An LED panel that shows the aviation around you (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

98 pointsyzydserd3mo ago24 comments

24 comments

If you like this, you’d probably really enjoy the hobby of ADS-B tracking. If you have a spare Pi sitting around, you can get an SDR and decent starter antenna for under $100. It’s also a fun entry point into other radio and satellite stuff. Airplanes.live is a good place to start.

filtinious3mo ago

I'm often awoken by aviation flying over South East London at 6AM in the morning. This might be a good thing to look at during those times...

(I wear earplugs and have double glazing, but the noise is deep and penetrating. I wonder how many other hundreds of thousands of people are also disturbed by early morning planes...)

sokoloff3mo ago

For this situation, it’s not clear that a live display is more helpful than a replay of ADS-B data that you could explore later.

Something like: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2025-12-01-16:38&lat=...

filtinious3mo ago

Thanks, that is helpful. I can see from it there's lots of plane traffic flying just south of the river, from East to West, into Heathrow airport, from 5am onwards.

esseph3mo ago

For much of a year I slept at the end of a runway in a combat zone in Iraq and used to hear all the jets take off with full afterburner.

I got to the point I just slept through it.

danudey3mo ago

When I was visiting Jerusalem in 2001 I got used to the sound of what was apparently helicopter gunships firing on... I dunno, something, off in the distance.

Definitely not the same as sleeping under an F16 or whatever, but it's amazing what we can get used to.

1 more reply

thenthenthen3mo ago

Reminds me of the beautiful work by Quadrature, Satelliten, plotting overhead satellites on a physical map: https://2016.kikk.be/en/program/exhibition/quadrature

dangus3mo ago

Really cool project, though I’d recommend going with 3 or 4 64x64 LED matrix panels instead of 20 16x16 panels since it’s a lot less work with assembly and wiring and the end result is the same.

There are also pre-built LED matrix controller boards including an existing drawing library like the Interstate75 which I can recommend.

https://github.com/pimoroni/interstate75

cmiles83mo ago

Nice job on this. I love a good builder project and the ESP32 is a great platform for these.

CPLX3mo ago

I wonder how hard it would be to combine this with a camera and some kind of image processing to actually create a live view video of the adjacent window with the planes annotated. That would be like the world’s coolest screen saver.

cdfuller3mo ago

I've seen this done a few different times. FlightRadar24 has a 24/7 livestream in Las Vegas that tracks and annotates them.

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/inside-flightradar24/live...

RankingMember3mo ago

Fun project! I've been slowly working at something similar that pulls tail numbers of overflying planes, grabs an image of the actual plane from jetphotos, and displays it along with flight info on a little LED screen.

donclark3mo ago

Very cool project. I would like a text message or a log that I could go to with timestamps and aircraft details along with the date. Is there such a service or app?

RankingMember3mo ago

Are you looking for a log of planes that have overflown your location or something else? You can see historical info via the history function on https://globe.airplanes.live/

donclark3mo ago

That is a great live service. Thank you for sharing. We live near an airport/military and often hear loud or low flying aircraft and wonder exactly what it was. My question is if there is a log for my area that I could search by approximate date/time to try to identify the aircraft.

2 more replies

kimos3mo ago

Love this. It gives me a great idea for what to do with my Tidbyt.

https://tidbyt.com/

cptnapalm3mo ago

There's a flight path directly over my house. I'm going to see if my wife would be on board for this.

dddw3mo ago

Ask nicely, but decidedly

floydian103mo ago

Awesome! I was planning to do something very similar to this. This is really useful

vs4vijay3mo ago

I vibe coded something similar as PWA WebApp - https://huggingface.co/spaces/vs4vijay/skywatch

SkyPuncher3mo ago

Holy crap! I’ve been considering nearly the exact same project.

We live under the flight path for the local airport. I’ve wanted to build exactly this. Like, literally exactly this. This is just way more polished than I could have built.

Future product would be cool to stick this behind a mirror to make it a bit more interior decor approved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

24 comments

nocoiner3mo ago

filtinious3mo ago

I'm often awoken by aviation flying over South East London at 6AM in the morning. This might be a good thing to look at during those times...

(I wear earplugs and have double glazing, but the noise is deep and penetrating. I wonder how many other hundreds of thousands of people are also disturbed by early morning planes...)

sokoloff3mo ago

For this situation, it’s not clear that a live display is more helpful than a replay of ADS-B data that you could explore later.

Something like: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2025-12-01-16:38&lat=...

filtinious3mo ago

Thanks, that is helpful. I can see from it there's lots of plane traffic flying just south of the river, from East to West, into Heathrow airport, from 5am onwards.

esseph3mo ago

For much of a year I slept at the end of a runway in a combat zone in Iraq and used to hear all the jets take off with full afterburner.

I got to the point I just slept through it.

danudey3mo ago

When I was visiting Jerusalem in 2001 I got used to the sound of what was apparently helicopter gunships firing on... I dunno, something, off in the distance.

Definitely not the same as sleeping under an F16 or whatever, but it's amazing what we can get used to.

1 more reply

thenthenthen3mo ago

Reminds me of the beautiful work by Quadrature, Satelliten, plotting overhead satellites on a physical map: https://2016.kikk.be/en/program/exhibition/quadrature

dangus3mo ago

Really cool project, though I’d recommend going with 3 or 4 64x64 LED matrix panels instead of 20 16x16 panels since it’s a lot less work with assembly and wiring and the end result is the same.

There are also pre-built LED matrix controller boards including an existing drawing library like the Interstate75 which I can recommend.

https://github.com/pimoroni/interstate75

cmiles83mo ago

Nice job on this. I love a good builder project and the ESP32 is a great platform for these.

CPLX3mo ago

cdfuller3mo ago

I've seen this done a few different times. FlightRadar24 has a 24/7 livestream in Las Vegas that tracks and annotates them.

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/inside-flightradar24/live...

RankingMember3mo ago

donclark3mo ago

Very cool project. I would like a text message or a log that I could go to with timestamps and aircraft details along with the date. Is there such a service or app?

RankingMember3mo ago

Are you looking for a log of planes that have overflown your location or something else? You can see historical info via the history function on https://globe.airplanes.live/

donclark3mo ago

2 more replies

kimos3mo ago

Love this. It gives me a great idea for what to do with my Tidbyt.

https://tidbyt.com/

cptnapalm3mo ago

There's a flight path directly over my house. I'm going to see if my wife would be on board for this.

dddw3mo ago

Ask nicely, but decidedly

floydian103mo ago

Awesome! I was planning to do something very similar to this. This is really useful

vs4vijay3mo ago

I vibe coded something similar as PWA WebApp - https://huggingface.co/spaces/vs4vijay/skywatch

SkyPuncher3mo ago

Holy crap! I’ve been considering nearly the exact same project.

We live under the flight path for the local airport. I’ve wanted to build exactly this. Like, literally exactly this. This is just way more polished than I could have built.

Future product would be cool to stick this behind a mirror to make it a bit more interior decor approved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse