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Release notes

What changed in each DroneTracker release, newest first. Rigs that support it install updates from Admin → Updates (Updates).

0.2.629

Added

  • The rig view: a Dedicated Rig’s cameras at once. With a Dedicated Rig as the source, the video shows the spotter large, with the head’s pan and tilt and a crosshair, and the thermal camera and telephoto stacked beside it when they are connected. See The rig view.
  • Thermal palettes: white-hot, black-hot, ironbow and rainbow for the thermal picture. They change only what you see; detection uses the camera’s own picture.
  • A game controller drives the rig: right stick pans and tilts fast, left stick slowly for fine aiming, Y sends the head home, X changes the thermal palette, and LB / RB zoom the telephoto picture. The head never goes past its travel limits and stays where you leave it.

Fixed

  • A preview no longer blocks the rig’s cameras: when the rig switches to its thermal camera at night, or starts identifying with the telephoto, a preview that had that camera open now lets it go first, instead of leaving the rig without it.

0.2.628

Changed

  • Astro 3D on the phones uses the rig’s own sky math: DroneTracker Mobile now works out which deep-sky targets are up with the same code the rig runs, instead of a separate copy. A phone and a rig at the same place list the same targets in the same positions.
  • One definition of the console’s live data: the console’s description of everything the rig sends it is now produced from the rig’s own definitions, so the two can no longer disagree after an update.

0.2.627

Fixed

  • The satellite list and comet orbits are kept between restarts: the rig could not save them, so after a restart without internet it had neither until it got back online. They are now saved in the rig’s own data folder.

0.2.626

Added

  • The sky check: before a detection is flagged, the rig asks whether the sky explains it — the Sun, the Moon, a planet, a bright star or a comet it sits still on, or a meteor. A brief, fast streak whose path points back to an active shower’s radiant is marked as that shower’s (the Orionids are active until November 7); any other is a sporadic meteor. It only explains detections nothing else did, never overrules a confident drone, aircraft, helicopter or bird, and stays silent until the rig knows where it points. See The sky check.
  • Meteor showers and comets on the rig: the 37 annual showers of the International Meteor Organization’s list are built in, and comet orbits are downloaded from the Minor Planet Center every three days and kept for offline use. Every explanation is logged with the detection.
  • Sky check on the Astro page: shows today’s showers, what is up, and the comet list’s state.
  • Forwarder location: set where a forwarder stands under Remote Devices → Edit → Location, or let it report its own. A forwarder with a GPS receiver, or a paired phone, sends its position with each check-in. Its cameras’ detections are checked against the sky from there.
  • The phone apps run the same sky check from the phone’s own location.

Fixed

  • Satellite and sky checks use your location: they used the location fixed at install time, at sea level, even when a telescope position or an operator location had been entered. They now use the telescope’s position, else the operator location.

0.2.625

Added

  • Search the admin console: a search box at the top of every admin page. As you type it lists the matching admin pages and settings, best match first, with the words you typed highlighted. Open a setting in the results to change it right there, or jump to it in System Settings or on its device page. Press / or Ctrl-K (⌘K on a Mac) to start typing, use the arrow keys to move through the results, Enter to open one and Esc to close.

0.2.624

Changed

  • Library updates: newer versions of the checksum library used for telescope firmware uploads and camera sign-in, the certificate library behind device trust, and the 3D globe’s map component. Nothing changes in how the rig works.

0.2.623

Fixed

  • A telescope added back keeps its location and direction: removing a DWARF 3 and adding it again, a common way to unstick one, used to wipe the position and bearing entered for it. The rig now remembers them by the telescope’s serial number and puts them back when the same telescope returns. A position or bearing entered since is never overwritten.
  • Heading up says when the rig has no heading: with no known direction the 3D view can only face north, which looked just like North up. The button now reads Heading up · no heading in amber, and says where to set the telescope’s bearing.
  • A saved location’s bearing is no longer dropped: picking a saved location for Operator Location used to discard its bearing without a word, since the operator location has no direction. The page now says so and offers Apply to DWARF 3, which puts the whole saved location, bearing included, on the telescope.

0.2.622

Fixed

  • Re-adding a DWARF 3 no longer shows a false connection error: adding a telescope back could start two connections to it at the same moment, one from the console and one from the rig’s own automatic connect. The telescope takes only one controller at a time, so the two pushed each other off. One connected and gave video, while the other reported “camera activation failed” for a telescope that was working. Now the second connection waits for the first and uses it.

0.2.621

Fixed

  • A telescope lens that stops sending video now still shows a picture: after an Astro go-to the DWARF 3’s tele lens can stop sending live video. After an Astro session its wide lens can refuse video entirely, even after switching back to VIS. The telescope keeps a slower picture feed running through all of this. The live view now switches to that feed, at about 4 frames a second, instead of showing “No frames”. Each time the cameras are reset, it tries the full-rate video again.
  • The wide lens after an Astro go-to: the telescope calibrates on its wide lens, which can leave that lens on a long exposure, and a long exposure stops its live video. Resetting the cameras, on connect, after a go-to, or on switching to VIS, now sets the wide lens’s exposure back to auto as well as the tele’s.

0.2.620

Fixed

  • Pointing the telescope from Astro 3D: go-tos were failing with “calibration failed”. Before turning, the telescope calibrates on the stars and needs the mount to stay still. Switching to Astro mode had also let the rig’s automatic motor re-homing run, so it moved the mount during that calibration. Re-homing now waits while the telescope is in Astro mode. The Through the DWARF 3 panel now shows “turning” until the telescope has actually arrived. If the go-to fails, it says why, for example clouds or a lit sky blocking the calibration, instead of claiming the telescope is on the object. The live picture also comes back after a go-to that fails: the calibration can leave the camera on a long exposure, which stops the live video, and the rig now sets the exposure back to auto.

0.2.619

Fixed

  • DroneTracker Mobile: the Drone 3D / Astro 3D switch no longer covers the top of Astro 3D’s full-screen Moon and object views; it steps aside while one is open.

0.2.618

Fixed

  • Pointing the telescope from Astro 3D: the live video no longer stays dark after the telescope turns to an object. Its go-to switches the cameras into deep-sky capture, which stops the live picture on both lenses; when the slew ends, the rig now brings the live view back, still in Astro mode. Picking another object while the telescope is still turning now stops that turn and goes to the new one, where before it was refused. Long turns no longer time out at 45 seconds.

0.2.617

Added

  • Heading up and North up in Drone 3D and Astro 3D: like a car’s navigation map. Heading up (the default) turns the view to face where the camera points. On the station that is the telescope’s bearing, from a plate solve, a Lock Pos on a known aircraft, or the bearing entered for the device; on a phone it is the phone’s compass, followed as you turn. North up faces true north. With no heading known, Heading up faces north. Turning the view yourself pauses the follow; tap the button (↻) to face the heading again. See Map and 3D view.

0.2.616

Fixed

  • The rig’s direction in Drone 3D, Astro 3D and the radar map: these views drew the telescope’s motor count as if it were a compass bearing, so a rig entered as facing 230° (southwest) showed its wedge near 130° (southeast). They now use where the rig really points: a plate solve or a Lock Pos on a known aircraft when there is one, otherwise the bearing entered for the device. The mount readout labels the motor count AZ CTR and shows the bearing as BRG with where it came from. Astro 3D opens facing the rig’s bearing (on a phone, the way the phone points) and marks it on the horizon.

0.2.615

Added

  • Through the telescope, for real: in Astro 3D, Through the DWARF 3 now points the telescope. It switches to Astro mode (asking first if the rig is watching for aerial contacts), goes to the object or the Moon, and shows the telephoto lens in the main video view and as a picture-in-picture in Astro 3D. Tap the picture to swap the live view and the 3D render; back to VIS returns the telescope to aerial detection. See Map and 3D view.
  • Go to the Moon: the telescope can point at the Moon, from its position worked out on the rig for that moment and place.

0.2.614

Added

  • The Moon in Astro 3D: the real Moon, from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maps, lit for tonight’s phase with crater shadows along the terminator and earthshine on the dark side. Click it for a full-screen view with its phase, distance, rise and set, a phase slider and the DWARF 3’s frame. See Map and 3D view.
  • Astro 3D on the phones: DroneTracker Mobile’s 3D tab switches between Drone 3D and Astro 3D. The phone works out the sky itself, with no rig and no network.
  • ASTRO 3D on the handheld: a side-rail page that opens the rig’s Astro 3D.
  • Find in Astro 3D: type a target’s name, or Moon, to open it.

Changed

  • Astro 3D is now written with a space, and its labels no longer pile up: zoomed out, only brighter targets are named and one name stands for objects that share a spot.
  • Full-screen nebulae, galaxies and globular clusters keep their structure instead of burning out to white.
  • The transit time reads “transited 1.1 h ago” just after a target crosses the meridian, instead of “transit in 22.9 h”.

Fixed

  • Horizon panorama: the capture no longer re-arms auto-track after you turned it off during the sweep, and auto-track can no longer lock a drawn box while the sweep runs. The sweep stays within the mount’s measured travel (to 300°), and the panel always sends the selected telescope.

0.2.613

Added

  • Astro 3D: a sky view of the deep-sky targets from your site. Each target sits where it is in the sky now, with a small model of its type and its name; click one to open a detailed full-screen model you can orbit, and see how it would fit the DWARF 3’s telephoto frame. Offered only in Astro mode by default (topology/astro3d changes that). See Map and 3D view.
  • VIS / ASTRO switch on the main screen: an optional switch between aerial detection and astro mode on the top bar. Hidden by default; an admin turns it on with display/show_scope_mode_toggle.

0.2.612

Added

  • Horizon panorama in Rig view: Drone 3D’s Rig view can show the real skyline around the rig, photographed by the DWARF 3’s wide lens. Capture it under Admin → Hardware → Dwarf → Horizon panorama. The telescope turns across its travel, photographs each step and returns; the sky is made transparent so the 3D sky shows above the trees and roofs. See Map and 3D view.

Fixed

  • Filter after Aerial: after switching back to Aerial, the Astro page shows the VIS filter the rig put back, instead of the astro filter that was in before.
  • Album folders: folders inside an album session are shown as folders, not as files with a download button.
  • Schedule status: the schedule’s “now” line updates every 30 seconds instead of only when the page opens.
  • Edge build: finished schedule entries are marked done on the edge (SQLite) build; a test now checks it.

0.2.611

Added

  • Stacking from the Astro page: a Stack panel lists the exposures the DWARF 3 offers (15, 30 and 60 s; the telescope pairs each with its own gain), takes a frame count, and starts stacking where the telescope points. Progress comes from the telescope itself: frames shot, frames stacked, and whether the stack is still running. The go-to’s progress shows beside it.
  • Album: the Astro page lists the telescope’s astro album, session by session, and downloads FITS, TIFF and JPEG files through the rig.
  • Plate-solve result: the Astro page shows the solve’s progress and, when it finishes, how far the mount’s axis is from the pole, or why it failed.
  • Current filter: the Astro page shows which filter is in once the telescope has reported it, and warns when Astro or Duo-Band is in for daytime detection.
  • Schedule windows: schedule entries take a start and end time, a minimum altitude and a priority. Each entry shows why it is waiting.

Fixed

  • Sun safety: the telescope never slews within 30° of the Sun, from any path, and the schedule starts a session only once the Sun is 12° below the horizon. A run stops at dawn.
  • Stack settings: the exposure and frame count were written into the wrong places in the telescope’s settings string, so a stack would have shot at the wrong exposure. They now go where the telescope’s own presets put them.
  • Stack progress and completion: progress was read from the telescope’s exposure presets, so it never moved and a finished stack was never noticed. It now comes from the telescope’s own reports, and a finished stack frees the telescope.
  • Plate-solve results: the solve’s answer was read in the wrong format, so a real result failed to read and a failure looked like success. It is now read correctly, with time for the solve to finish.
  • Go-to errors: the go-to’s reply was read in the wrong format, so a failure could look like success. Go-to and plate solve now hold the telescope and pause auto-track, so a detection cannot slew it away mid-slew.
  • Taking over from aerial: solve no longer takes the telescope from aerial detection without asking. Any astro action while aerial holds the telescope needs Take over from aerial ticked first.
  • Mode buttons: the Astro page highlights the mode the rig is actually in.
  • Schedule: a schedule entry no longer starts over your own go-to or stack; it ends its session on the telescope when it stops (stack stopped, cameras back, VIS filter back) instead of leaving the mount tracking; a failed start waits and retries instead of re-slewing every minute; an entry is marked done only when its stack finished; and on the edge build, finished entries no longer run again.
  • Back to Aerial: besides re-opening both cameras, switching to Aerial now also stops a running stack, asks both lenses back to live view, puts the VIS filter back if Astro or Duo-Band was in, and re-arms tracking only once the cameras are back.

0.2.610

Fixed

  • Wide-angle view after astro: switching the Astro page back to Aerial after astro mode or a deep-sky session now brings back both of the DWARF 3’s views. Before, the wide-angle view, which the rig scans the sky with, stayed dark until the telescope reconnected or was restarted. The rig now stops the astro session and re-opens both cameras, the same steps it runs when it connects. Nothing moves the mount. While you are imaging, the Astro page reminds you to switch back to Aerial to get both views.

Changed

  • License notices: the motion detector’s background model credits OpenCV, whose code it is translated from, under OpenCV’s BSD 3-Clause license, on the rig and in both phone apps.

0.2.609

Added

  • Datalink payloads decoded: ACARS messages, from VDL2 and from airband ACARS alike, now show their encoded payloads in readable form: ADS-C position and intent reports, CPDLC controller-pilot messages, MIAM messages (compressed ones included) and media advisories. Messages split across several ACARS blocks are joined first.

Changed

  • VDL2 recovers more weak messages: when a damaged VDL2 block can’t be repaired directly, the decoder now tries the most doubtful bytes in more combinations before giving up. On the test recordings it now decodes more messages than the previously required external decoder.
  • License notices: the third-party notices now also list the software DroneTracker works with but does not ship: the Sniffle firmware on the BLE Remote ID receiver, dumpvdl2, and the RTL-SDR command-line tools. The ported libacars decoders are credited under their MIT license.
  • Street map from USGS Topo: the 3D views no longer load street tiles from the public OpenStreetMap servers, whose usage policy doesn’t allow apps like DroneTracker to use them. The street map now comes from USGS Topo (public domain; detailed in the United States) by default. Admins can pick MapTiler or Stadia Maps with their own key, or their own tile server, under Admin → System (topology/street_map). 3D buildings still come from OpenStreetMap data.
  • License: DroneTracker’s own license file now states that the software is proprietary to Dronetracker, LLC. Third-party components keep their own licenses, as listed in the open-source licenses.
  • Nothing to install for VDL2: the Install full decoder button is gone from the RF view, because the built-in decoder now reads every payload it added. Rigs that installed it switch to the built-in decoder on this update.

0.2.608

Added

  • Built-in VDL2 decoder: the forwarder now decodes VDL Mode 2 itself, so VDL2 works without installing anything. Switch the airband dongle to VDL2 datalink, or pick a third dongle for VDL2, and ACARS messages arrive with the aircraft’s ICAO address, registration, flight, label and text. On test recordings, the built-in decoder recovered as many messages as the previously required decoder, slightly more on some passes, including long messages split across Reed-Solomon blocks and damaged ones it repairs.
  • The full decoder is now optional: Install full decoder in the RF view adds decoding of the CPDLC, ADS-C and MIAM payloads some messages carry. When it is installed, the rig uses it for VDL2 automatically.

0.2.607

Changed

  • New RTL-SDR driver in the SIGINT forwarder: the forwarder now talks to RTL-SDR dongles through a driver written in Rust, the same one the Android apps already use, instead of the librtlsdr library. ADS-B, the airband voice channels, the band scan, dongle pinning by serial number and the RF waterfall work as before. The forwarder no longer carries GPL-licensed code, and the Linux and macOS packages now always include it, because building it no longer needs librtlsdr installed.
  • Supported dongles: the driver supports the R820T and R828D tuners, which every RTL-SDR Blog dongle (V3 and V4) and most current dongles use. Older dongles with an E4000 or FC0012 tuner are no longer supported.

Fixed

  • VDL2 on the airband dongle: giving VDL2 the dongle that airband voice uses, in the RF view’s dongle roles, now hands that dongle to VDL2 and turns voice ATC off. Before, both claimed the dongle and neither ran.

0.2.606

Added

  • Open-source licenses, everywhere the software is: the credits and licenses of the open-source components, models, SDKs, fonts, map sources and data services DroneTracker uses now ship with every package, beside the program, and are shown on the console’s Help → Open-source licenses page, in the Android apps (Settings, and the handheld’s side rail) and in the iOS app (More → Settings → About).
  • Map credits in Drone 3D: the 3D view now shows the credits its map sources require: OpenStreetMap for the street map and buildings, Esri for the satellite drape, and the terrain tiles.

Changed

  • OpenSky is off by default (main station): the OpenSky Network’s free service is for research and non-commercial use, so the main station no longer uses it as a fallback for live aircraft or flight details unless an administrator turns it on in Admin → System (enrichment/opensky_enabled). adsb.lol remains the public fallback for live aircraft, and FlightAware AeroAPI, with your own key, for flight details. The phone apps use OpenSky only when you pick it as the ADS-B provider; it is labeled “non-commercial use”.

0.2.605

Fixed

  • The mount no longer swings wildly while following a drawn box (main station): while a box was drawn, the slew-to-cue controller, which re-points the mount to bring a target into the telephoto lens, was also handed the box and fought the follower for the mount, with swings of 20° to 100°. While a box is drawn, only the follower steers now, and only to the box. While the rig looks for a lost object the mount holds still instead of sweeping; the video’s delay made the sweep overshoot on the Dwarf 3.
  • The mount no longer bobs past a drawn box (Dwarf 3): the Dwarf’s joystick keeps moving until it is told to stop, and the follower stopped sending commands once the box was centered instead of stopping the motors, so the mount drifted past the object, corrected a second late because of the video delay, and bobbed until the object left the picture. The mount now steers to a drawn box in short pulses sized to how far off it is, stops, and waits for the picture to catch up before the next one. Detected targets also stop the motors now when they reach the center.

0.2.603

Fixed

  • A drawn box no longer drifts while the mount steers to it (main station): the tracker was learning the camera’s own motion as the object’s velocity, so each steering burst pushed the aim further and the mount swung back and forth; a small object was lost after a few bursts. The rig now measures how far the whole picture slid between frames, the same scene registration the motion tripwire uses, and takes it out before judging the object’s motion; while the mount is being commanded, the aim stays on the box instead of leading it. Seen on the Dwarf 3’s wide lens on 2026-10-20.

0.2.602

Added

  • Draw a box around anything and the rig follows it: the iPhone app’s drawn-box tracking is now on the rig and in every app that shows its picture. Drag a rectangle on the console’s live video, on the handheld’s feed, or on a paired phone’s RIG view, and a learned tracker (MixFormerV2-S, running on the rig) locks onto what you outlined, class-blind. A motorized mount steers to it, a recording starts and stops with it, and the box is drawn in cyan with FOLLOWING and the tracker’s confidence; it turns dashed and reads SEARCHING while the rig looks for a lost object, for up to a minute, with the mount sweeping slowly. Click or tap inside the box to stop; clicking a spot to point the camera, or pointing at a flight, clears it too, so the mount never has two masters. The feature is on by default and can be switched off in Admin → System (cv/manual_track_enabled); the model (65 MB) loads on the first draw. See Drawing a box around something.
  • Drawn-box tracking on Android: the Android app follows an outlined object on its own camera the way the iPhone app does, with the same tracker, the same search, and the same stand steering and auto-record rules. While a box is drawn the detector runs five times a second and the tracker takes every frame; the app is larger by the tracker model.

0.2.601

Fixed

  • Turning the phone while recording left the picture sideways (iPhone): a recording keeps one orientation, so turning the phone during one, including the recording auto-track starts the moment you draw a box on a stand, left the camera picture and the detector the old way up until the recording ended. The recording is now finished and saved, the picture turns, and recording starts again the new way: an auto-track recording restarts by itself, and one you started is restarted for you. The HUD says so while the first one is saved.
  • A drawn box follows the phone through a turn (iPhone): the box is carried over to where the object sits in the turned picture and the tracker picks it up from the first frame the new way, instead of starting over on the wrong spot.
  • Landscape steering reads the right gyro axis (iPhone): with the phone in landscape, panning turns it about its short axis, so the drawn-box tracker’s scene shift and the Flow 2 end-stop guard now swap axes with the orientation.

0.2.600

Added

  • Motion is noticed while a stand turns slowly: the motion tripwire (UNKNOWN boxes) used to need a perfectly still picture, so a phone on a Flow 2 or DockKit stand that was holding or sweeping, or a main-station camera on a pan/tilt head, saw nothing. The app now measures how far the whole picture slid between frames and moves its learned background along with it, so only what moves against the scene is marked. A fast turn still resets the background. On the main station this is Settings → Detection → Motion cue → Register (default on; 0 turns it off).
  • A lost drawn box is found faster (iPhone): a match on a spot where something is moving counts at once instead of needing a second look, the search stops as soon as it is sure, tries the nearest spots first, and only tries other sizes where the object showed at all. The search also matches the object as it last looked, not only as drawn, so a bird that turned or a drone that banked is still recognized.
  • The stand sweeps the way the object went (iPhone): the search sweep starts in the direction the object was moving when it was lost, and tilts a little when it was climbing or diving out of the frame, instead of always panning toward the side it was last on.

Changed

  • The detector runs less often while a drawn box is followed (iPhone): a few times a second instead of every frame, since the drawn box has its own tracker, which leaves the phone’s model engine to the tracker and its search. Other objects are still shown; their boxes update at that rate.
  • The stand steers gently through a search (iPhone): finding the object again no longer restarts the steering ramp with a hard first swing.

0.2.599

Added

  • You can see where the search is looking (iPhone): while a drawn box is being searched for, faint boxes show the spots being checked, so a frame-wide search looks like one instead of a box sitting where the object was.
  • The stand sweeps while it searches (iPhone): three seconds after a drawn box is lost, a Flow 2 or DockKit stand turns slowly toward the side the object was last seen on, then the other way, a few seconds each leg, until the object is found or the search gives up. The first seconds stay still because the object usually comes straight back.

0.2.598

Added

  • The phone apps notice motion before the detector can name it: with the phone on a stand or a tripod (or a USB camera fixed in place on the Android handheld), anything that moves against a still picture gets an UNKNOWN box within a second or two, the same class-blind tripwire the main station runs on cameras without their own detector. Auto zoom zooms toward it and a Flow 2 or DockKit stand turns to it, so a distant object gets detail before the detector has a class; once the detector names it, its box takes over. Swaying branches and edges that flicker in one spot are learned as background and ignored. Hand-held, the picture is never still and nothing is marked. Settings → Detection → Motion cue switches it off; the Motion cutoff sets how sure the app must be.
  • The camera zooms back out while a drawn box is searched for (iPhone): auto zoom returns to where it started as soon as the object is lost, instead of a few seconds later, so the search and you get the wide picture; it zooms in again once the object is found.
  • A lost drawn box is looked for where something moves first (iPhone): the search for an object that left the frame now tries the spots where the picture is changing before sweeping the whole frame.

0.2.597

Added

  • Set your position by hand in DroneTracker Mobile: Setup → My position takes a latitude, longitude and altitude. The app uses it whenever the device has no location fix of its own, as on a Retroid handheld, which has no GPS. It always shows Position set by hand so it isn’t mistaken for a measured fix. Clear goes back to the device’s own location.
  • A position suggestion from the antenna: with an RTL-SDR plugged into the device, My position works out roughly where the antenna is from the aircraft it hears, the same way the rig does, and offers Use the antenna’s estimate with how far off it may be (typically a few km after a few hours near a flight path). It fills the fields; you confirm with Save position. Only aircraft heard by the plugged-in radio count, never those relayed from somewhere else.

Fixed

  • A USB webcam on the Android handheld reaches the main station: Android opens a USB webcam only for an app with camera permission, which the handheld’s field unit never asked for, so the webcam was never sent. When a webcam is plugged in, the handheld now asks to use the camera. FIELD UNIT → CAMERA (USB) has an Allow the camera button if you skipped the question. While DroneTracker Mobile is using the webcam, the field unit waits a minute between tries instead of competing for it.
  • The drawn box keeps up on older iPhones: the box tracker now looks for the object where its motion says it went, and looks wider when the phone is slow or the object fast, instead of only where it last was. On an iPhone 11 the tracker ran several times slower than on newer phones and lost a moving object to look-alikes nearby. The app also picks, per phone, the version of the tracker that phone’s chip runs fastest.
  • Zoom toward a drawn box (iPhone): auto zoom now zooms toward the box you drew, ahead of detections, within the lens’s optical range, so a small object gets detail for the tracker to hold. The Flow 2 turns more gently as the zoom rises, since the same offset in a narrower picture is a smaller angle.
  • Steadier Flow 2 steering (Android): DroneTracker Mobile steered the gimbal with raw offsets. It now uses the same follow speed as the iPhone’s Normal, scaled by the zoom, with the same dead zone and damping.
  • Steadier gimbal: the Flow 2 no longer twitches with the small jitter of a box near the center, and a sudden jump in the target’s position ramps the gimbal instead of kicking it.
  • A person you outline is recognized when they come back: draw a box around a person and the app remembers how they look. If they walk out of the picture and back in, even in a different pose or from the other side, the tracker picks them up again by appearance. Other objects are still found by the look you drew.
  • The drawn box stays on the object in clutter: on a busy desk the box could slide onto a nearby object that looked similar and then stay there with full confidence, because the tracker kept refreshing its idea of the object from what it was following. It now refreshes that far less often, and every few frames checks the box against the object as you drew it; if that match is somewhere else, the box goes back to it. The check that used to declare the object lost during a gimbal swing, and then re-lock on the wrong spot, is gone: the tracker itself now decides, and a re-lock keeps the object as you drew it.
  • A lost object is found again anywhere in the picture: carry the object out of the frame and bring it back in on the other side, and the tracker finds it. The search looks across the whole picture after its first second and keeps looking for a minute, recognizing the object by your drawing rather than by a rough image fingerprint.
  • The Flow 2 keeps centering sideways at its tilt limit: when the object sits below the lowest point the gimbal can tilt to, the gimbal now holds only the tilt and keeps panning the object to the center, instead of stopping both.
  • PHONE ⟷ RIG is a slide switch (iPhone): slide it, or tap the side you want; it no longer takes several taps to switch.
  • iPhone app runs smoother: it asked iOS whether Location Services was on with every motion update, about 30 times a second, which iOS warns can make the screen stutter. It now checks only when the setting changes.
  • DroneTracker Mobile opens a USB webcam the first time you pick it: it opened the camera twice at once and the second open never finished, so the picture stayed on Opening USB camera… until you picked the camera again.

0.2.596

Fixed

  • DroneTracker Mobile on a handheld without a camera turns to landscape: on an Android device with no back camera, such as a Retroid handheld, the app now follows the way you hold it in landscape instead of staying upright. Phones with a back camera still use portrait, which the camera view is laid out for.
  • Allowing location in DroneTracker Mobile: closing the location explanation stopped the app from ever asking again, and Location settings only opened Android’s app page. The button now reads Allow location and brings up Android’s own permission prompt. Only if you have turned location down there does it open the app page, and it says where to tap: Permissions, then Location.

0.2.595

Fixed

  • A USB webcam on the Android handheld is picked up when it’s plugged in: the handheld noticed a webcam only if it was attached before the field unit started. It now finds one within a few seconds of plugging it in, and asks for permission to use it only once.

0.2.594

Added

  • The iPhone signs in to the rig with a certificate: after one password and second-factor sign-in in Rig view, the iPhone enrolls itself as a trusted device, like the Android handheld. From then on Rig view signs in without a password, both when it opens and when a session runs out. It shows under Admin → Access → Trusted Devices, where it can be revoked; a revoked iPhone asks for the password again. See Trusted devices.
  • A USB camera on a SIGINT forwarder becomes a rig camera: a forwarder node can now relay a USB camera to the main station the same way the Android handheld does. The main station lists it as a camera named after the device. Detection stays on the main station. The relay is off by default on each forwarder; your support contact can switch it on for a node. It stays off on a forwarder that runs on the main station’s own computer, so it never takes the main station’s own cameras.

0.2.593

Added

  • A USB webcam on the handheld becomes a rig camera: plug a standard USB webcam into the Android handheld and allow DroneTracker to use it. The handheld sends the picture to the main station, which lists it as a camera named after the webcam, for example Field camera · HP HD-4110. The handheld only captures and sends; detection runs on the main station once an administrator picks the field camera as the detection source. The FIELD UNIT screen shows the camera under CAMERA (USB). See Field unit.

0.2.592

Added

  • The admin console’s section list folds away: the button at the left of the header hides and shows the list of admin sections. On a phone the list is hidden until you open it, and closes again once you pick a section, so each page gets the whole screen. On a larger screen your choice is remembered.
  • A learned tracker for the drawn box (iPhone): the box you draw is now followed by a tracking model running on the phone’s Neural Engine instead of the system’s object tracker. It holds on through size changes, clutter and partial cover, and its confidence drives the lost-object search.

Changed

  • Flow 2 turns at full speed (phone apps): auto-track now uses the gimbal’s whole speed range. Follow speed Gentle, Normal and Fast map onto it, with Normal matching the earlier pace.
  • Flow 2 stops at its turning limit (iPhone): when the gimbal is pulled to the end of its travel, the app stops asking it to turn further and the HUD says so, instead of tripping the gimbal’s protection.

Fixed

  • The lost-object search finds the object again (iPhone): after a drawn box is lost, the search now looks all around where the object was last seen instead of only at the picture’s most eye-catching spots, so bringing the object back into the picture re-locks it.
  • A drawn box follows smoothly: the box no longer jiggles as the stand moves toward it, which set the gimbal rocking back and forth.

0.2.591

Added

  • Draw a box, and the stand follows it (iPhone): drag a finger across the picture to outline anything, aircraft or not, and the Insta360 Flow 2 keeps it centered. The box is labeled FOLLOWING; tap it to let go. If the object leaves the picture, the app remembers how it looked and re-locks when it comes back (SEARCHING while it looks, for up to 20 seconds).
  • Follow speed: Settings → Auto-track → Follow speed (Gentle, Normal, Fast) sets how quickly a motorized stand turns toward the target.
  • Gimbal protection warning: when a Flow 2 shuts its motors off (all four lights blinking after a blocked movement), the HUD says so and auto-track pauses until a gimbal button clears it.

Fixed

  • HDR recording on iPhone: on phones whose HDR mode offers only 10-bit camera frames, HDR recording failed to start. It now records 4K HDR, and if a high-quality start ever fails, the phone records at 1080p instead for the rest of the session rather than failing every time.
  • Auto-record no longer breaks a drawn box: the recording starts before the stand begins to move, so the camera’s switch to the recording format does not throw the tracker off.

0.2.590

Added

  • Auto-track on an Insta360 Flow 2 (phone apps): the iPhone and Android apps now steer an Insta360 Flow 2 gimbal over Bluetooth, the model without DockKit. Mount the phone, turn the gimbal on, and close the Insta360 app. AUTO-TRACK then keeps the target the phone’s detector sees in the middle of the picture. Tap a box to choose which target to follow. Touching the gimbal’s joystick hands control back to you for a moment. Keep the gimbal’s AI Tracker switched off while auto-track runs, or both will steer.
  • Phone clamp warning: when the phone is twisted out of line in the Flow 2’s clamp, the HUD says so and auto-track shows PAUSED until the phone is straight again.
  • Auto-track records what it follows: while auto-track is on, a detected target starts a recording, which stops 10 seconds after the target is gone. You confirm this once when you start auto-track. A recording you start yourself is never stopped.
  • High-quality recording (phone apps): on iPhone, Settings → Recording offers Standard (1080p), HDR (4K HLG) and, on Pro iPhones, ProRes. On Android, High quality original records 4K in the best HDR the phone offers. The HUD copy stays in standard color so its overlay reads correctly.

Changed

  • The phone screen stays on while DroneTracker is the app on screen, so an unattended tracker does not lock.
  • Android records 1080p by default, up from 720p.
  • Auto-track sheet on iPhone: a DockKit stand that reports an error now shows it in the sheet.

0.2.589

Fixed

  • Signed out in the admin console: opening the admin console without signing in now shows the sign-in page instead of an empty screen.
  • Switching the analyzed camera from GRID: the Activate button on a camera tile appears only for administrators, who are the only ones allowed to switch the camera being analyzed. If a switch fails, a short message appears over the cameras and every picture keeps playing.
  • Drone-band radio note: in the RF view, the note shown when no wideband radio is fitted now says to contact DroneTracker support to add one.

0.2.588

Added

  • An ATC tab in the RF view: the footer’s new ATC tab lists only the ATC transmissions, with their transcripts and replay, so a busy ADS-B sky no longer pushes them out of sight. The SIGINT Events table can also be narrowed to one kind of radio. See The footer.
  • Resizable RF panels: drag the top edge of the footer, or of the drone-band and Remote ID panels under the radar, to give each the room you want. Those panels can also fold to one line. Your browser remembers the sizes.

Changed

  • A lighter rig: the server now delivers the console’s pages itself, at the same addresses as before. The separate web interface service is gone, which frees memory and processor, most of all on a Jetson. Admin → System → Services no longer lists it. Saved links to a device’s page keep working.

0.2.587

Added

  • Full-screen RIG view on the phone: the controls hide 5 seconds after the last touch; tap the picture to bring them back. On the picture: tap a box to track it, double-tap or pinch to zoom, press and hold then drag to steer (lift to stop), two-finger tap to stop all motion, and swipe in from the right edge for the next camera. See Pair a phone.
  • Cast the rig’s camera to a TV from the phone’s RIG view: AirPlay to an Apple TV or AirPlay TV from an iPhone, and Chromecast from an iPhone or Android phone. The phone and the TV must be on the same Wi-Fi.
  • Pair a device without a camera: the console’s pairing code can now be copied and pasted into the app.

Changed

  • Less processor on a Jetson: the console’s camera pictures in the 3D map and the freeze-frame use about an eighth of the processor they did, and share the camera’s one feed.
  • Less processor on Linux rigs: the console’s requests and camera streams go straight to the server instead of through the web interface.

0.2.586

Fixed

  • The phone’s RIG view held sideways: the main camera picture no longer disappears in landscape. The cameras fill the screen under the controls; SPLIT and GRID put the cameras side by side when the screen is wide, and the corner camera sits clear of the buttons.

0.2.585

Fixed

  • Steady camera feeds on a Jetson: the rig’s own camera feed no longer drops and reconnects about once a minute, and the phone’s picture of the rig’s cameras no longer cuts out every few seconds. The rig opens each camera once and shares that feed between detection, phones and the console, still decoding the video on the hardware.

0.2.584

Changed

  • The phone’s RIG view fits the screen: the rig’s cameras sit between the top bar and the controls, so nothing hides behind the joystick. SPLIT and GRID tiles are sized to fit (GRID puts three or more cameras two across) and each shows its camera’s name; in the default view the second camera sits small in the corner of the main picture. The MOUNT and CAM menus open above their buttons without moving the other controls. See Pair a phone.

Fixed

  • Hardware video decoding on a Jetson: a camera could get stuck on slower software decoding after one moment when it was too busy to answer. The rig now checks again before giving up and remembers each camera’s video format.

0.2.583

Added

  • The console’s controls on the phone: the phone’s RIG view, on iPhone and Android, now has GRID, SOURCE and SPLIT, the AZ · PITCH · HOLD mount readout, the pull joystick, MOUNT (deploy, stow) and home, zoom on the phone with AUTO, a second camera in the corner, AUTO TRK, and CAM for focus, exposure and gain. See Pair a phone.

Changed

  • Phone commands in order: camera commands from a phone now always reach the rig in the order they were sent.
  • Boxes on the phone: detection boxes show only on the detection camera, where they line up with the picture.

0.2.582

Fixed

  • Faster restarts and updates: the rig now stops in a few seconds instead of about a minute and a half, so restarts and in-console updates finish sooner. Open video views and live panels no longer hold the stop up.
  • Detector precision setting: choosing fp32 under Admin → Models → Detector performance now takes effect as soon as the rig starts. Before, a freshly started rig always ran the half-precision model.

0.2.581

Changed

  • Lighter ADS-B decoding: the rig’s ADS-B receiver turns radio samples into signal strength with a lookup table instead of calculating each one, for less processor time with the same results.

0.2.580

Changed

  • Lighter detection on GPU rigs: the detection model now runs in half precision (FP16) on rigs with a GPU, with the same detections in half the memory. Choose under Admin → Models → Detector performance.
  • Less work with nothing in view: after 10 seconds with nothing tracked, the detector looks at 4 frames a second instead of every frame, and returns to full rate as soon as something is tracked. The live video doesn’t slow down.
  • One video encode per camera on Jetson rigs: the console’s live video and paired phones now share one stream per camera, decoded by the video hardware, instead of each encoding separately. The console’s low-latency (WebRTC) video now works on Jetson Orin rigs, which have no hardware encoder.
  • Faster frame conversion on ARM rigs: converting camera frames for the detector uses the processor’s vector instructions.

0.2.579

Added

  • Steer the rig’s camera from a paired phone: in the phone’s RIG view, hold an arrow to move the camera, use AF and focus, zoom, and tap a box to have the rig aim at it and track it. Turn it off for all phones under Admin → Signals Intelligence → Paired phones. Every command is logged with the phone’s name.
  • Pick the camera on the phone: the RIG view can show the detection camera, the wide lens or the tele lens.
  • Hardware video decoding on Jetson rigs: network cameras are now decoded by the Orin’s video hardware instead of the processor, using about a seventh of the processor time. The tele lens reaches phones without the rig decoding 4K video in software. See Video decoder.

Changed

  • Phone app: the rig’s camera keeps running for a minute after you leave the RIG view, so coming back is quick. The phone says “Starting the rig’s camera…” while the first picture loads.

0.2.578

Added

  • The rig’s picture on paired phones: a paired phone’s HUD has a PHONE | RIG switch. RIG shows the rig’s camera, detection boxes and target cards, ATC transcripts, and the rig’s aircraft in the SIGINT panel, all in the app’s own screens rather than a web page. The rig sends its camera only while a phone is showing it. See Pair a phone.

0.2.577

Added

  • Per-class confidence floors: Admin → Models → Per-class confidence floors sets a floor for Drone, Helicopter, Airplane, UAP and Unknown separately. Raise a class that boxes things that aren’t there without hiding the others, or lower one to catch distant aircraft. See Per-class confidence floors.
  • Phone app, Settings → Detection: a cutoff for each class (Drone, Helicopter, Airplane, UAP, or Off), how long a box must stay before it appears, the lowest elevation to consider, and a pause while the phone turns. Changes apply right away, and Reset to defaults restores the shipped values.

Fixed

  • Pair a phone over your tailnet: the console refused the rig’s tailnet name (https://rig.tailXXXX.ts.net), saying the certificate didn’t cover it. The rig’s certificate now includes its tailnet name, and browsers that trust the rig accept that name too.
  • Phone app, Rig view on the iPhone: the page stayed blank because the iPhone refused the rig’s own certificate for web pages. Rig view now opens the rig’s console, and if it can’t, it says why.

Changed

  • UAP on the rig: UAP detections now need a score of 85% by default. Lower scores were mostly noise, especially at night. Change it under Admin → Models → Per-class confidence floors.
  • Phone app: UAP boxes now need a much higher score by default, and boxes must stay steady for longer before they appear. Detection also pauses while the phone turns quickly, because a blurred picture drew UAP boxes on ceiling beams, wall edges and door frames.

0.2.576

Fixed

  • Pair a phone: a paired phone stopped sending when the rig renewed its certificate, which the rig does by itself when its network addresses change and before the certificate expires. Phones paired from 0.2.576 keep working through renewals. Pair once more after updating: unpair on the phone, then scan a new code.
  • Pair a phone: the console now checks that the address in the code is one this rig’s certificate covers, and makes no code for an address the phone couldn’t use (another machine, or the trusted-device port). When you open the console with a device certificate, the address it suggests is now the one phones use.
  • Phone app, Rig view: works with codes from 0.2.576 on the iPhone and on Android.
  • Phone app: the “Scan the rig’s code” picture keeps its size, and showing it no longer slows the camera.

0.2.575

Fixed

  • Pair a phone: a phone paired with 0.2.574 couldn’t send anything. Its Rig section showed an error saying the rig’s certificate had changed. The pairing code was missing the rig’s certificate, so the phone had no way to trust the rig. After updating, open Unpair from this rig on the phone, then scan a new code from Admin → Signals Intelligence → Pair a phone. The console now refuses to make a code for an address the rig doesn’t serve over HTTPS.
  • Phone app, scanning the rig’s code: the camera picture in the scan screen was blank on the iPhone. It now shows what the camera sees.

0.2.574

Added

  • Pair a phone with your rig: Admin → Signals Intelligence → Pair a phone shows a code to scan with the DroneTracker phone app. The phone then sends what its Bluetooth (drone Remote ID) and any attached radio (ADS-B) hear to your rig, and shows your rig’s view. Each paired phone appears as two devices. See Pair a phone.

Fixed

  • Drone 3D near the coast: the sea floor was drawn as a deep black pit next to the shoreline. The sea is now level with the water’s surface.

0.2.573

Added

  • Drone 3D, night map: after dusk the street map switches to a dark version: land goes dark, while water, parks and roads keep their colors. Satellite imagery is dimmed instead. View → Night map cycles Auto (on once the sun is 6° below the horizon at your site), On and Off.

Fixed

  • Semi-transparent panels across the console: many panels, highlights and borders meant to be partly see-through were drawn with no background or with a plain light-gray border. The Drone 3D buttons and View menu, for example, were hard to read against a daytime sky. They now show their intended tinted backgrounds and borders.

0.2.570

Added

  • DroneTracker Mobile Edition: the Android app runs on an emulator end to end (camera detector on the NPU path, live ADS-B contacts, the Drone 3D scene with tap-to-select back into the SIGINT panel), and on-device chat arrives as an optional tier: Qwen 2.5 7B (4-bit) on phones with 12 GB of memory or more, a 3B model on 6 GB phones, downloaded over Wi-Fi on first use and never sent anywhere.

0.2.569

Added

  • DroneTracker Mobile Edition: the Android app now builds end to end on a Mac without Android Studio (debug APK, unit tests, lint), and the Drone 3D view ships as a self-contained web bundle for both apps’ in-app 3D screen, driven by the phone’s own position, heading, and ADS-B contacts.

0.2.568

Added

  • DroneTracker Mobile Edition, first scaffold. The free iOS and Android apps now exist in source: a shared Rust core (camera-bearing correlation with ADS-B, the make/model database, scene summary, the read-only Admin mirror catalog, and the DockKit track command), a SwiftUI app with DockKit stand tracking, a Jetpack Compose app, and the on-device detector exports for Core ML and ONNX Runtime. Nothing ships yet; see docs/ROADMAP-Mobile-Freeware.md.

0.2.567

Security

  • Deactivating a user now signs them out everywhere. Deactivated accounts lose their live sessions and can no longer refresh a token. Killing a session now also ends its live telemetry and video streams.
  • API key IP allowlists are enforced. A key created with an allowlist is refused from any other address.
  • Proxy headers are trusted only from the local reverse proxy (or addresses listed in DRONETRACKER_TRUSTED_PROXIES), so a client on the LAN can no longer spoof its address to dodge rate limits or session binding.
  • Forwarder ingest checks the HMAC signature before the slow password hash and is rate limited per address.
  • Camera stream URLs returned by the admin API no longer include embedded passwords.

Fixed

  • The forwarder no longer bundles a language model. It never ran one; the dependency, the 3 GB first-start download, and the CUDA/Metal build flags are gone. Existing forwarder config files still load.
  • Operator view: target updates are applied once per frame instead of once per target, so the event log and side panel stop re-rendering on every bounding-box move.
  • Drone 3D: two effects that could trip the SYSTEM FAULT guard are fixed (caught by the frontend unit tests, which now run in CI).

Improved

  • The forwarder and setup services ship with systemd hardening. The frontend version is derived from the workspace version at build time. Stale docs, screenshots, and the duplicate agent instructions file are cleaned up; docs/README.md indexes the documentation.

0.2.566

Improved

  • Drone 3D, Camera in scene: the live picture now opens on the wide lens, which shows the same area as the bearing wedge. Tap the picture to switch between the wide and telephoto lenses; a label in its corner shows which one you are seeing.

0.2.565

Improved

  • Drone 3D, where the rig points: the pale blue wedge showing the camera’s bearing now also shows in Rig view, is drawn on top of the terrain so hills no longer hide parts of it, and has bright edge and center lines.

0.2.564

Improved

  • Drone 3D map at night: the map is now backlit, so streets, terrain and satellite detail stay clearly visible after dark instead of fading to near-black. By day the map looks as before, shaded by the sun.

0.2.563

Fixed

  • Drone 3D touch controls: pinching now zooms in smoothly again on rigs with a connected camera mount. The view was resetting its center point every time the mount reported its position, which fought the pinch.
  • Rig view now shows a Rig view — exit button at the top of the screen. Dragging and pinching are off while it is on, because the view follows the camera.

0.2.562

Fixed

  • Drone 3D, Rig view: the camera’s cone and the live-picture panel are hidden while you look out from the rig, so they no longer smear across the view.
  • Drone 3D, Camera in scene: the panel now says what is happening instead of staying blank: Waiting for the camera…, Camera stream unavailable, or Camera has no picture when the camera sends only black frames (for example while it is asleep or stowed).

0.2.561

Fixed

  • Drone 3D at night: the ground stays visible after dark instead of going almost black. Only the navigation lights and strobes glow now, with a soft round halo on every device, so aircraft and their callsigns no longer turn into bright white squares. The dusk glow stays near the sun instead of tinting the whole sky.

0.2.560

Fixed

  • Drone 3D: aircraft ground shadows are soft round spots again, not gray squares. Changing the quality level now also changes how far the view draws, so a dark patch can no longer appear in the sky in Rig view. Tall walls no longer hang from the edges of the terrain. Ground whose map couldn’t load shows as plain shaded ground instead of a wire mesh. The YOU pin is hidden in Rig view, where you are standing at it.

0.2.559

Fixed

  • Drone 3D sky. A large dark patch could cover the middle of the sky, especially on phones and tablets. The sky now always fills the view.
  • Drone 3D on phones. The controls no longer run off the screen or cover the status line. + and − stay at the top right and the rest are in a ⋯ View menu.

0.2.558

New

  • 3D buildings and glowing lights in Drone 3D, on fast computers. Buildings within about 2 km of the rig appear in 3D at their real heights, and aircraft lights get a soft glow, strongest at night. See Map and 3D views.

0.2.557

New

  • See what the rig sees, in Drone 3D. A pale blue cone (or, on mounts that report only a bearing, a wedge on the ground) shows where the camera points. Camera in scene puts the live picture in the 3D view at that spot, and Rig view looks out from the rig the same way the camera does. See Map and 3D views.
  • Sound in Drone 3D. Sound plays a faint engine sound for the nearest aircraft, coming from where they are. It is off by default.
  • Contrails. Aircraft cruising above about 8 km leave a short white contrail.

Improved

  • Sharper, faster 3D terrain. The ground is most detailed around the rig and simpler farther out, hills are shaded by the sun, and the ground darkens at night. Tiles are saved in the browser, so a site you have viewed opens quickly and works offline. Satellite imagery starts on for fast computers.

0.2.556

New

  • A more lifelike Drone 3D view. The sky follows the real time of day at the rig, with dawn and dusk colors, and distant terrain fades into the sky. Aircraft bank into turns and tilt as they climb or descend, show navigation lights and strobes (brightest at night), and low contacts cast a soft shadow on the ground. See Map and 3D views.

Improved

  • Smoother Drone 3D view, especially with many aircraft. All aircraft of one kind, and all flight paths, are now drawn together, so a busy sky costs far less to draw. Drone 3D now adjusts the picture sharpness to keep motion smooth, limits low-power devices to 30 frames a second, stops drawing while the view is hidden, and keeps VR headsets at medium quality. Flight paths now fade toward their oldest end. See Map and 3D views.

0.2.555

Improved

  • Tidier dashboard on phones. In portrait and landscape, the controls on the video no longer overlap. The status line, view buttons and mount position are grouped at the top. The mount actions are in a Mount menu, and focus, exposure and gain are in a Cam menu. The second picture now sits clear of the controls. See the dashboard.

Fixed

  • On a large screen, the camera controls no longer cover the small second picture.

0.2.554

New

  • Pull joystick on phones and tablets. The arrow buttons on the video become a joystick: put a finger on it and pull. The direction you pull is where the mount turns, and the further you pull, the faster it moves. Let go and it stops. Long-pressing no longer brings up the phone’s copy or save menu. See the dashboard.
  • Ask the Rig answers more consistently. Counting questions are answered straight from the rig’s counts, the AI answers without randomness, and answers that mention things the rig has no record of are withheld. It answers only questions about the rig’s data, and the panel always shows that answers are AI-generated. See Ask the Rig.

Fixed

  • 3D view at high-elevation sites. The terrain, aircraft and flight trails now sit on the ground at your site. At sites well above sea level the terrain used to float above the map pin.
  • Help → User guide now opens the guide at dronetracker.ai.
  • The ideas board’s address moved to dronetracker.ai.

0.2.553

New

  • Emergency squawk. The rig now reads the transponder code aircraft broadcast. It shows in the SIGINT events table, an emergency code (7500 hijack, 7600 radio failure, 7700 general emergency) is flagged in red, and a new watch-rule preset alerts on one. See Alerts.
  • User guide link. Help now links to this guide.

Fixed

  • Admin → Access → Users → Reset PW works again. It creates a one-time temporary password, shows it once, and the user must choose a new password at their next sign-in.
  • The bird species list now follows the site set under System Settings → Site, instead of the location recorded at installation.
  • The ideas board moved to its new address; rigs on this version reach it without any change.

0.2.552

Includes the changes made for 0.2.550 and 0.2.551.

New

  • Specific identity. The target card can now say exactly what a target is — not just “airplane” but “BOEING 737-824” — when evidence supports it: the aircraft’s registration record, a drone’s own Remote ID, or the rig’s own earlier confirmed sightings that look alike. Shown with its evidence; weak evidence shows no identity rather than a guess.
  • Bird species. With a detector that reports birds, the rig can name the species, weighed by which species are recorded near your site this month. Turn on the bird species lookup under System Settings to download the local list (your location is rounded to about 100 km); the list is kept for offline use.
  • SIGINT watch rules. Admin → Alerts → SIGINT watch rules: get an alert when the rig hears something you care about — “mayday” or “hijack” on ATC or datalink, an aircraft above 50,000 ft with no callsign, or any drone (with a map link). Ready-made presets; every rule is editable.

Improved

  • The RF view: ATC voice and datalink now live in the events table, with the airband mode, Listen and transcription status in a bar above it — more room for the radar. Callsigns in transmissions are clickable to find the aircraft.
  • The event log shows the last 24 hours when you open the console, not only what arrived since.

0.2.549

Fixed

  • USB cameras now deliver full-rate video: DroneTracker requests the camera’s compressed video format, fixing blank or frozen feeds (“NO FRAMES”) on high-resolution cameras.
  • Thermal camera: only the picture is shown; the camera’s raw data band below it is cropped off.
  • Detection on Jetson Orin rigs now runs on the GPU after this update.

0.2.548

New

  • Dedicated Rig: Track now defaults to Multi-track, which follows the most confident object of any kind the detector finds. You can also pick a single kind of object to follow; the choices come from your active detection model.

Improved

  • Dedicated Rig cameras stay bound to the right camera after a restart or a replug, even if the system renumbers them. The camera list shows each camera’s USB port, so two cameras of the same model can be told apart.
  • Camera setup offers the formats your camera actually supports and starts from one of them. A saved format the camera can’t do is adjusted automatically, so the video no longer stays blank while the camera’s preview works.
  • While an update installs, the Updates and sign-in pages show that the console is restarting instead of an error.

0.2.547

Improved

  • The Ideas page explains how to connect your organization instead of showing an error, and the Organization and DroneTracker customer key settings are now at the top of System Settings → Site.
  • Clearer messages when the ideas board can’t be reached.

0.2.546

New

  • Updates from the console. Admin → Updates lists new DroneTracker releases with their release notes. You choose when to install; updates that need a restart say so first.
  • Ideas board. Admin → Ideas: suggest features and vote for the ones you want most. Each organization gets one vote per idea, and other customers never see who suggested or voted.
  • Better support requests. When you request support, choose what it is about (break/fix, bug, feature request, setup help and more) and add details, so support starts with the full picture.
  • Organization setting under Admin → Site, shown on support requests.

Improved

  • Game controllers and flight sticks work throughout the console.
  • The RF · 1090 MHz panel can be folded or moved over the video.
  • US English throughout.