Thank you to Luis Lopez Martinez for writing in and sharing the release of his open-source software, IC-SDR, a new multi-mode SDR application for Windows written in Gowith a focus on performance and efficiency. Luis writes:
IC-SDR supports AM, NFM, WFM, LSB and USB demodulation, along with several integrated digital decoders:
AIS
ADS-B (1090 MHz and UAT 978 MHz)
Radiosondes
APRS
RTL_433
DMR
SSTV
TETRA
It also includes a memory bank, real-time spectrum and waterfall displays, an audio recorder with automatic silence removal, and a frequency-segment scanner with instant triggering.
Thank you to Christian Ebner from ebcTech, who has submitted news about his newly released Android app RTL-SDR 433, which lets you run the rtl_433 decoder directly on your phone using an RTL-SDR dongle connected via a USB OTG cable.
The app bundles rtl_433 as a native Android library and supports all 258 device protocols out of the box, including weather stations, TPMS, wireless doorbells, PIR motion sensors, energy meters, door/window contacts, and remote sockets. Decoding runs entirely on-device with no internet connection required, no root, and no special drivers. It uses the standard Android USB Host API together with a libusb Android port.
The UI is built with Jetpack Compose and Material 3, and shows a live list of unique sensors with expandable cards (temperature, pressure, RSSI, raw JSON) plus a full history log. The app is free to try with a decreasing per-session reading limit, and a one-time purchase for a few dollars removes the limit permanently.
We note that the GPL-licensed native layer (rtl_433, rtl-sdr, libusb Android port and EBC's integration glue) is published openly at github.com/ebc81/rtlsdr433-native-gpl in compliance with GPL-2.0, while the UI layer remains closed-source.
Being somewhat disappointed with a cheap all-in-one weather station's data, lack of local storage and customisation possibilities, Vinnie decided he could do better and build his own custom solution instead. While working on an existing Raspberry Pi based ADS-B station that he had already deployed, he realised that the hardware was largely underutilised and would make an ideal platform for additional RF decoding tasks.
By adding a second RTL-SDR dongle and using the popular rtl_433 software, Vinnie was able to receive and decode data from an Ecowitt WS90 all-in-one outdoor weather sensor. Unlike many consumer weather stations, the WS90 operates as a simple one-way RF transmitter with no cloud dependency, making it ideal for local SDR-based decoding and long-term data ownership.
All weather data is received locally over RF, decoded into JSON, processed on the Raspberry Pi, and stored locally without relying on third-party cloud services. Rainfall totals, daily highs and lows, and historical trends are calculated entirely in software, giving full transparency and flexibility over how the data is handled. A simple web dashboard then displays current conditions and recent history on the local network.
The entire system runs in Docker containers alongside the ADS-B feeder, keeping services isolated and easy to maintain. Optional one-way data sharing to weather aggregation services can be enabled if desired, but the station functions fully offline by default.
In his post, Vinnie has written an in-depth overview of the hardware choices, RF decoding, data pipeline, and software architecture behind the project, including why certain sensors were chosen and how rainfall is calculated from raw impulse data. The code is all opensource and available on his GitHub.
Vinnie's Outdoor ADS-B + Weather Station, and the Ecowitt 90 Weather station.
Thank you to Jaron McDaniel for writing in and sharing with us the release of his open source software called "rtl_haos". rtl_haos is a 'drop-in' bridge that turns one or more RTL-SDR dongles into Home Assistant friendly sensors via rtl_433 and MQTT. Jaron writes:
I just finished a tool that that bridges data received from rtl_433 into Home Assistant friendly entities. Basically allowing you to integrate anything rtl_433 can see into Home Assistant.
Basically you clone the git to a Rasberry PI, configure it for your MQTT server, plug in a RTL-SDR or two and you'll see entities with icons and units automatically assigned to whatever rtl_433 discovers.
This tool allows you to connect older and cheap non-Wi-Fi connected sensors to Home Assistant, which typically communicate to a base station via wireless ISM band signals. Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that integrates and controls household devices such as lights, sensors, and actuators.
Back in 2021 we posted about a SDR# plugin that allowed you to interface with rtl_433 from within SDR#. RTL433 (rtl_433) is a commonly used RTL-SDR command line program that provides decoders for a wide range of 433.92 MHz, 868 MHz, 315 MHz, 345 MHz, and 915 MHz ISM band devices. Examples of such devices include weather stations, alarm sensors, utility monitors, tire pressure monitors and more.
Recently there have been a few updates to the plugin after a years hiatus which probably meant that the older version was not compatible with newer versions of SDR#. But there are also several bugfixes and minor changes made to the plugin too which can be read about on the GitHub Readme.
To download the plugin we recommend clicking on the green <>Code button on the GitHub page and choosing Download Zip. You can then browse to the install/1.5.6.2 folder. Copy the three .dll files into the Plugins folder in your SDR# directory. Then open SDR#, go to the main hamburger menu -> plugins -> RTL_433.
Earlier in the month we posted about how rtl_433 has been ported to ESP32 devices that are combined with CC1101 or SC127X transceiver chips, such as the low cost LILYGO LoRa 32 boards available on Aliexpress.
Over on YouTube Matt from the Tech Minds channel has uploaded a video showing how to set up rtl_433 on an ESP32 device, and how to set it up with a home automation service like Home Assistant, Node Red or OpenHAB via an MQTT broker.
PCB boards that combine these two chips can be found cheaply on Aliexpress as LoRa boards, under the name "LILYGO LoRa 32". If you are unaware, ESP32 chips cheaply combine a WiFi and Bluetooth modem with a microcontroller that is capable of hosting a webserver. CC1101 and SC127X are low cost low power hardware transceiver chips made for IOT devices. We've posted about LILYGO boards in the past as they've been used with interesting projects such as Meshtastic, and for weather balloon tracking.
This project could be useful for home automation as a module has been made available for openMQTTGateway. Instead of dedicating a more powerful Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR, you can now dedicate a much cheaper and much lower power device to the task.
Over on the TechMinds YouTube channel Matt has uploaded a video demonstrating the use of the ISM Packet Decoder plugin for SDR# which was released a few months ago. The plugin authors website also contains more information about the installation and features of plugin.
The plugin makes use of the well known rtl_433 software behind the scenes, which is a command line based RTL-SDR compatible decoder for various wireless ISM band devices such as weather stations, car keys, tire pressure sensors, doorbells and various other remote controlled devices. The plugin GUI makes using and displaying data from rtl_433 much more convenient.
