The finished build on its tilt stand — live AIS scope with the coastline, animated sweep, clock and range. Marine sibling of the aircraft Capsule Radar.
A live AIS ship radar for the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.75 — a round 466×466 AMOLED with capacitive touch. It pulls nearby vessels from a free online AIS feed over WiFi and plots them on a touch radar scope centered on your home, harbour, or a spot by a navigable river/canal — useful by the sea and inland. It's the marine sibling of Capsule Radar (the live aircraft radar): same board, same look & feel, ships instead of planes.
| Phosphor | Orb | Amber CRT | Military |
|---|---|---|---|
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Real AIS traffic around Dénia (a live snapshot from aisstream), rendered by the bundled desktop simulator — the device screen is round, so the square corners are off-panel.
- Live vessel traffic from aisstream.io — a free, non-commercial WebSocket AIS feed pushed in real time. Memory-safe parser (JSON in PSRAM) with a hard vessel cap for busy harbours.
- Ship glyphs rotated by course (COG), an animated sweep and a coastline map; anchored/moored vessels shown as quiet dots, moving ones as arrows, with fading trails.
- Colour-coded by navigation status (under way / at anchor / moored / fishing / sailing) or by ship type (cargo / tanker / passenger / fishing / sailing / service) — switchable.
- Four themes (long-press the screen to cycle, or pick on the web; remembered across reboots): Phosphor, Orb, Amber CRT, Military.
- Touch (CST9217): tap a vessel → detail readout (name, MMSI, type, speed SOG, course COG, heading, navigation status, destination, distance, bearing). Swipe between Radar / List / Stats circular views; on-screen range button cycles nm steps (2 / 5 / 10 / 20 / 40 nm).
- Big clock + date with a north marker; boot splash; alert pings (ES8311 speaker) for zone / proximity events — e.g. a vessel entering the harbour, or a watched MMSI appearing (a friend's boat). Volume & mute on the web page.
- Smooth motion: glyphs glide between updates (interpolated) using cheap partial redraws.
- Top HUD: WiFi status (amber if the feed is stale), NTP/RTC clock, battery %, and the date.
- Battery aware (AXP2101), real-time clock (PCF85063, survives power loss), smart brightness (idle auto-dim + face-down sleep via the QMI8658 IMU).
- GPS auto-location (optional -G board variant — see below).
- Configuration web page at
http://capsule-marine.local/— home point (map picker), range (nm), colour mode, theme, time zone (auto-detected), brightness, sound, the aisstream API key, WiFi reset, and over-the-air firmware update. Settings persist in NVS. - First-boot setup via a captive portal (
CapsuleMarine-Setup) for WiFi + your aisstream API key (with a link to get a free one).
The live feed comes from aisstream.io — sign up (free, non-commercial, no credit card) → Create API Key. You enter it once in the CapsuleMarine-Setup portal or on the web config page. Coverage is terrestrial-receiver based, so it's best near coasts, ports, busy straits and navigable rivers. aisstream is a free BETA service and can have downtime; a self-hosted RTL-SDR / dAISy receiver works as a fully local, no-internet alternative.
How is this different from Capsule Radar (aircraft)?
Same board and enclosure family, same web/OTA/NVS plumbing — the data layer and the scope change:
| Capsule Radar (aircraft) | Capsule Radar — Marine (this) | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracks | Aircraft (ADS-B) | Vessels (AIS) |
| Source | airplanes.live — HTTP polling | aisstream.io — persistent WSS WebSocket |
| Query | centre + radius | lat/lon bounding box |
| Glyph | plane triangle, by altitude | ship hull by COG, by nav status / ship type; anchored/moored as dots |
| Range | kilometres | nautical miles |
| Detail | callsign, alt, route + aircraft photo (looked up) | name, MMSI, type, SOG, COG, heading, nav status, destination (AIS already carries name + destination — no lookups) |
| Cadence | ~2 s polls | push, slow movers → longer trails & expiry (~12 min) |
| New dep | — | links2004/WebSockets (WSS) |
The Waveshare -G board has an onboard GPS (Quectel LC76G). Turn it on from the web page and the radar sets its own home point automatically, with an on-screen satellite status icon (amber while acquiring, green once it has a fix). Standard boards simply enter their location manually (map picker on the config page). The working LC76G I²C driver is included (src/gps.*).
Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.75: ESP32-S3R8 (8 MB PSRAM, 16 MB flash), CO5300 AMOLED over QSPI, CST9217 touch, QMI8658 IMU, PCF85063 RTC, AXP2101 PMIC, ES8311 audio + speaker. All pins are in src/config.h (verified, no guessing). Buy the board without the plastic case if you're printing the enclosure.
pio run -e esp32-s3-amoled-175 -t upload # build + flash over USB-C
pio device monitor -b 115200 # serial logOn first boot, connect your phone to the CapsuleMarine-Setup WiFi, enter your network, your aisstream API key and your home location — vessels appear within seconds (when the feed is up).
Makers can flash without installing anything using ESP Web Tools (Chrome or Edge on desktop):
- Open the web flasher (the project's GitHub Pages site).
- Plug the board in with a USB-C data cable and click Install.
The flasher is built and published automatically by GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/webflasher.yml) on every push to main — enable it once in Settings → Pages → Source = GitHub Actions. Tagged releases (git tag v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0) also attach a ready-to-flash CapsuleRadarMarine-esp32s3.bin to a GitHub Release via release.yml. Preview the flasher locally:
./scripts/build_webflasher.sh # build + merge into web/flash/
python3 -m http.server -d web/flash 8000 # serve (Web Serial works on localhost)
# open http://localhost:8000The whole UI is portable LVGL and runs on your computer (SDL2) — great for iterating without hardware or an API key:
pio run -e native -t exec # opens a 466×466 window (needs SDL2: `brew install sdl2`)Mouse = touch · T = theme · C = colour mode (status ↔ type) · R = range · close the window to quit. It runs with mock vessels near Dénia.
Browse to http://capsule-marine.local/ (or the device IP) on the same WiFi to set the home lat/lon, range (nm), colour mode, theme, brightness and the aisstream API key, or to reset WiFi. Saving restarts the device to apply.
src/
config.h pins + tunables (Dénia, Spain by default; aisstream host)
main.cpp ais_task, WiFi/NTP, web config + API key, brightness/IMU glue
display.* CO5300 (Arduino_GFX) + LVGL bring-up
radar_view.* the radar scope, vessels, themes (ship glyph + status/type colour)
ui.* views (radar/list/stats) + detail card + HUD
ship.h the Ship data model (replaces aircraft.h)
ais_client.* persistent WSS WebSocket to aisstream + AIS JSON parse/merge
touch_cst9217.* capacitive touch driver
imu_qmi8658.* accelerometer (face-down sleep)
battery.* AXP2101 battery gauge
rtc_pcf85063.* PCF85063 real-time clock
gps.* LC76G GNSS (optional -G variant)
coastline.* coastline map background
sim_main.cpp native SDL simulator (not flashed)
include/lv_conf.h LVGL config (v8)
web/flash/ browser web-flasher (ESP Web Tools) for makers
scripts/ build_webflasher.sh (merge firmware -> single .bin)
docs/ hardware / data-source / architecture / MakerWorld notes
Tilt stand, magnetic snap-on back and a built-in speaker — prints with no AMS in ~2 h (6× magnets + 3× M2×6 screws + printed pins). See docs/MAKERWORLD.md.
Firmware / code: MIT — fork and build on it freely (keep the notice). AIS data: aisstream.io (free, non-commercial / educational — exactly this project; be polite, reconnect with backoff, respect their terms). Personal/hobby project. The 3D-printed enclosure (tilt stand, magnetic back, built-in speaker) prints with no AMS in ~2 h — see docs/MAKERWORLD.md (publishing on MakerWorld soon).