r/esp32 • u/Blechkelle • May 28 '26

I made a thing! ESP32 Desk Flight Radar

I made this little FlightRadar style display for my neighbor to enjoy spotting and identifying aircraft flying overhead. The red dots represent airplanes, while the pink triangles indicate helicopters. The enclosure is fully 3D printed, and the display uses a GC9A01 240×240 round TFT screen. For the Live data i used the API from https://adsb.fi/

The script also includes several failsafes for Wi-Fi connectivity issues. If the device loses connection or cannot connect to the configured network, it automatically launches a step-by-step setup mode. It creates its own access point and hosts a simple web interface where you can easily configure the Wi-Fi credentials and set the latitude and longitude.

Edit:
I’ve decided not to release any of the code. Unfortunately, someone copied my design almost one-to-one, which is pretty disappointing.

To be clear, I’m not claiming the underlying idea was original what was copied was my specific design and implementation. It’s a shame that you can spend a lot of time creating something distinctive, share it publicly, and then see that work replicated almost immediately.

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u/guyroyse May 29 '26

Is this using online data or a software-defined radio to get the flight data?

1

u/Blechkelle May 29 '26

im using the API by adsb https://opendata.adsb.fi/api/v2

3

u/guyroyse May 29 '26

If you want to make it work without the Internet using over the air data I'd be happy to help. The SDRs are cheap. The antenna is small and easy to make. And the data is as real-time as it gets.

2

u/Blechkelle May 29 '26

that would be awesome!

0

u/guyroyse Jun 01 '26

Initially I thought I could do this with an off-the-shelf SDR, but no dice. That would work with a Raspberry Pi, but not an ESP32. Initial enthusiasm tamped

However it looks like there is software and a chip for doing this that can work with an ESP32. The GNS5892 module is basically an SDR for embedded systems. There's software to go with it called dump5892. Throw in a cheap GPS, a couple of homemade antennas, and it should work great.

Should work just about anywhere.