Overview A dedicated aviation weather station built for the Elecrow CrowPanel ESP32 HMI 2.8-inch display (ESP32-2432S028R). Designed by IamNotIntoTech, this project turns your display into an active METAR weather decoder, fetching and parsing live routine weather reports from the NOAA Aviation Weather Center for airports worldwide.

Features

• Decodes real-time aviation routine weather reports (METAR) for major international and regional airports.

• Instantly classifies and displays the flight category: VFR, MVFR, IFR, and LIFR.

• Features a Visual Flight Category Status Bar and RGB Indicator, matching FAA/ICAO standards (Green/VFR, Blue/MVFR, Yellow/IFR, Red/LIFR) using the onboard active-low RGB LED.

• Includes a graphical Wind Vector & Runway Heading Compass showing live surface wind vector, speed in knots, and gust velocity.

• Displays an Atmospheric Instrument Cluster reporting cloud ceiling layers, barometric altimeter setting (QNH), ambient temperature, and dewpoint spread.

• Provides interactive rapid-touch station picker tabs for instant one-tap switching between monitored airports, complete with an acoustic tone alert (GPIO 26).

Hardware

• Elecrow CrowPanel ESP32 HMI 2.8-inch display (ESP32-2432S028R)

• USB data cable and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network

Build and upload First, install VS Code and the PlatformIO IDE extension. Clone the project repository and open the elecrow_projects/12-metar-weather-decoder directory.

To protect your network credentials, configuration is handled via a local secrets file. Copy the secrets.h.example file and rename it to secrets.h. Open secrets.h to enter your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi credentials and your preferred list of airport ICAO codes.

Connect your Elecrow display via USB, allow PlatformIO to install the necessary dependencies, and click Build and Upload (or run pio run -t upload in your terminal).

Source code and license GitHub repository (Star repo for more upcoming project)

Consider supporting us for advanced level projects

YouTube Tutorial & Channel:
https://youtube.com/@IamNotIntoTech 

The project is shared under following:

• 💻 Source Code: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)
• 🎨 3D Models, Enclosures, Artwork, Graphics & Media: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• 💼 Commercial Licensing: All 3D models, animations, and branding are the intellectual property of Tushar Aggarwal. Commercial use, physical sales, or redistribution requires purchasing a commercial license or donating via GitHub Sponsors / Gumroad. See LICENSE for details.