Summary
i-Buddy USB accessory from the MSN era revived in 2026 — still works and charms.
Needed Windows Live Messenger 2009 + Escargot server to make it connect.
Forum fixes and Windows 7 tweaks got it flapping and lighting up again.
If you were on the internet a lot at the turn of the century, you likely used MSN Messenger to chat with your friends. If you’re a bit too young for it, MSN Messenger was an old messaging service that was pretty bare-bones compared to something like Discord, but at the time, it was a staple app that kept people connected.
As much as I was a huge fan of MSN Messenger, I didn’t know that there was an unofficial accessory for the app that plugged into your USB port. It’s a little model of the MSN logo that does different things to warn you about what’s going on with your friends, and someone managed to bring one into 2026.
Someone brought an MSN Messenger USB accessory to life in 2026
It was quite a struggle
As spotted by Hackaday, YouTuber Rayly Retro managed to purchase an i-Buddy at a dollar shop. Shockingly, the product was still brand new, which is pretty impressive given that it was released in 2008. Weirdly enough, despite looking like an official product, the i-Buddy did not have MSN’s official blessing; it was instead an invention of Union Creations Limited.
The i-Buddy was a cool little device that kept you informed about what was going on with your friends. Its belly glows when a favored friend comes online, its head changes color depending on actions such as an incoming nudge, and it flails to get your attention when you receive a new message.
In the video, Rayly Retro managed to breathe life into this decades-old device. It took a lot of work, given that the software didn’t work well on Windows 7 and required a fix shared in a 2024 forum post to get it working. Yes, it seems there are more people out there working to keep i-Buddy alive and kicking in the modern era.
However, the i-Buddy wouldn’t run on any messenger service. Rayly Retro had to download Windows Live Messenger 2009 and run a server using Escargot so it would have something to connect to. And once all the pieces had fallen into place, the i-Buddy was flapping and lighting up like it was the late 00s. Better late than never.
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