Build log, 3 November: updates for life, an admin page, corrections that teach the app, and P25 for very little money

3 Nov 2026 · 6 min read · Build log · App · Scanner · Spotter · Site

We keep these logs so the changelog is more than a list. Here is what went out today and why.

Updates, free for life

The big one. One version number across the Pi bridge, the ESP32 firmware and the app's bundled copy of it; a Pi that updates itself from the public repo with a health check and automatic rollback; a nightly timer; and a Spotter that takes new firmware from the phone over Bluetooth, with no computer and no network permission in the app. CI now builds the ESP32 image on every change and publishes it where all three paths pick it up. Full write-up: Free updates for life.

The Scanner's admin page

http://wavelens.local:8080: Wi-Fi, logs, settings, updates, flashing a Spotter, power, behind a password on your LAN. No more SSH for the things people actually need to do. Its own post.

In the app

• Corrections. On any detection: Wrong? Correct it, then a menu — public-safety vehicle, ambulance, fire truck, bus, school bus, taxi, delivery van, utility truck, tow truck, private car, phone, watch, home Wi-Fi, doorbell, tracker, drone, body cam, plate reader, or type your own. The correction is saved as a fingerprint (maker prefix, name, payload traits), so the next unit of the same kind is named right too. That's the app getting smarter from one tap, on your phone, with nothing leaving it. Review or undo under More → Flagged → Corrected.
• Silence, with a confirmation. Silence alerts from a device for an hour, for the rest of the day, or until you say otherwise. It always asks first; a silenced body cam is a decision worth a second look. The device stays on Live, Signal and Radar; only the alert is held.
• The detection sheet, in colour. Each section has its own colour and a tinted panel — red verdict, green signal, amber movement, blue identity, violet history, teal position — and the fields that matter (category, confidence, signal, name, maker, position) sit on a highlighted chip. The facts read first.
• Look it up. Chips to Google a MAC address, its maker prefix, or a device name — in your browser, which is the only thing here that leaves the phone.
• What's listening. Icons in the top bar: the phone, a Spotter, a Pi, how many RTL-SDRs, a HackRF — lit when connected, dimmed when a paired radio is out of range.
• Tails carry their metadata now: window, appearances and gaps, re-acquisitions, spots and spread, how far you moved, peak and median signal, fixes with GPS, and the rule that produced the verdict — in the list, in the replay, and in the evidence export.
• Radar tells you how to get a bearing: a directional antenna on a companion, and Find.
• The Scanner tab, when nothing is paired, now explains what it does once a radio is attached — P25 Phase 1 and 2, DMR, NXDN, EDACS, Motorola Type II — and exactly what you need: a Pi 4, one RTL-SDR (two is better), a HackRF only if you want the 6 GHz sweep, and your county's RadioReference export.
• Help improve Wavelens where you live. A section under More that builds one file of everything the phone has seen — emitters, unknowns, alerts, corrections, tails — for you to email to us if you choose. Positions off by default and rounded if on, your own devices off by default, nothing automatic, ever.
• “Public safety” replaces “police” everywhere: the scanner's category button, an alert label, the site.

On the site

• The home page says what the Scanner card had been too modest about: full APCO P25 and digital trunking, the thing a $500–$700 scanner is for, on a $35 computer and a $25 dongle.
• The Scanner photo shows the USB-C lead, and the description says what the Pi comes with: all Wavelens software pre-loaded, Bluetooth to the phone, Wi-Fi for updates, free for life.
• Calls to action on every section, a sticky beta/shop bar, and CTAs on the blog and the “what it finds” pages. “Works anywhere in the world · follow your local laws” in every header.
• The Spotter video was redone with the real board photo, a USB-C cable plugging in, and a real alert screenshot.

Next

Nearest-sites-first for the control-channel hunt (the phone's position already ranks RadioReference sites; it should also decide which control channels to try first), and the first customer units going out with the admin page and updater on them.

Next: Spotter: what the $64 ESP32 companion hears, and why it hears more than your phone · all articles