EdgeDeck

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EdgeDeck is a full-screen FPV telemetry dashboard and session logger for a RadioMaster TX16S-style 480x272 color screen, EdgeTX, ExpressLRS, and Betaflight.

The goal is simple: make drone state easy to check on the radio before launch, between packs, or after landing without putting goggles back on or digging through EdgeTX telemetry pages. During FPV flight the pilot is usually in goggles, so EdgeDeck treats haptic, sound, and optional voice alerts as the important in-flight path, while the screen stays useful for quick glances, pre-flight checks, recovery, and session review.

EdgeDeck also saves per-pack logs so the pilot can review how the place behaved after a session: link quality and RSSI lows, TX power, packet rate, battery usage, current, GPS-derived stats, and other telemetry that helps judge range and reliability for that location.

Screenshots

PRE	FLY
STAT	LOG
GPS	GPS QR

GPS screenshots use sample or masked coordinates so the README does not publish real flight locations.

What It Shows

EdgeDeck has five tabs:

Tab	Purpose
PRE	Pre-flight view with arm state, mode, pack voltage, link status, RSSI, GPS, and a GO/CHECK readiness indicator.
FLY	Live telemetry dashboard for quick radio checks, with timer, mode, LQ, RSSI, pack voltage, current, mAh, GPS stats, alert state, and a 60-second LQ history graph.
STAT	Current pack/session summary: flight time, mAh used, max current, min pack voltage, min LQ/RSSI, max altitude, speed, and distance.
LOG	Saved per-pack session history, with a detail view for each recorded battery session.
GPS	Live and last-saved coordinates, plus a scannable QR code for the last saved position.

In smaller widget zones, EdgeDeck falls back to a compact focus view that keeps the most important telemetry visible.

Features

• Color-coded LQ, RSSI, pack voltage, TX battery, and alert states.
• Configurable warning and critical limits for LQ, RSSI, and per-cell pack voltage.
• Haptic and sound alerts: 2 pulses for warning, 4 pulses for critical alerts.
• Optional voice callouts for link quality and pack voltage alerts.
• Mute button for quickly silencing alerts during a flight.
• Current pack/session stats: flight time, mAh used, max current, min pack voltage, min LQ/RSSI, max altitude, max speed, and max distance.
• Per-pack session logging to the SD card for post-session range and reliability review.
• Focus/compact mode for smaller screen zones.
• GPS telemetry support for satellites, altitude, ground speed, distance, coordinates, and QR sharing.
• Auto tab switching: PRE on connect, FLY on arm, STAT after link loss.
• Touch and rotary support for tabs, log navigation, and session reset.

Requirements

• EdgeTX 2.11 or newer.
• A color-screen EdgeTX RadioMaster TX16S.
• ExpressLRS transmitter module and receiver with telemetry enabled.
• Betaflight sending CRSF telemetry.
• Sensors discovered on radio.

Install

1. Open the radio SD card using USB storage mode or a card reader.

2. Copy the EdgeDeck folder from this repository into the SD card's /WIDGETS/ folder.

3. The final radio SD-card path should look like this:

   /WIDGETS/EdgeDeck/main.lua
   /WIDGETS/EdgeDeck/qrgen.lua
   

4. Reinsert the SD card or exit USB storage mode.

5. On the radio, long-press a screen.

6. Choose Edit.

7. Tap an empty widget zone.

8. Select EdgeDeck.

9. For the full dashboard, use it as a full-screen widget.

If the widget is placed in a small zone, it will automatically use the compact focus layout.

For upgrades, copy the repository's EdgeDeck folder over /WIDGETS/EdgeDeck/. Runtime files such as sessions.log and gps_last.txt can be left in place.

Only the EdgeDeck folder is needed on the radio. Repository files such as README.md, examples/, and .github/ are for development and do not need to be copied to the SD card.

Telemetry Setup

On the radio, power the model and run:

Model Setup -> Telemetry -> Discover new sensors

EdgeDeck reads common CRSF/ELRS telemetry sensors:

Data	Sensor names
Uplink LQ	RQly
RSSI	1RSS, 2RSS, or RSSI
TX power	TPWR
Packet rate	RFMD
Current	Curr
mAh used	Capa
Pack voltage	RxBt
Flight mode / arm state	FM
GPS satellites	Sats, Sat, or GPS Sats
GPS coordinates	GPS or Lat/Lon variants
GPS altitude	GAlt or Alt
GPS speed	GSpd, Gspd, or GPS Speed
GPS distance	Dist or GPS Dist

Missing sensors are handled gracefully. The widget will show -- or 0 instead of crashing. More discovered sensors make the dashboard richer.

Betaflight Flight Mode Sensor

For Betaflight, native CRSF telemetry is recommended so the radio receives the FM sensor:

set crsf_telemetry_mode = NATIVE
save

After the flight controller reboots, discover sensors again on the radio.

EdgeDeck uses FM to detect armed/disarmed state and show the current mode. If FM is unavailable, it falls back to current draw and treats the craft as armed when current rises above 1 A.

Widget Options

Open the widget settings from the radio to tune the main behavior:

Option	Default	Meaning
AccentColor	theme	Active tab and highlight color.
LQ_Warn	80	LQ percentage at or below this value turns yellow.
LQ_Crit	50	LQ percentage at or below this value turns red.
RSSI_Warn	-98	RSSI dBm warning threshold.
RSSI_Crit	-103	RSSI dBm critical threshold.
CellV_Warn	350	Per-cell pack warning voltage in centivolts. 350 means 3.50 V.
CellV_Crit	330	Per-cell pack critical voltage in centivolts. 330 means 3.30 V.
Audio	2	0 silent, 1 haptic/beep alerts, 2 haptic/beep plus voice callouts.
AutoTab	0	1 enables automatic tab switching, 0 keeps tabs manual.

EdgeTX numeric widget options are integers, so pack-voltage thresholds are entered in centivolts.

The default LQ warning matches Betaflight's link-quality OSD alarm default. The default RSSI values target ExpressLRS 2.4 GHz 250Hz LoRa, where RFMD 27 has a -108 dBm sensitivity limit; the defaults place warning/critical alerts 10 dB and 5 dB above that limit. The default pack-voltage values match Betaflight's per-cell warning and minimum-voltage defaults.

Alerts

Live values change color immediately when they cross configured warning or critical limits. Audible and haptic alerts wait briefly before firing, which helps avoid alerts from tiny RF or voltage dips.

Alert behavior:

• Warning: 2 haptic/tone pulses.
• Critical: 4 haptic/tone pulses.
• Critical alerts repeat faster than warnings.
• Multiple critical alerts repeat faster still.
• Audio = 2 also enables voice callouts for LQ and pack voltage.
• The FLY tab mute button silences alerts for 30 seconds.

The widget alerts on link quality, RSSI, pack voltage, TX battery, and telemetry loss while armed.

Session Logs

EdgeDeck saves one log entry per battery session. A session starts on the first arm after a battery is connected and ends when the battery is swapped, telemetry is lost long enough, or the session is otherwise finalized after disarm.

Logged data includes:

• Flight duration.
• mAh used.
• Minimum LQ and RSSI.
• Minimum pack voltage.
• Maximum current.
• Maximum GPS altitude, speed, and distance.
• First-arm GPS latitude and longitude, when a coordinate fix is available.
• Maximum TX power.
• Packet rate.

The LOG tab keeps the newest sessions available on the radio. Up to 100 entries are retained by default; this limit is set in the CFG.logging section near the top of EdgeDeck/main.lua.

These logs are meant to be useful after flying. After a pack or at the end of the day, the pilot can open LOG and compare signal lows, packet rate, TX power, battery sag, current, and GPS-derived stats to understand how range and link behavior felt in that particular place.

Runtime log files can contain private flight history. sessions.log is ignored for new clones; sanitized format examples are available in examples/.

GPS Coordinates

The GPS tab shows live coordinates and saves the latest valid position about every 2 seconds while coordinate telemetry is available. The last saved position is kept in a small SD-card file separate from the flight log and can be shown as a QR code from the GPS tab.

The QR code is generated on demand from the last saved coordinate. It stays fixed while displayed, even if newer coordinates are saved in the background, and is rebuilt the next time the QR view is opened.

Battery Notes

Drone pack status is based on per-cell voltage calculated from RxBt. The widget auto-detects the cell count from the pack voltage and uses configured warning and critical limits for coloring and alerts.

The radio TX battery display uses the radio's configured battery warning and range settings. TX warning follows Radio Settings -> Battery range warning; TX critical is derived as 0.10 V/cell below that warning. The percentage still uses the configured min/max range and the Li-Ion curve in CFG.battery.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md for local checks, radio testing notes, and project conventions. User-visible behavior changes should also update CHANGELOG.md.

Please avoid committing runtime files from the radio SD card, especially sessions.log and gps_last.txt, because they can contain flight history and coordinates.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
Blank screen or EdgeTX warning	Make sure the radio is on EdgeTX 2.11 or newer.
Values show -- or 0	Discover telemetry sensors with the model powered on.
Arm state is wrong	Enable native CRSF telemetry and rediscover the FM sensor.
GPS fields are empty	Confirm GPS telemetry is present and sensors such as GPS, Sats, Alt, GSpd, and Dist exist.
QR does not build	Confirm EdgeDeck/qrgen.lua is installed beside EdgeDeck/main.lua, then reload the widget.
Alerts are too noisy	Lower Audio, adjust thresholds, or use the mute button during flight.
Full dashboard does not appear	Place the widget in a full-screen zone.

More Detail

For implementation details, see README_technical.md. It covers sensor behavior, logging details, customization notes, and other maintainer-facing context.

License

EdgeDeck is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.