Software & updates
The Salt Light Instrument updates itself automatically over the air, with a rollback safety net if an update ever misbehaves. Here's what's current, and how to flash it yourself if you'd rather.Current version2026.09.18·110Released Sep 18, 2026 · ESP32-P4Devices on Wi-Fi pull this automatically within a few hours. No action needed.
Flash it yourself
For the hands-on: download the current firmware image and flash it over USB with ESPHome(opens in new tab) or esptool. Verify the download against the md5 below before flashing.Download firmware image · 2.79 MB- md57010ea80c2de837bfe8292777e965c7e
- version2026.09.18·110
- chipESP32-P4
Release notes
Every over-the-air update, newest first. Tap a version to read what changed.NewEvery page has a new look built around open space and thin dividing lines instead of boxed-in cards. The header is now the same everywhere: the current page's name (or, on Home, this display's location), the date, when data last refreshed, and the clock.
ChangedFerry's next departure now sits in its own panel above the schedule instead of sliding down inside the list, so it stays easy to spot, and boat names spell out in full (High-speed, Standard) now there's room.
ChangedThe Sky page's compass ring now reads to the nearest direction (N, NE, E, and so on) rather than degrees, and aurora activity is shown on a plain 0 to 9 scale.
ChangedNotifications now uses an ordinary on/off switch for each alert, with its trigger threshold tucked behind a tap on the row instead of a slider sitting in the list.
ChangedThe little swimmer picture on Home's surf reading is gone; the wave height and period numbers are still there.
ImprovedThe bottom navigation bar's underline now always points at the page you're actually on, including Local Signals and Ships.
NewDisplays fitted with the small amber status light now have a settled language for it. A slow breath means all is well and the data is current. A steady dim glow means the connection has been down for ten unbroken minutes. Quick blinking means a brand-new display is waiting to be set up. One light, one colour, so meaning is carried by motion, and it is deliberately quiet: its real job is the hours when the screen is dark.
NewIf an alert fires while nobody is around, the banner clears and the screen goes back to sleep, but the status light keeps giving two quick winks so the alert leaves a trace. Tapping the screen or simply walking up to the display clears it.
NewSettings has a Status light page: switch the light off entirely, keep or drop the missed-alert flash, and choose whether the light fades right down after sunset the way the screen does.
ChangedThe Software card in Settings now has one refresh button that checks for a software update and refetches live data together, with the live data timestamp on its own line beneath the software status. Credits and licenses moved to the top right of the Settings page.
ImprovedThe display keeps much more working memory free while it runs. That headroom matters most when several things happen at once, such as an update downloading while fresh data is arriving, which is exactly when the old margin was thinnest.
ChangedWhich way up the picture appears now comes from how the panel is mounted rather than from software. On an assembled unit nothing looks or behaves differently. A bench unit with its panel mounted upside down needs turning over after this update.
FixedText that arrives from outside the display now always renders in full. Service alerts, marine advisories, shark sighting notes and vessel names are copied from web pages and feeds, which use typographic characters the display's fonts do not carry, so a curly quote, a long dash or an ellipsis could appear as an empty box. Those characters are now converted to their plain equivalents on arrival, accented letters keep their base letter, and anything with no sensible plain form is removed cleanly rather than leaving a broken half-character. Degree signs are untouched.
ImprovedA dash between times survives the conversion, so a notice about "4:30-6:00 sailings" can no longer collapse into "4:306:00".
NewA display set to your own coordinates now shows the name of the place it is reporting on, in the header, in the setup wizard and on the location card in Settings, instead of a pair of numbers. Place names come from OpenStreetMap.
NewThe hidden developer diagnostics page (tap the software version ten times from Settings) now has a Devices tab, showing live readings from the presence sensor, including whether someone's detected and how far away, alongside this display's own chip, Wi-Fi signal, and memory health. Everything on it updates about twice a second while it's on screen.
ImprovedGroundwork inside the display, with nothing to see on screen. Several things that were being rebuilt or re-read far more often than they change now happen once and are remembered, including the animated number readouts, the event log tally, and three status readings that were refreshing every minute. This leaves more of the display's scarce internal memory free and cuts a steady trickle of flash reads.
FixedVery long text arriving from outside the display, such as a lengthy ferry service notice, is now trimmed to a sensible length before it is stored. Trimming also never cuts a character in half, which previously could have left an empty box on screen.
ImprovedThe ferry and airport alert badges at the top of the screen now sit together just to the left of the clock, and close ranks when only one of them is showing, instead of leaving a gap where the other one would have been.
FixedThe memory figure sent with opt-in diagnostics measured the wrong pool. It reported the large external memory instead of the small internal pool a display can actually run out of, so it always looked healthy no matter how tight things were. It now reports internal memory, including the largest single free block, which is the figure that actually gives warning before trouble. Nothing about how the display works day to day changes.
FixedSome characters in ferry service alerts appeared as empty boxes on the Alerts screen, an ampersand being the usual culprit. Text that arrives from outside the display, including alerts, vessel names and place names, now renders in full.
ImprovedThe display used to repaint the entire screen once a minute just to move the clock forward. It now redraws only what actually changed, which removes a recurring hitch and leaves the picture noticeably steadier.
NewIf the cloud vessel feed goes quiet for more than an hour, the Ships page now says "AIS feed offline" and shows how old the last vessel data is, instead of suggesting the water is empty.
ImprovedThe Cloud AIS freshness label turns amber whenever vessel data is stale, so an outage is visible at a glance even when ships are still shown.
FixedTide times could blank out (showing "--") when the tide data service had a temporary outage. The display now keeps showing the last known tide table until fresh predictions return, and remembers it across a restart.
NewNew displays now open with a short setup guide on first power-on: connect to Wi-Fi, choose your location, and name the display. Displays that are already set up are never interrupted by it.
NewThe clock now sets its own time zone from your chosen location, so the time is right without any manual adjustment.
ImprovedWhen setting a custom location you can now type in an exact latitude and longitude, alongside the sliders.
NewOptional fleet management: in Privacy & data you can allow Edge Coastal to view and adjust this display's settings remotely to help with support. It stays off unless you turn it on.
ImprovedEvery page now keeps clear space above the bottom bar. The Sea, Sky, Ferry, Alerts, Signals, and Ships layouts were each tightened so nothing crowds or hides behind the navigation.
ImprovedThe ferry boards fit the full summer schedule in slightly trimmer rows, and the sky map's legend tucks neatly beside the dome.
NewOn dry days the weather card now shows the current cloud cover next to the feels-like temperature, so a clear-vs-gray sky is a number, not a guess.
ImprovedThe selected tab in the bottom bar now lights up the full height of the bar, and the bar sits a little higher off the bottom edge.
ImprovedThe big temperature sits closer to the top of the weather card, trimming the empty space above it.
NewThe Home screen has a new look: a warm sand-toned header, cards that sit on soft shadows, and a cleaner bottom bar where Home is a proper tab alongside the others.
ImprovedAir quality now reads as its own little column: the number large, with the plain-language rating right under it.
ImprovedThe tide chart and the ocean readings share one Marine card, and the hourly forecast columns are gently tinted by their conditions: sunny, cloudy, or rain.
ImprovedThe surf swimmer got some personality tuning. His smile sits a touch higher, and when the surf is overhead he drops his arms and looks appropriately concerned.
ImprovedSwitching pages is now instant. The slide animation between pages has been removed, so a tap on any tab lands immediately.
ChangedThe little-used local web page (opening the display's address in a browser) has been retired to free up working memory for future features. Home Assistant and app connections are unaffected.
FixedThe Ships page's data note under the clock always said "just now," even when the last update was many minutes old. It now shows how long it's actually been.
FixedSwitching between saved Wi-Fi networks could occasionally make the screen flash and the display restart. The display now draws less peak power while reconnecting, which removes the cause on a healthy power supply. If a restart still happens, it points to an underpowered USB adapter or cable, use a solid 5V supply.
FixedThe Wi-Fi password screen now shows real dots as you type. Passwords and network names with punctuation no longer show empty boxes.
FixedThe on-screen keyboard fits fully on the screen, no more scrolling to reach the bottom row. The same fix applies to the sensor rename keyboard.
FixedThe Cancel and Join buttons no longer hide behind the clock bar on the password screen.
NewWhen a ferry service alert is active, a red ferry pill now appears at the top of the screen. Tap it to read the full notice.
NewWhen flying conditions at the Block Island airport turn poor, a red plane pill appears beside it. Tap it for the details.
NewAlerts opened from these pills close on their own after ten seconds, with a countdown shown, or right away with the Close button.
FixedWhile connected, scanning for networks could show only the one you were already on. The scan now checks every channel individually, so all nearby networks appear.
FixedScanning while connected no longer briefly drops the connection afterward.
FixedThe display now shows right-side up for how the unit sits in its case, with touch lined up correctly to match.
FixedNetworks you joined from the Wi-Fi settings screen were not being remembered properly: after a restart or a software update the display could quietly forget them and fail to reconnect. Saved networks now register correctly every time the display starts, and they survive software updates and power cuts.
ChangedThe display no longer ships with any network built in. The networks you join are the only ones it knows, and the most recently joined one goes to the top of the list.
NewThe Wi-Fi screen now shows your saved networks alongside the scan results. Arrows set the order they are tried in (top first), and an X forgets a network.
FixedSearching for networks while the display was offline could come back with "No networks found" even when networks were in range. The scan now retries on its own, so nearby networks show up reliably.
NewA display with no Wi-Fi configured can also be set up over its USB port from a computer, as a rescue path.
ChangedThe Notifications settings now fit on one screen, no scrolling. Each alert is a single line: its name, the current value, and two icons. A green power icon turns the alert on or off; a green bell turns its sound on or off.
ChangedThe value slider appears only when an alert is switched on, so the page stays calm and the active alerts are obvious at a glance. Alerts start switched off.
NewEach moving boat on the Ships radar now shows a short heading line, so you can see which way it is going at a glance, not just where it is.
NewTap a vessel and the details now include where it is bound and its ETA when the boat broadcasts them, plus whether it is closing on you (with its nearest pass and how many minutes away) or moving off.
ImprovedA vessel's status is clearer: anchored, moored, fishing, or under sail now shows directly instead of being guessed from its speed.
ImprovedStreamlined how the Ships radar handles taps and trimmed the display's memory use, leaving more headroom so it stays stable as new features are added. No change to what you see on screen.
ImprovedThe Ships radar is now larger, filling half the screen like the sky map, so the chart and vessels are easier to read.
NewTap any vessel on the radar to open its details, the same as tapping it in the list.
ImprovedThe Ships radar now has Block Island and the surrounding water drawn underneath it, like the sky map, so you can see at a glance where each vessel is in relation to the island.
ChangedThe bottom navigation bar is simpler and better balanced. Home and Settings are now matching plain icons at the far left and right, and the screens in between (Sea, Sky, Ferry, Alerts and more) are spread evenly across the bar as labeled tabs. The option to switch the bar to an icon-only style has been removed in favor of this single, consistent layout.
FixedA few characters were showing as empty boxes on the Ships screen and in the vessel details. They now display correctly.
NewA new Ships screen shows the vessels around Block Island on a compass radar and a closest-first list. Each boat shows its name and type, how far off and in which direction, its speed, and whether it is close enough to make out by naked eye or with binoculars. Ferries, cargo ships, tankers, sailboats, fishing boats and more each get their own color, and the bigger the vessel the larger its dot on the radar.
NewAn optional alert lets you know when a notable vessel comes into range, such as a tall ship, a naval vessel, a research ship, or a megayacht. Turn it on under Settings, Notifications.
ChangedVessel positions are drawn from public marine-traffic data over the internet. The display shows them as cloud-sourced information; it does not yet have its own onboard receiver.
NewWhen the display powers on, it now greets you: the Salt Light Instrument lighthouse and name ease into view on a calm black screen, rest there for a few seconds, then give way to your dashboard.
ImprovedThe ferry times now update on their own. The display checks the official Block Island Ferry schedule and keeps the Ferry screen accurate as sailings shift through the season, so the times stay right with no software update. The day tabs follow along, and if the display is offline it falls back to the built-in timetable.
FixedThe Point Judith ferry times now match the official 2026 schedule, and they change with the day of the week. Both the traditional and high-speed boats are shown, and the weekday, Tuesday/Thursday, and weekend timetables each list their real departures instead of one fixed, out-of-date list. The day tabs on the Ferry screen now show each day's actual times too.
FixedThe bottom tab bar no longer slides or rubber-bands when you swipe between screens. A swipe now just changes the screen, and the bar stays put.
ImprovedThe bottom tab bar now stays visible on the Settings screen, so you can jump straight to any screen instead of swiping back first.
FixedSwiping between screens now moves in the same left-to-right order as the bottom tabs (Home, Sea, Sky, Ferry, Alerts, Signals), instead of jumping around. The Alerts screen is now part of the swipe sequence too.
FixedTouching the sky map, the moon, or other readouts no longer dims them. The brief tap feedback now appears only on buttons and the settings tiles, where it belongs.
ImprovedThe settings and configuration screens have a more polished, instrument-like look: an elegant serif heading on each one, a calm navy icon tile on every setting, a hairline rule under the title, and cleaner spacing. The everyday data screens are unchanged.
ImprovedButtons and tiles now give a little visual feedback when you tap them: they dim briefly and show a soft outline while your finger is down, so it is clear the tap registered.
ImprovedSettings is simpler to navigate. Related options are now grouped into matching tiles you tap to open: Display (brightness, night mode, which pages show, the start screen, and the bottom bar style), Notifications (alert sound, volume, what sets off an alert and at what level, plus quiet hours), and Connectivity (Wi-Fi, offline mode, and privacy and data). The old row of small icons under the title is gone, so the screen is cleaner and everything has a clear home.
NewPresence wake now has its own on and off switch under Settings, Display. When it is on, the screen wakes as you walk up and rests when the room is empty.
NewThe display now senses when someone is nearby. It wakes as you approach and quietly rests the screen after the room has been empty for a couple of minutes, then lights up again the moment you walk back. A tap still wakes it too.
NewWhen a Local Signals receiver is connected, the display now discovers nearby Bluetooth sensors on its own (Govee, Xiaomi/ATC, and BTHome thermometers and hygrometers) alongside ESP-NOW sensors, showing temperature and humidity together with a small icon for how each one connects.
NewName your sensors: tap any sensor on the Local Signals screen to rename it (Bedroom, Garage, and so on), and the name is remembered across restarts. A Rescan button refreshes the list.
FixedAutomatic over-the-air updates now work reliably. The secure connection the display uses to check for new firmware was running short on memory and failing to complete on some units; the display now allocates that memory more efficiently during the check, so it can fetch and install updates on its own again.
NewOn the Local Signals screen, each connected sensor now shows a small icon for its radio, so you can tell at a glance how a device connects: a broadcast mark for ESP-NOW, the Bluetooth mark for BLE, with LoRa and others ready as the sensor lineup grows.
NewGroundwork for Local Signals: nearby wireless sensors that report to the display. When a compatible sensor is connected, a new Signals tab appears showing its latest reading, along with signal strength, battery, and when it last reported. Displays without a sensor are unchanged, and you can hide the screen under Settings, Display.
ChangedThe shifting day/night background has been retired in favor of a calm, warm linen color behind every screen. Your cards of weather, tide, sky and ferry information sit cleanly on top, easy to read at a glance in any light. The on/off switch for the old living background is gone, since the background no longer changes.
NewOn the Alerts screen, tap any alert to read its full text: the complete marine advisory, the ferry's service notice in full, or what a tripped surf, wind, rain, shark, aurora or air-quality alert means. Tap Close to go back.
ImprovedFerry alerts are smarter. The display now raises a ferry alert only when the ferry posts a real service notice, and shows its full wording, instead of treating the ferry's everyday date marker as an alert.
NewA new Alerts tab gathers everything that needs your attention in one place: marine advisories, ferry and airport alerts, and any of your own notification alerts that are currently tripped, like high surf, high wind, rain, a shark nearby, the aurora, or poor air quality. A small dot appears on the Alerts tab whenever something is active, and the screen reads "No active alerts" when all is calm.
ChangedThe header is tidier. The corner bell and the little condition pills are gone; what is happening now lives on the Alerts screen, and you still choose which alerts fire and at what thresholds under Settings, Notifications.
NewA tab bar now sits at the bottom of the screen. Home, Sea, Sky and Ferry are one tap away, with a small settings button in the corner, so you no longer have to swipe through every screen to reach the one you want. Swiping still works if you prefer it.
NewTwo tab-bar styles to choose from under Settings, Display: a soft floating "Pill" bar that labels every tab (the default), or a minimal "Icons" bar that shows just icons and names only the screen you are on.
NewA bell in the top corner opens your alerts from any screen.
ImprovedThe header is slimmer and every page was re-flowed to fit, so cards sit evenly inside the screen with room to breathe. Cards are now a clean, consistent off-white throughout, and the living background is kept to the data screens while Settings stays plain for easy reading.
NewA living background now sits behind every screen: a calm day/night color wash that shifts with the light, brighter by day and deep through the night, with the cards floating over it. It is on by default; turn it on or off under Settings, Display.
ImprovedWith Block Island Mode off and a custom location set, your live weather, tides, seas and air quality now follow that spot, not just the Moon and sky. Tides snap to the nearest station automatically, and marine advisories come from your own area. Block Island itself is unchanged.
ImprovedSwiping between screens is now instant. The old sliding animation could stutter on its way across the panel; pages now switch crisply the moment you swipe, with no judder.
NewEvery alert's Tune screen now explains its setting in plain language, so you can choose a threshold with confidence. It tells you what wind starts blowing sand around and when umbrellas and tents give up, what wave height suits bodysurfing versus surfing, what a rain chance really means, how high the northern-lights index has to climb to see anything from here, and what an air-quality number means for a day outside. The tips are written for Block Island for now.
FixedThe display now re-verifies with the server immediately before installing an update, so a stale "update available" can never make it reinstall the version it is already running.
FixedThe display no longer reinstalls firmware it already has. A timing quirk could make it briefly think an update was pending and reinstall the same version, which blanked the screen and restarted it for no reason. It now updates only when there is genuinely a newer version.
NewHome now shows the wind gust range alongside the steady wind, so you can see how gusty it really is at a glance.
NewThe overhead sky map labels each bearing with its numeric heading in degrees, not just the compass points.
NewAdvisory pills in the header surface the day's notable conditions right at the top, wherever you are in the display.
ImprovedThe Notifications screen is more compact, so more of your alerts fit on screen at once.
ImprovedThe header bar is 15% slimmer, and every page was re-flowed to make the most of the extra room.
NewYou can now turn individual pages off in Settings, to pare the display down to just the screens you care about.
NewOn-device attributions for the open-source software the display uses, plus the licensing files that ship with it.
NewA plain-language privacy notice is now published on the website, spelling out exactly what the display does and does not share.
ImprovedThe Home screen's surf indicator is now a little swimmer standing in the water. The waterline rises with the wave height, and the face reads the day: a smile when it's rideable, a worried look when it's overhead. A quicker read than the old bars.
NewPrivacy & data controls. A new “Privacy and data” screen (Settings → Connection) shows exactly what your display shares and puts you in charge. Basic diagnostics, counts only, like restarts and uptime, are on so we can spot problems and help faster; product-improvement data (which screens you use) stays off until you turn it on. Switch any of it off, or reset your unit's random ID, anytime.
NewSee what was sent. Your display's own local web page now shows the last diagnostics summary it sent and when, and a full plain-language privacy notice lives at ecin.net/privacy.
ImprovedHonest by design. Everything shared is counts and numbers only, never your location, your network, or anything on screen, sent only to Edge Coastal Instruments, never shared or sold.
NewSet a custom location. Turn off Block Island Mode in Settings and dial in your own latitude and longitude. The Moon, planets and overhead sky map (and the sunrise/sunset times) are then computed for exactly your spot. Weather, tides and sea data stay Block Island.
ImprovedPower-loss safety. Settings are saved the moment you change them, and a cut power event is recorded in the event log, so a yanked plug can't quietly lose your preferences.
ImprovedAurora activity now reads as a plain-language pill, “Glow on horizon,” “Overhead glow,” and so on, colour-coded by strength, with the raw Kp number kept small alongside.
ImprovedThe Sea screen's water temperature now shows a warming/cooling arrow next to the trend, matching the Home screen.
NewThe Ferry “Done for the Day” stamp gained a cheeky line: “so start swimming.”
NewSettings has a new “Block Island Mode” that pins the display to its home location, so the Moon, planets and sky map are always computed for exactly here. Groundwork for choosing a custom location.
NewA new “Air quality” alert under Notifications can let you know when the air-quality index climbs past a level you choose, with its own quiet-hours.
NewOnce the last ferry of the day has sailed, the Ferry screen stamps the timetable with a “Done for the Day” mark. It clears for the new day at midnight.
NewThe Home screen shows whether the ocean is warming or cooling, with an arrow and the change right next to the water temperature.
NewSurf height now has a quick visual gauge on Home: little rising bars that fill to the current size.
ImprovedThe sky map now shows only what's actually above the horizon, for a cleaner overhead view.
NewThe Home screen now shows your local air-quality index at a glance, colour-coded from good to unhealthy.
NewThe Sky screen tracks aurora activity (the planetary Kp index), with an optional “Aurora” alert under Notifications.
ImprovedThe sky map's bearing marks now include degree numbers around the rim.
NewThe Home screen now shows ocean temperature and surf height at a glance, below a more compact tide chart.
ImprovedThe Sky screen's overhead map has bearing marks around its rim; the Moon panel is tidier and the map has more room.
ImprovedRise and set times now show with simple up and down arrows instead of the words “rise” and “set.”
ImprovedTapping a day other than Today shows that day's full timetable with the first boat highlighted and the day named.
ChangedThe Ferry screen is now a clean departure board: both directions side by side, with departure, boat type and arrival in tidy columns.
NewYour next boat is highlighted with a live countdown (“in 12 min”) and its arrival, and the highlight moves down the board through the day.
ImprovedHigh-speed and traditional sailings are colour-coded; boats that have left are dimmed.
NewSky-event alerts: be told when something overhead is worth stepping outside for, like a full moon over open water or a bright planet well-placed in a dark sky.
NewTonight's Sky: a quick rundown of the Moon and each visible planet, with the best time to catch it.
NewSurf at a glance: the Sea screen describes the waves in plain language, and whether it's clean groundswell or short-period chop.
NewQuiet hours: alerts still appear on screen but stay silent overnight. Each alert can opt in or out.
NewA new Offline mode in Settings → Connection: the display stops reaching the internet while everything local keeps working: screen, clock, sky map, saved weather and tides, event log, and the local web view.
NewThe Sky screen shows a photorealistic Moon: the real lunar surface, lit to tonight's exact phase, with earthshine on the dark side, computed entirely on the device.
ImprovedThe overhead sky map is zoomed in closer on Block Island.
FixedSky-map markers now clearly show each body's state by colour; swiping no longer catches on the Sharks card; the event log records reliably from first boot.
Warranty
Every instrument is hand-built, and I stand behind the hardware. Coverage depends on which edition you have.1 year
Keeper Edition
The Keeper Edition is warranted against hardware defects for one year from delivery.30 days
Maker's Edition
The Maker's Edition is built to be opened, modified and tinkered with, so it carries a 30-day warranty against hardware defects from delivery.Source code and licenses
The Salt Light Instrument firmware is open source under the GPLv3. Get the complete source, read the license, and see every third-party component, font and data source it is built on.- Firmware source repositoryPublishing soon. In the meantime, request a copy by email using the written offer below.
- Firmware license (GPLv3)
- Third-party notices and attributionsEvery open source component, font and data source, with its license.