SkyLight Ceiling: Projecting Live ADS-B Aircraft Positions Onto your Ceiling
Recently, Cameron Paczek has created a new project called SkyLight, where art meets technical implementation by displaying a live view of aircraft flying overhead on your ceiling. SkyLight consists of a projector, Raspberry Pi 5, RTL-SDR dongle, and some custom software.
The Raspberry Pi 5 and RTL-SDR receive live ADS-B data from local aircraft, and the projector points up at the ceiling and displays the live locations of aircraft as they fly overhead, effectively giving you a simulated X-ray through your roof. The projections also include the sun, moon, bright stars and constellations, and live satellites.
This project reminds us of a British Airways billboard in 2014 that used live ADS-B data to have a child on the screen point directly at incoming aircraft. We note that these SkyLight and billboard projects would not be possible without live ADS-B data, as ADS-B aggregation sites like ADSB-Exchange and Flightradar24 typically have a few-minute delay and require payment for their APIs.
Cameron aims to productize his idea into a ready-made kit and crowd-fund it in the near future. If you are interested, you can sign up for his notification mailing list over at skylightceiling.com.
AI Disclaimer: We note that this project appears to have been coded with the help of AI tools.
Is the AI disclaimer really necessary? 🙄
We had several complaints from people who do not want to touch projects that have used AI, but we also don’t want to gatekeep good projects that have used AI. So we have decided to add an AI disclaimer for any projects that have declared AI use or have obviously used AI.
I’m working on some macOS SDR apps using Anthropic Claude. The disclaimer policy seems reasonable, it won’t discourage anyone from submitting project announcements here. (Sneak preview: https://github.com/dsward2/LiveAudioServer)
Nah the disclaimer policy is dumb. Everyone is using AI to code now, and if you’re not you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. That doesn’t mean there should be no human in the loop checking and guiding.
But going out of your way to be a digital Amish and blogs kowtowing to those who don’t like software because an AI touched it just seems exceedingly stupid.