Getting Started¶

What you need¶

An M5Stack M5Dial (ESP32-S3)
A USB-C cable
A computer running Chrome or Edge (for flashing from the browser — see below), or PlatformIO if you'd rather build from source
A 2.4 GHz WiFi network (the M5Dial's ESP32-S3 radio does not support 5 GHz)
A phone or laptop to complete the on-device setup wizard

1. Flash the firmware¶

Easiest: flash from your browser — no installs, no cloning the repo. Plug the M5Dial in over USB, open Flash Firmware in Chrome or Edge, click Connect, pick the M5Dial from the list, then Install. Takes under a minute; the device reboots on its own when done.

Building from source instead? Clone the repository and build/upload with PlatformIO:

git clone https://github.com/pharcyd3/flight-radar.git
cd flight-radar
pio run -t upload

PlatformIO will download the ESP32 toolchain and libraries on the first run, which can take a few minutes. Once flashed, the device reboots automatically.

If pio can't find the device, check the upload port explicitly:

pio run -t upload --upload-port /dev/cu.usbmodem101   # macOS example

2. First boot — WiFi & location setup¶

On its very first boot (or after a factory reset), Frank's Flight Radar has no saved WiFi credentials, so it starts its own setup access point and shows:

SETUP MODE
Connect your phone to:
Franks-Flight-Radar-Setup
then open:
192.168.4.1

On your phone or laptop, join the Franks-Flight-Radar-Setup WiFi network.
Open 192.168.4.1 in a browser — this is WiFiManager's captive portal.
Choose Configure WiFi, select your home network, and enter its password.
On the same form, you'll also see:
- Home location — the centre point of your radar. You have three options, easiest first:
  - Leave everything blank to have the device auto-detect your approximate location from your network once it's online (city-level; a VPN will throw it off).
  - Type a place name in the Place name field (e.g. Berlin, Paris, France) — it's geocoded to coordinates after the device reconnects. A place name always wins over the coordinate fields.
  - Enter Home latitude / Home longitude directly in decimal degrees (e.g. 51.5007, -0.1246) for a precise fix. See Setting Your Location for how to read these off Google Maps, and every other way to set or change your location later.
Save. The device connects to your WiFi, resolves your location, and reboots into the radar view.

If the portal times out (5 minutes) without a successful connection, the device restarts and re-opens the portal automatically.

3. You should now see the radar¶

Once connected, Frank's Flight Radar starts polling airplanes.live straight away — no account or API key needed, so live traffic should appear within a few seconds. By default it draws on the offline lo-fi vector map (instant, no network fetch); switch to the real street map any time under Settings → Map (which does fetch OpenStreetMap tiles the first time you view a new area — a brief "loading map..." message appears while it does).

Resetting later¶

Change location/favourites: browse to http://flightradar.local from any device on the same network — the page is always available and nothing on the radar is interrupted. Settings → Web Config on the device just shows you that address.
Change WiFi network: same page, Configure WiFi. If the device can't reach your network at all, Settings → Web Config falls back to the Franks-Flight-Radar-Setup captive portal.
Full factory reset: hold the encoder button down for 3 seconds. This wipes WiFi credentials, home location, and saved favourites, then reboots into first-boot setup. The same reset is also available as a menu item under Settings → Factory Reset (hold-to-confirm, so it can't be triggered by accident).