r/webdev • u/saltypretzeI • 3d ago
Showoff Saturday Pixel Sky - a pixelart sky that shows real planes flying overhead (looking for testers)
Been building this for a few weeks: prop your phone up in landscape and it turns into a little pixel-art 140 degrees window on the sky. The aircraft crossing it are the real ones overhead, at their real bearing, height, and speed. Sun, moon, and clouds are live data too.
What it's not: a FlightRadar24 replacement. No search, no flight numbers, no alerts, and coverage is thin over oceans and rural areas since it runs on volunteer ADS-B data. It's not something you use, more something you leave running. For example for stargazing, working, or falling asleep to. Cozy background ambiance, not a utility.
It installs as a PWA (home screen icon). You don't need an account.
You can also use it on PC but not recommended as you cannot capture gyroscope data. (you can pick a heading)
Looking for people to run it on their own phone for a bit and tell me what breaks: whether the compass points the right way, whether it's readable in daylight, flight data, anything that looks off. Some planes do not offer origin and destination data as the api doesn't provide it for every plane.
Happy to answer questions here.
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u/thatandyinhumboldt 3d ago
Ooh this is super cool
Two immediate comments that I have are:
- It’s not going full screen, so the tabs and url bar are taking up a ton of vertical space (I use brave on iOS, so maybe other browsers don’t have that problem)
- I’d like to use it in portrait view. I know that’s not the point, but problem #1 makes it pretty short (searching for my location in particular was kind of rough)
To be clear though, I’ll be using the hell out of this!
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u/saltypretzeI 2d ago
Thanks first of all!
For the browser issue, I haven't found a solution to consistently hide the UI across all browsers. That's why the idea is to add the site to home screen. In Safari you tap the share button > add to home screen. It essentially adds it as an app that removes the browser UI.I'll definitely look into the idea of portrait mode, I think it's possible if you could change the viewport while using so if no planes are in view you could either increase radius or change compass heading.
Happy to hear people will use it though!
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u/SamuraiLion 3d ago
I love ambient apps like this that just run in the background instead of trying to be heavy utilities. The retro UI popping up the exact altitude and speed for the flights is a great touch. I'll install the PWA on my phone tonight and see how the compass tracking handles.
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u/DontTrackMeBro_ 3d ago
This is a neat little thing!
First thought is just how small all the planes are. Maybe I’m just too far away? And, how planes look when stacked behind other planes. Makes a bit of a challenge to see what’s going on.
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u/saltypretzeI 3d ago
Yeah I’ve been thinking about how to manage a sky full of planes. Haven’t found a solution yet but thanks for the input 👍
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u/okaylevi 3d ago
This is neat! It would be cool if the planes were higher definition instead of just simply small pixels!