Live flight radar · eInk poster frame

The sky above you,
on your wall.

Air Frame follows the planes over your home. When one flies close, a picture frame on your wall quietly becomes a travel poster of that exact flight — its real airline, its real aircraft, the city it’s heading to.

Runs quietly on a Raspberry Pi at home.

Most days, planes are just noise overhead. Air Frame turns each one into something worth looking at: a small piece of the world, printed for the moment it passes.

Every plane becomes a poster

A poster made for that exact flight.

When a plane flies over, Air Frame pairs the city it comes from or heads to with the real aircraft and airline. The result is a travel poster that never existed before — and lasts exactly as long as that plane is near.

  1. 1
    The cityIllustrated in a vintage travel-poster style. 175+ destinations, and growing.
  2. 2
    The aircraftThe actual type in the actual livery, banking across the sky.
  3. 3
    The airlineIts name and logo, and the aircraft type.
  4. 4
    The flightRoute, altitude, distance from you and time in the air.
1234
+
= a poster for your frame

Your sky, live

See what’s up there.

A calm, live radar centered on your home airport — or any spot you choose. Every plane is drawn as a small aircraft on its true heading, with a contrail behind it.

  • One color per airlineLufthansa yellow, KLM blue, Eurowings magenta. You learn the sky at a glance.
  • Arriving, departing, flying overWords and a direction arrow — never a second color code. Planes just passing at altitude are drawn as outlines.
  • A shimmer means a posterWhen a plane has a poster ready, it glints as it moves. Tap one to see.
Live · Hamburg

Tap a plane

It runs by itself

Nothing to press.

Every 25 seconds Air Frame checks the sky. When a plane with a poster comes within your trigger range, the frame updates on its own. Just watch the radar — and the wall.

  1. 1SpotLive positions come from OpenSky, routes from adsbdb, checked every 25 seconds.
  2. 2ComposeThe city and the aircraft are matched and composed into a poster, right on the Pi.
  3. 3RefreshThe eInk panel redraws in about 30 seconds, then holds the picture without using power.

You choose how close a plane must come (1–80 km). A cooldown — 90 seconds by default — keeps the frame calm instead of flickering from plane to plane.

Or choose your own

Your call, too.

Tap any plane on the radar or in the list and choose Show on Frame. Automatic updates pause for two minutes so your choice stays up — then Air Frame carries on by itself.

Try it: pick a flight and send it to the frame.

Near you

Hamburg · flights within range

Showing Barcelona

It remembers

Everywhere your wall has been.

Every poster leaves a line. Over the weeks, Air Frame draws a map of where your sky came from — and where it went.

0routes
0posters
0airlines

A simulated Hamburg frame. Line weight is how often a route was on the wall, colour is the airline, dashes are fly-overs. Yours lives in the app’s Globe tab.

The frame

Paper, not a screen.

The frame is a 13.3-inch six-colour eInk panel. No backlight, no glow, no notifications — it looks like a printed poster in any light, and it only uses power at the moment it changes.

Display
13.3″ Pimoroni Inky Impression
Resolution
1600 × 1200
Colours
Black, white, red, yellow, green, blue
Refresh
About 30 seconds
Brain
Raspberry Pi 3 A+

A simulation of the six-colour panel — in person it’s calmer and softer.

Details

Made for your sky.

Search a place…
Hamburg HAM
Frankfurt FRA
London Heathrow LHR
Your own spot lat · lon

Any sky, anywhere

Start from an airport preset, search for a place, or drop a pin right above your window. The radar reaches 5 to 80 km.

Fly-overs get their own sky

High-altitude traffic is drawn as an outline and gets an “Above the Clouds” poster. Local flights always come first.

Light, dark, yours

Follows your device, or pick a side. Add it to your Home Screen or Dock and it opens like an app.

Frame trigger range 5 km
Auto-push cooldown 90 s

You set the rules

Decide how close a plane must come, how long the frame rests between changes, and how far the radar looks.

Small on purpose

Air Frame runs on a Raspberry Pi 3 A+ with 512 MB of RAM. The server is Python and Pillow; the apps are plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript — no framework, no build step. It lives at home and stays out of your way.

PythonPillowVanilla JS512 MB

Look up.

Want the sky above your home on your wall? Air Frame is a hobby project, not a shop — but tell me you’re interested and I’ll get back to you.

Opens your email app · airframe@reisdorf.co