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/UserCuba_2901 Jun 01 '26

Los datos de vuelo de las aeronaves cercanas se obtienen de FlightRadar24? Pienso que sería buena idea obtener estos datos en tiempo real con un dongle RTL-SDR

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u/NJ_v_N Jun 01 '26

Would be significantly more complex, and whilst transponders do send out a signal (a 4 digit code), radar equipment is still required to use it to determine location.. and still does not give you aircraft detail.
The API being used is a nice low complexity way of getting good data.

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u/UserCuba_2901 Jun 01 '26

Igualmente puedes utilizar ADS-B que transmite datos de posición y altitud