{"id":522190,"date":"2026-06-28T05:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T05:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522190\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T05:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T05:11:11","slug":"you-too-can-build-this-esp32-plane-tracker-to-keep-an-eye-on-the-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522190\/","title":{"rendered":"You, too, can build this ESP32 plane tracker to keep an eye on the skies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summary<\/p>\n

ESP32-S3 flight tracker displays near-real-time flights via OpenSky API and polls every 120s.<\/p>\n

Dual-screen (TFT+OLED) and joystick\/buttons give console-like controls for selecting planes.<\/p>\n

Originally part of a handheld console project; code and build instructions are on GitHub.<\/p>\n

If you’re into aviation and tinkering with devices, the past few weeks have been a goldmine for you. We previously saw a Raspberry Pi project that turned your ceiling into a sky tracker<\/a>, followed closely by a project that added the fame functionality to a tidy desk device<\/a>. Now, a few weeks later, we’ve seen a third aviation-based DIY project hit the market, and the funny part is, it didn’t begin its life as a flight tracker.<\/p>\n

The ESP32 Flight Tracker is a cool way to surveil the skies<\/p>\n

It wasn’t meant to be a flight tracker at first<\/p>\n

Over on the ESP32 subreddit<\/a>, GitHub user emir173 posted images of their ESP32 Flight Tracker. It’s a cool little device that shows all the flights happening around the world and lets you pick out specific airplanes to bring up their data. Here’s how emir173 describes it:<\/p>\n

A near real-time, live Flight Tracker built for the ESP32-S3. This project utilizes the OpenSky Network API to fetch live aircraft data (polling every 120 seconds) and renders them on a beautiful dual-screen setup (TFT + OLED) with a dual-core architecture.<\/p>\n

It was originally built as a module for a custom handheld game console, but has been extracted here as a standalone project for anyone to build and enjoy!<\/p>\n

Because the device was meant to become a handheld console, you get a nice joystick and buttons to control what’s happening on the screen. If you’ve ever played a videogame with a controller, you’ll likely be able to pick up the controls for the ESP32 Flight Tracker really easily.<\/p>\n

You can see all the details, check out the code, and follow the instructions to make your own over on the project’s GitHub page<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n \"gamecube-playable-keychain-featured\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tSomeone turned a GameCube keychain into an actual working controller with an RP2040
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

More controllers are in the works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary ESP32-S3 flight tracker displays near-real-time flights via OpenSky API and polls every 120s. Dual-screen (TFT+OLED) and joystick\/buttons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-522190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}