I wrote a simple program that connects to (default) port 30003 on dump1090-fa (Flightaware version). It parses the ADS-B output and uses Flightaware's AeroAPI (there is a free tier based on requests) to augment with airline, aircraft, and city departure information. I then publish to my MQTT (Mosquitto) broker for planes within 2.1 nautical miles (i.e. I can visually make them out).
An MQTT client on an RPi3 (Linux) subscribes to those messages and uses a TTS service (Azure) to generate a wave file. I then use USB audio (this might have been the hardest part) to play it to me while I sit on my patio and watch local planes fly by.
I live near a couple major airports, so most of the planes are easy to spot (~5000 MSL). It's a simple pleasure.
I have an iOS shortcut that anyone can use to do something similar. Install it, name it "What's Overhead", and then you can say "Siri, what's overhead?" and then Siri will speak details on whatever aircraft is closest to you.
I use it when driving, or via my watch if I hear an unusual plane or helicopter and don't want to pull out my phone.
Great idea. Simple but effective, I'm up on a mountain with weird military traffic here and there, in addition to commercial stuff, so I'll play with this when I am driving around for sure.
When you do, I'll be eager to try it, as I currently rely on FlightAware's local web display to show my 3 year old what planes our antenna is picking up.
I just realized I have the transform of the dump1090-fa data to MQTT message already written up:
https://github.com/idatum/adsb2mqtt
What's missing is the client that enhances flight info and uses TTS to play the generated wave.
I also wanted to play around with Home Assistant's TTS.
I'll get motivated to write this up more fully, blog style.
An MQTT client on an RPi3 (Linux) subscribes to those messages and uses a TTS service (Azure) to generate a wave file. I then use USB audio (this might have been the hardest part) to play it to me while I sit on my patio and watch local planes fly by.
I live near a couple major airports, so most of the planes are easy to spot (~5000 MSL). It's a simple pleasure.