Avian Visitors is a lovely project by [Teddy Warner] that uses a Raspberry Pi and microphone to keep track of which birds have been visiting your home, and creates a colorful illustration of recent visitors on top of it all.

It reports on a web interface of its own making, but what really takes things to a new level is an optional, stylish E-Ink panel that shows the last 24 hours’ worth of visitors at a glance in a collage.

The key to identification is BirdNET (GitHub here), a deep learning classifier from Cornell that can reliably identify and classify more than 11,000 species worldwide based on sound alone.

Based on that information, the system pulls bird images from a reference set for the region and creates a collage representing the breadth and frequency of visitors in a single image. The larger the image of a bird, the more frequently it was heard.

That’s a cool project, but [Teddy] took things one step further by setting up a color E-Ink display to show a running summary of all the avian visitors the system identifies. [Teddy] has a knack for leveraging projects into wall-mounted art, as we saw with his generative art wall plotter.

Got ideas of your own? Avian Visitors even has options for sending the latest detection to Home Assistant or over MQTT, allowing automation triggers based on specific bird species. If you decide to try it out and put your own spin on it, be sure to let us know by sending us a tip!

The GitHub repository for Avian Visitors has everything you need to get set up, and the basic system needs little more than a Raspberry Pi and a USB microphone. There’s a build video embedded just below, so give it a shot if you want to get a better idea of what birds come visiting.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

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The weird part is that they're in a Burger King.

This project made for a perfect lazy Saturday unwind, after a busy week giving a talk at Devrelcon in NYC. Makerworld had this thing as one of their featured models about a week or two ago, and the parts came in while I was away.

GitHub repository ESP32-Plane-Radar Open-source ESP32 firmware for a 1.28″ round display that shows live ADS-B aircraft around your location as a sonar-style plane radar. by ironicbadger · C++ · MIT

Plane radar is a neat little project that turns an ESP32-C3 and a 1.28-inch round display into a live aircraft radar. It pulls nearby ADS-B traffic, plots each aircraft by distance and bearing, and shows the details directly on the screen.

It was an easy build, although it did require a little soldering. I always enjoy doing that as it reminds me of my days building racing drones. Thin, silicone based wires made quick work of the cabling. And after about 15 minutes, we were ready to go.

It is insanely easy to flash firmwares to a fresh esp32 these days using the browser-based ESPHome web flashing tool. Under 30s and you’re done.

A quick note about the 3d model

The original model was featured on Makerworld, because it looks great. Reality though was, in practice, it’s not actually that great.

MakerWorld 5.4Klikes 3.3Kdownloads 15.1Ksaves 2.4Kmakes Original 3D model ESP32 Plane Radar Live ADS-B on a Round Display by matixovi · Published May 31, 2026

Unfortunately the tolerances are just too tight to be usable with the batch of boards I got. So I’m likely going to model my own replacement at some point, but for now I ended up printing this model instead.

MakerWorld 154likes 194downloads 470saves 102makes Original 3D model ESP32-S3 1.28" Waveshare Plane Radar by ThePrintableWatch · Published Jun 10, 2026

Customising the firmware

I’ve spent today improving my fork of ESP32 Plane Radar project, with the help of pure vibes.

The biggest improvement is proper flight context. Where the data is available, aircraft now show their origin and destination instead of just their tail number, with the callsign used as a fallback. Aircraft types are also more descriptive, something like B737-800 rather than simply B737. I added local weather, temperature, humidity, time and date as well.

The web interface can now modify coordinates after initial setup. Display options can now be changed without resetting the Wi-Fi configuration, and there are controls for units, runways, weather, temperature format and 12/24-hour time. Text is 10% larger by default, with a persistent 80–130% slider for adjusting it.

Finally, the firmware now supports authenticated OTA updates, so future builds can be installed through the browser instead of connecting the board over USB.

I’ve compiled, flashed and tested everything on the actual device, and the latest work is committed to the main branch. Next up will probably be porting it to a larger display and designing a tidy 3D-printed enclosure for it.

Adblock test (Why?)

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It's hard to believe anyone thinks this is a good idea. Chinese robotics firm UBTECH has unveiled their UWORLD U1 brand of humanoid companion robots, which look like K-Pop idols or anime characters.

These robots are designed to offer "daily companionship, emotional support, lifestyle enhancement, and social assistance, as well as reception and hospitality services, elder care, psychological support, tourism and exhibitions, research and education, and premium domestic service applications." They're part of the company's "Human-Robot Companionship Initiative," and are presented as a social good:

China has more than 90 million adults living alone and 118 million empty-nest seniors, with an estimated 10% to 20% of individuals living alone meeting the clinical criteria for mental health disorders. In response, UWORLD announced plans to donate customized humanoid robots each year to support vulnerable groups, including children growing up apart from one or both parents, older adults living alone, and families facing difficult circumstances, with the goal of providing long-term emotional companionship and psychological support.

In 2026, UWORLD plans to donate 100 customized U1 Series humanoid robots. These units will incorporate 3D facial reconstruction and voiceprint-based identity replication technologies to recreate designated individuals, while integrating emotion-driven interaction models and dedicated long-term memory systems. Combined with multimodal situational awareness, the robots are designed to provide structured psychological support services.

The 100 donated units dwarf the commercial numbers; following the announcement, the company has racked up some 13,000 pre-orders.

Three trim levels, for lack of a better term, are on offer. The U1 Lite is a torso with no arms but gigantic breasts, apparently meant for reception roles:

The U1 Pro has a full body and can stand (but apparently not walk):

And the U1 Ultra can walk, and perform complicated physical tasks like waltzing. (In the image below, the male is human, the female is the 'bot.)

What's disturbing is that thanks to 3D scanning and voice cloning, the robots can be customized to the point of mimicking actual people. The company is selling this as a plus.

Here's what these things look and sound like in action:

The U1 Lite runs around $16,500; the U1 Pro, $23,500; and the Ultra, $137,000. They'll roll out in September.