Live coastal feeds over Wi-Fi
Weather, outdoor air quality, tides, sky, surf, marine vessel traffic and the next ferry, synced over Wi-Fi and cached so a dropped signal never leaves the screen blank.
Development roadmap
The Salt Light Instrument is built in the open by one person. This is where future versions get laid out and teased: what I am building now, what is drawn up, and what I am still just exploring. It is meant to show the direction, and to give you something concrete to push back on.
Plans, not promises
Everything past what is shipping today is a plan. Specs, hardware, features and timelines can change at any time, for any reason. This page reflects the most current direction and nothing more. Please do not buy on the strength of something that is still in development or being explored. If a date or a detail matters to you, ask me first.
Tell me what to build
This is a one-person shop, and the roadmap bends toward what owners actually want. I want feedback on all of it: what you would use, what is missing, what you would happily drop, and what order it should come in. You will genuinely shape what gets built next.
Send feedbackShipping today
The baseline every unit ships with, so the rest of this page is clearly the part that isn't here yet.
On-board radio: weather stations and ship traffic
A software-defined radio is built into every unit, so it reads nearby personal weather stations and picks up marine (AIS) traffic from passing boats over the air, no internet needed.
On-device sun, moon and tide math
Sun, moon, planet positions and tide curves are computed on the device, so they stay correct with no internet at all.
A living day and night background
A calm color wash sits behind every screen and shifts with the time of day, brighter by day and deep through the night.
Hand-built hardware
A hardwood frame in oak, driftwood or cherry, a slim lit diffuser strip above the screen, and a machined aluminum stand. Updates arrive over the air with a rollback safety net.
In active development
Being worked on now. These are the closest to real, but they are not here yet and the details are still moving.
More coastlines
Block Island is the first tuning. Custom latitude and longitude already live in the firmware, and more pre-tuned coastal towns are being added so the instrument feels native wherever it hangs.
Alpine and ski conditions
Units tuned for the mountains, not just the coast: snow depth and quality, mountain weather, and the day's ski and lift conditions, on the same calm pane of glass.
Outdoor sensor module
A weatherproof, hand-built sensor that lives outside and reports your exact-spot conditions, including outdoor air quality, back to the display, so a reading comes from your bluff, not the nearest station miles away.
Air quality, indoor and out
A small indoor sensor measuring CO2, VOCs, PM2.5 and more, sitting beside the outdoor AQI already on screen, so you can watch your air quality indoors and out.
Salt Light Edge Instrument
A 5-inch, LoRa-enabled remote node for remote deployment. It receives data and readings from the base unit even miles away, license-free, with no subscription and no internet or Wi-Fi needed.
Birdsong ID with BirdNET
An external sensor module, coming soon, listens with BirdNET to name the birds singing around you all day, and alerts you to the rare and interesting ones you'd want to step outside to see and hear for yourself.
Built-in cellular data
An LTE option on the bench now, so an instrument or a sensor can stay current on its own in remote and off-grid spots, without leaning on home Wi-Fi. Development only today, not a shipping feature yet.
Richer living backgrounds
Building on the day and night wash with seasonal and condition-aware moods, so the backdrop reflects what is actually happening outside, while staying calm and out of the way.
Designed, not yet built
Scoped and drawn up, waiting their turn on the bench. Shapes are likely to shift before any of it ships.
A small sensor ecosystem
A keystone receiver so the display can take in one or more external sensors, and a family of local sensors beyond the first outdoor unit. The instrument becomes the calm face for signals around your place.
Deeper, quieter alerts
More glanceable notifications for surf, wind, rain, sharks, air quality, aurora and worth-seeing sky events, with smarter quiet hours so it only speaks up when it matters.
More than one in a home
A path for a few instruments in the same household to share a location and feeds, so a second unit in another room is a small add, not a second setup.
Exploring
Research directions and experiments. Honest truth: some of these may never ship. They are here because they are where my curiosity is pointing, and your input changes which ones get real.
Long-range local mesh
Long-range LoRa radio so instruments and sensors talk to each other directly, local-only, with no internet and no cloud, even where there is no signal. Not shipping yet, but on the roadmap.
Smart-home interop
The onboard radio could one day make it a Thread border router or Zigbee gateway, and a local Home Assistant bridge is on the table for people who self-host. Parked for now while the core gets solid.
Backgrounds painted per place
Backgrounds generated for your specific coastline and season, an evolution of the living background. Promising, but heavier and further out.
Help me make it better
None of this is fixed. The best version of the Salt Light Instrument is the one shaped by the people who live with it. Tell me what you think of any of it, the obvious and the half-formed alike.
Plans and direction, current as of today and subject to change.