How Mach 2 Connects
A plain look at how the Mach 2 LED flight tracker gets its data, what actually runs on the device, how updates reach the fleet, and where the project came from.
MQTT in, pixels out.
Mach 2 keeps a single secure connection to our hosted MQTT broker for live flight data, your saved settings, and firmware updates. Everything you see is rendered locally on the device — the cloud only ships data, never frames.
Your network stays yours.
The box makes an outbound connection to our broker and nothing else. There is no inbound port and no remote shell. It does not touch other devices on your Wi-Fi — with one exception you control: if you turn on Local ADS-B, it talks to the one receiver you point it at, and nothing else. Leave that off and it behaves exactly as before, guest network included.
Rebuilt for the ESP32-S3.
The production firmware was rebuilt from the ground up for the ESP32-S3: the LED matrix rendering, the Wi-Fi handling, and the cloud sync all run natively — fast boot, low power, and no SD card to corrupt.
It only gets better.
New scenes, fixes, and features arrive over the air. The device checks in, verifies the update, and installs it over Wi-Fi — so the box you buy today keeps improving without any action from you.
From broadcast to pixel.
- Aircraft broadcast ADS-B. Planes continuously transmit position, altitude, and speed in the clear. That open data is the raw material for everything Mach 2 shows.
- The cloud builds your update. Our backend filters the live feed to your saved area and mode, then publishes a compact, ready-to-draw payload.
- MQTT delivers it. The device holds one authenticated MQTT session and receives only the topics it subscribed to — your data, your settings, your updates.
- The ESP32-S3 renders locally. The box composes the scene and drives the 2,048-pixel matrix itself. Pull its plug and nothing of yours lives anywhere it shouldn't.
One update, the whole fleet.
Because every Mach 2 checks in with the same broker, a single signed firmware build can roll out to the entire fleet. Each box verifies the update, installs it over Wi-Fi, and reboots into the new version on its own.
A long way from the first one.
The very first prototype ran on a Raspberry Pi — slow to boot, fussy to set up, and held together by enthusiasm. Today's Mach 2 is a different machine: a purpose-built ESP32-S3 board in a solid maple enclosure, individually assembled, bench-tested, and burned in before it ships. Every unit is checked by hand, and the firmware keeps maturing through OTA. What started as a hobby has become a product I stand behind.
Legacy source, clearly separated.
FlightTrackerLED's legacy Raspberry Pi prototype was based on Colin Waddell's open-source its-a-plane-python, also published as RGB Matrix Flight Tracker and released under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Because that base project is GPLv3, the modified legacy Raspberry Pi source, license, and notices are published at FlightTrackerLED/FlightTracker-Legacy to keep the legacy work fully compliant, despite claims to the contrary.
Mach 2 is not that legacy Raspberry Pi build. It is a proprietary, completely separate ESP32-S3 product with independently written firmware for the current hardware, renderer, MQTT workflow, browser setup, and OTA update system.
Legacy source: FlightTrackerLED/FlightTracker-Legacy · Original project: ColinWaddell/its-a-plane-python · Licensed GNU GPL v3.0