THIS GUY LIVES UNDER SFO'S TAKEOFF PATH SO HE BUILT A CEILING PROJECTOR THAT TRACKS EVERY PLANE FLYING OVER HIS HOUSE IN REAL TIME he uses a cheap $30 radio receiver to pick up the signals that planes broadcast while flying. then projects them onto his ceiling in real... time when a jet flies over his house you hear it outside and at the exact same moment a plane glides across his ceiling labeled with the airline, aircraft type, and destination pure black background so the projector's rectangle disappears and only the aircraft are visible but he didn't stop at planes it also draws the real sky behind them. sun, moon, bright stars, constellations, and live satellites including the ISS. all at their true positions for his exact location and time in real time so he's lying in bed watching the actual night sky projected onto his ceiling with real planes crossing through it as they take off from SFO there is a huge market for every man alive that runs outside to see the helicopter vibe coded the whole thing himself with a cheap radio, a projector, and some clever softwareshow more

That $30 radio receiver means he’s likely tracking ADS-B data via an RTL-SDR dongle. Absolutely brilliant hardware hack. ​Honestly, if he packaged this code into an open-source Raspberry Pi build or a plug-and-play kit, he’d make an absolute fortune. Would you install one of these?

guy who did it:

Thanks for the shoutout looking to take it to kickstarter accepting signups at

I vibe coded something similar, not as good as this. I live in Malta so I made an app that tells me whenever a large heavy plane is flying over flight within 40 miles and even estimates where I should go to which balcony, front or back, and what direction to look to see the plane if I want

This would sell a million units at Christmas.

Pretty awesome. But don’t put it in bedroom because you will lay awake all night long watching planes and satellite passing overhead. And who wants his wife to yell out ‘Here comes the space station!’ while having sex?

This is so cool... it would ALMOST make up for the incessant noise!! 🤣😂😅

That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!

This idea crossed every man's mind who ever lived near an airport. One person actually executed on it. I would put my money on both the the person and the idea.

"there is a huge market for every man alive that runs outside to see the helicopter" what? I thought it was just me?

For the 70's gang... black room, florescent paint for stars and the moon... ... and a black light with Led Zeppelin on the turntable? Huh....

Super cool. Next step is to add LiveATC to listen to the pilots and air traffic control for that plane overhead.

My kid would LOVE this. (Also me. But kid is the vehicle to get wife approval!)

*doesn't post reference, source or attribution*

There's a Bar/Restaurant in San Diego (Nolita Hall) directly under the airport flight path. If you're standing outside you hear and feel the planes fly overhead. They have a split flap display inside that updates with flight info.

1. Here's a complete, step-by-step guide to building your own Skylight-style ceiling ADS-B projector. The original creator (cpaczek) has open-sourced the full project on GitHub, making this much easier.

Perfect gift for paranoiabros for when they want to make sure that the helicopter they heard overhead wasn't a black helicopter, or that the turboprop whine isn't the whine of a Pilatus PC-12 packed to the gills with synthetic aperture radar and laser rangefinders. 🤣

SDR baby. $10 bucks says he also does ISS. 👑

Taylor swift gonna keep his ceiling busy

that's a cool hack. inspired to think about how to visualize data live like that.

The planes are the hook. The actual magic is the pure black background. No projector glow, just aircraft sliding across the dark with the live sky behind them.

@grok how did he build it? Complete guide please

And here I was feeling savvy opening the FlightRadar 24/7 app. Nice work!!

that’s an inspiring level of autism.

If you look closely, you can see the plane is moving much faster in real life than the projection on his ceiling

@Scobleizer Wait! So you guys are all running outside to see the helicopters too?!

the guy:

The best hacks make invisible data feel physical.

Wow, that's so cool! Do you think this kind of setup could be made for other cities or is it SFO-specific?

awesome use of free will

@Scobleizer @BeanTwilly HOLY NEED

@DJSnM you should meet this guy & interview him. If he is willing to share or even sell his code & setup for others to use it would be great to promote.

what's the hardware setup for the projection mapping, just a standard short-throw projector or something more custom?