin moisture changes the reading — recalibrate on-body, not on-desk), and LED order mismatches when the physical daisy-chain doesn't match the order you assumed in code. Both are quick fixes once you know to look for them.
If you build one, I'd love to see it — tag me or drop a comment on the video. And if you're still deciding whether to gather the parts yourself or just grab the kit, remember it's a limited batch, so it won't be sitting there forever.
Get the Wearable Simon Game Video Kit · Watch the full build