←back to thread

Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 3 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.562s | source

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
Show context
billylo ◴[29 Apr 23 01:01 UTC] No.35748960[source]▶
I live on the flight path of a busy airport (Toronto) and have always wondered what type of aircrafts they are as they fly above me.

So, I made a "Plane Above Me" app that listens to airplane sound. Once detected, it polls data from flight APIs and read out the flight info and aircraft data.

In other words, it's my little "Flight Announcer".

https://evergreen-labs.com/PlaneAboveMe.html

replies(5): >>35752384 #>>35756273 #>>35757338 #>>35762560 #>>35800020 #
ydant ◴[29 Apr 23 12:46 UTC] No.35752384[source]▶
I bookmark this page and load it whenever something starts circling/passing overhead:

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?SiteLat=##.####&SiteLon=##.#...

Regular plane noise is a regular thing where I live - I'm right under one of the regular flight-paths for a nearby very busy airport and very close to another busy airport.

One idea I've had for a while is to take my eInk raspberry-pi accessory and poll this data and have a constantly updating "what's overhead" display.

replies(1): >>35752977 #
billylo ◴[29 Apr 23 14:06 UTC] No.35752977[source]▶
Nice... That would be a great conversation starter at home... feel free to reach out if you put the idea in motion!
replies(1): >>35757589 #
1. ydant ◴[29 Apr 23 21:50 UTC] No.35757589[source]▶
This thread inspired me to pull out the display and finally tinker with it - and then I realized how expensive the APIs are for this data - especially if trying to do a "constant updating" style approach like you'd want for this idea.

It makes sense you listen for the sound of a plane / wait for a button press before making the call!

Seems like this would be best done with a receiver and monitoring that directly and/or exchanging the radio logging for API access.

replies(2): >>35758085 #>>35758861 #
2. billylo ◴[29 Apr 23 22:55 UTC] No.35758085[source]▶
Sounds do-able. Radio available on the web too. https://www.liveatc.net/
3. eiiot ◴[30 Apr 23 01:17 UTC] No.35758861[source]▶
Another cool way to do this would be an ADS-B receiver on your roof. They're about $30-40, and when paired with a Raspberry Pi, a waterproof box, and free software[0] they work really well. Plus, you get a free subscription to a lot of flight tracking services like FR24.

[0]: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/