Raspberry Pi Laptop Cyberdeck — Multi-Display SDR Dashboard

Turn a Raspberry Pi 5 (or any Linux SBC) into a portable RF monitoring station with a CrowPanel 7" ESP32 HMI display and CrowView Note laptop monitor.

This project was built on an Indiedroid Nova but works identically on a Raspberry Pi 5 — see Raspberry Pi Setup Guide for a quick start.

What It Does

The CrowPanel acts as a compact heads-up display for an SDR scanning station:

• LIVE/DEMO status indicator
• Active band and real-time frequency readout
• SNR bar (color-coded) + 30-point scrolling SNR history chart
• ML signal classifier with confidence percentage
• Scan and anomaly counters
• System telemetry — CPU, RAM, temperature (°F arc gauge), uptime
• Polls the SBC every 2 seconds over HTTP

The CrowView Note displays the full web dashboard with spectrum waterfall, anomaly timeline, and intelligence analysis — turning the whole setup into a portable cyberdeck laptop.

Compatibility

This project runs on any Linux SBC with USB and WiFi/Ethernet. Tested and compatible hardware:

Platform	Status	Notes
Raspberry Pi 5	✅ Recommended	Best community support, widely available
Raspberry Pi 4	✅ Compatible	Slightly slower, still works great
Indiedroid Nova	✅ Power User	RK3588S, 16GB RAM — what this demo was built on
Jetson Nano	✅ Compatible	NVIDIA GPU bonus for ML workloads
Orange Pi 5	✅ Compatible	RK3588S, good Nova alternative
Any ARM64/x86 Linux	✅ Compatible	4GB+ RAM, USB 2.0+, Python 3.11+

You just need: USB port (for SDR dongle) + network (for CrowPanel to reach the SBC).

Hardware

Component	Details
Compute	Raspberry Pi 5 (recommended) or Indiedroid Nova (power user)
SDR	RTL-SDR Blog V4 (USB)
Status Display	CrowPanel 7.0" — ESP32-S3, 800×480 RGB, capacitive touch
Main Display	CrowView Note — 15.6" 1080p portable monitor (USB-C DP Alt Mode)
Antenna	Telescoping whip (pictured)

Full parts list with purchase links: hardware/parts-list.md

Quick Start

Raspberry Pi 5 Users

See the dedicated Raspberry Pi Setup Guide for the fastest path.

General Setup

1. Flash the CrowPanel — Connect via USB, build with PlatformIO:

   cd crowpanel-dashboard
   pio run --target upload

2. Run the stats sender on your Pi/Nova/SBC:

   pip install psutil
   python3 nova-stats-sender/stats_sender.py

3. Connect CrowPanel to WiFi — Edit the WiFi credentials in main.cpp and reflash.

4. The CrowPanel will start polling http://<your-sbc-ip>:8088/stats every 2 seconds.

See the full Setup Guide for details.

How It Works

[RTL-SDR V4] ──USB──▶ [Raspberry Pi 5 / Nova / Any SBC]
                                    │
                              stats_sender.py
                              (port 8088)
                                    │
                              WiFi HTTP GET
                                    │
                           [CrowPanel ESP32-S3]
                            800×480 LVGL UI

The stats sender (stats_sender.py) reads live scanner output and system metrics, then serves a simple JSON endpoint. The CrowPanel firmware polls this endpoint and updates the LVGL widgets in real time. It runs on any Linux SBC — the code is hardware-agnostic.

The CrowView Note runs Chromium in kiosk mode pointing at the full web dashboard, creating a portable laptop-style cyberdeck.

Repo Structure

crowview-cyberdeck/
├── crowpanel-dashboard/     # ESP32-S3 firmware (PlatformIO + LVGL + LovyanGFX)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── main.cpp         # Full LVGL UI + HTTP polling
│   │   └── display_driver.h # LovyanGFX RGB LCD driver
│   └── platformio.ini
├── nova-stats-sender/       # Python bridge server (runs on any Linux SBC)
│   └── stats_sender.py      # Reads scanner data, serves JSON on port 8088
├── hardware/
│   └── parts-list.md
├── images/
├── docs/
│   ├── setup-guide.md
│   ├── raspberry-pi-setup.md  # Quick start for Pi 5 users
│   └── troubleshooting.md
└── README.md

Related Projects

• rtl-ml — AI-powered radio signal classification using RTL-SDR and machine learning. The ML classifier referenced in the CrowPanel UI connects to this project.

Tech Stack

• CrowPanel Firmware: C++ / Arduino framework, LVGL 8.3, LovyanGFX, ArduinoJson
• Stats Sender: Python 3, psutil (runs on any Linux)
• Build System: PlatformIO (espressif32@6.5.0)
• Display Driver: Custom LovyanGFX class with PCA9557 I2C GPIO expander for touch reset

Gallery

Acknowledgments

• Elecrow — CrowPanel 7.0" ESP32-S3 HMI display and CrowView Note portable monitor
• AmeriDroid — Indiedroid Nova hardware partner

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.