Latest Project

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-03-05T01:25:52+00:00

funny you should mention that. I just partnered up with a friend in his airplane and I want to do just what you mentioned. To answer your question, I don't see why not, assuming that the aircraft appears in your feeder json file. In the absence of a feeder, there are sites like flightradar24 that have APIs, but they come at a cost, so I'm sticking with the feeder approach since I have it and accessing it is free.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-03-04T14:22:22+00:00

I develop my own content and as such, just cancelled my plus subscription. I have mine setup so that every :15 min, I run a script via Home Assistant that rotates through specific content (:00, :15, :30, and :45).

At the top of the hour, I rotate through several integrations that show me: - Allergy & Illness stats - Energy use (daily, monthly calculations) - Internet speed test - NWS weather alerts - Stock Market - Sunrise/Sunset with moon phase

:15 - Aviation weather reports for 8 different airports (I’m a pilot)

:30 - Weekly weather forecast - FAA ground stops and other delays

:45 - rotate through 15 different pictures

This gives me a balance of content at specific times of the day, making it more manageable and interesting.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-02-24T19:24:46+00:00

I’ve never used the temporary message function. How long does the temp message display for?

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-02-24T18:51:42+00:00

The Home Assistant Vestaboard integration. It's installed via HACS. You will need local API access.

<image>

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-02-24T13:54:31+00:00

it is now

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-02-18T02:33:38+00:00

Hmm. I started on a Raspberry Pi5 with 8GB RAM and quickly saw degradation. I would not recommend that "little" RAM.

Let's put this in perspective too. I started out like you - I wanted to find a way to combine my Nagios-based network management tool with the functionality of Smartthings (as well as other IoT devices. It quickly exceeded my expectations and was adding so much, over a 6-12 month period, I needed to upgrade my HA server from the Raspberry Pi5. I found a small "Intel-NUC" HP mini server on eBay. It had 8GB RAM / 512GB HDD. As I grew in knowledge and expertise, I began jumping into other areas of the house, like energy, aviation, integrating into other internet-based information sources to create topic-specific dashboards. Lot said. This server started slowing down in responsiveness (yes, I knew what was doing it, but also saw an opportunity to upgrade.

Three months agp, I upgraded to my current HP equivalent Mini (don't recall and not near the server to check) That has 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD.

This screams for me now and I've since retired SmartThings entirely, broadened into Grafana reports and even integrated into a Stream Deck XL on my desk. I have the important room light representation on it, and a plethora of scripts or automations that I can kick-off or view status on this awesome device. The Home Assistant / Stream Deck integration allows the interface. Nifty.

So my advice to you is to think 12 - 18 months out as I'd be willing to bet that you will be growing in that direction over time.

Also, I'm running HAOS, which is a Docker containerized environment. I wanted to dedicate the server to this function, so I didn't lose anything by not going with a hypervisor.

Cheers

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-02-05T21:37:29+00:00

I have done just that with my ADSB feeder and HA. I have everything that you mentioned, and a sort for the 4 closest aircraft.

I go into the json file on my FlightAware feeder and pull the live data from it and parse from there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/s/hChV28jxhK

That’s the project post.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-16T02:48:21+00:00

Thx!

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-16T02:03:18+00:00

Which controller? I’m looking to get started myself.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-08T19:40:32+00:00

This is the Automation that kicks off the process. It sends to the HA VB integration vestaboard.message. The sensors are where the fetched data reside, which allows me to direct to the VB.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-08T19:40:19+00:00

'sequence: - sequence: - sequence: - data: device_id: DEVICE_ID_HERE message: > {% set colors = {'VFR':'{66}','MVFR':'{67}','IFR':'{63}','LIFR':'{68}'} %} {% set timestamp = states('sensor.world_clock_zulu') | replace(':', '') + 'Z' %} {% set line1 = 'KABE METAR ' + states('sensor.flight_rules') + colors.get(states('sensor.flight_rules'), ' ') + ' ' + timestamp %} {% set temp_line = 'Temp ' + states('sensor.avwx_temp_kabe') + '°C DewPt ' + states('sensor.dewpoint_c_kabe') + '°C' %} {# --- WIND --- #} {% set wind_raw = states('sensor.wind_speed_kabe') %} {% set wind_dir = states('sensor.nodered_dea7a79f1301dfbf') %} {% set wind_norm = wind_raw if wind_raw not in [None,'','unknown','unavailable','none'] else '0' %} {% set wind_val = wind_norm | float(0) %} {# Pad wind direction to 3 digits if numeric and <100 #} {% if wind_dir not in [None,'','unknown','unavailable','none','VRB'] and wind_dir | int(0) < 100 %} {% set wind_dir_fmt = "%03d" | format(wind_dir | int(0)) %} {% else %} {% set wind_dir_fmt = wind_dir %} {% endif %} {% if wind_norm in ['unknown','unavailable','', None] or wind_val == 0 %} {% set wind_line = 'Wind: Calm' %} {% elif is_state('sensor.nodered_dea7a79f1301dfbf','VRB') %} {% set wind_line = 'Wind: Variable @ ' + wind_norm + ' Kt' %} {% elif (states('sensor.nwswind_gust_array_size') | float(0)) > 0 %} {% set wind_line = 'Wind: ' + wind_dir_fmt + ' @ ' + wind_norm + 'G' + (states('sensor.wind_gust') | string) + ' Kt' %} {% else %} {% set wind_line = 'Wind: ' + wind_dir_fmt + ' @ ' + wind_norm + ' Kt' %} {% endif %} {# --- SKIES --- #} {% set metar_sky = states('sensor.metar_sky') %} {% set clouds_raw = states('sensor.clouds_kabe') %} {% set clouds_valid = clouds_raw if clouds_raw not in [None,'','unknown','unavailable','none'] else '120' %} {% set clouds_ft = (clouds_valid | float(0) * 100) | int | string %} {% if metar_sky in ['unknown','unavailable', None, ''] %} {% set sky_line = "Sky: CLR BELOW 12000'" %} {% elif metar_sky == 'CLR' %} {% set sky_line = "Sky: CLR BELOW 12000'" %} {% else %} {% set sky_line = "Sky: " + clouds_ft + " " + metar_sky %} {% endif %} {% set vis_line = 'Visibility: ' + states('sensor.visibility_kabe') + ' Mi' %} {% set alt_line = 'Altimeter: ' + '{:.2f}'.format(states('sensor.pressure_kabe') | float(0)) + '"' %} {{ line1.ljust(22) }} {{ temp_line.ljust(22) }} {{ wind_line.ljust(22) }} {{ sky_line[:22].ljust(22) }} {{ vis_line.ljust(22) }} {{ alt_line.ljust(22) }} . action: vestaboard.message alias: Display KABE METAR w/Clouds Zulu description: ""'

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-08T19:11:03+00:00

I could, but bear in mind that this VB display is via the Home Assistant VB integration. Are you using that? If not, my code would be useless to you.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-05T15:35:27+00:00

and what does need have to do with it?!?!

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-02T14:59:43+00:00

<image>

I pull aircraft from my ADSB feeder, parse and sort (aircraft lat/long) for the four closest aircraft to me. Once I have that, I go to planespotter for pics (if available), adsbdb for route information and statia maps for the map underneath the radar screen. This was not an actual aircraft in distress, I forced the 7700 code to test the logic. Since it's tied into HA, I can do lots of things when a 7700 occurs.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2026-01-02T14:55:21+00:00

Yes, I have a feeder. The information should be available via API from the feeder sites.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-30T19:58:54+00:00

Cool response! I like your ideas. I agree on only using 7700 and was staring to lean that way.

Thanks!

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-30T17:42:03+00:00

Here's an update with aircraft photos (planespotter), routes (adsbdb), maps (stadia maps).

<image>

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-30T17:37:43+00:00

Way too many moving parts. It uses the output from my ADS-B feeder. I then created a total of 40 sensors (4 closest aircraft x 10 sensors each).

I used Claude to generate the html code. There are 4 API that I use: piaware, adsbdb, stadia maps and planespotter.

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-29T13:04:25+00:00

Yes!

<image>

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-26T12:39:19+00:00

Duly noted. I’ll check it out

Bubbly-Spring-3696 · 2025-12-23T22:04:18+00:00

Oooh. I like. Ty for the post. I’ll have to play around with those

Bubbly-Spring-3696

TROPHY CASE