Zasder Zasder

Zasder Weather / Flash your LilyGO

Flash your LilyGO from the browser

Turn a LilyGO T3 ESP32 board, about $20, into a real-time radio receiver for your weather station, decoded off the air and posted straight to your backend. No command line, no toolchain: plug in USB, click Install, done in about two minutes. Works in Chrome and Edge on a computer (phones and Safari/Firefox can't talk to USB serial).

1 · Pick your station's band

The radio band is set by your sensors, not the board — both firmwares run on the same LilyGO T3 (V1.6.1, the SX1276/78 LoRa variant).

433 MHz

AcuRite Atlas and most AcuRite sensor suites.

This browser can't reach USB serial — use Chrome or Edge on a computer. Serial access needs an https page — reload this page over https.

915 MHz

Fine Offset family — Ambient Weather WS-2902/WS-5000 and most Ecowitt sensor arrays.

This browser can't reach USB serial — use Chrome or Edge on a computer. Serial access needs an https page — reload this page over https.

2 · Plug in and install

  1. Connect the LilyGO to your computer with a data USB cable (some charge-only cables never enumerate).
  2. Click the Install button above for your band and pick the board's serial port in the browser prompt — it usually shows as CP210x, CH910x, or USB Serial.
  3. For a new board, accept the offer to erase the device. Flashing takes about two minutes; leave the tab open.
  4. When the install finishes, the same dialog offers to connect the board to Wi-Fi — pick your network, type its password, and the credentials travel over the USB cable. Then click Visit Device to open the board's settings page.
No port in the list? macOS and Windows sometimes need the USB-serial driver for the board's chip (CP210x or CH9102 — the chip is printed next to the USB connector). Install it, replug, and the port appears. If the flash stalls at "Connecting…", hold the board's BOOT button while clicking Install.

3 · Point it at your backend

If you gave the board your Wi-Fi in the install dialog, it joins your network on its own. If no Wi-Fi was saved, the board instead broadcasts a setup network named ZasderLilyGO (password zasder-setup). Join it from your phone, and the captive portal asks for your home Wi-Fi, just the Wi-Fi and nothing else.

Once the board is on your network, open its settings page: Visit Device in the install dialog goes there, or open http://zasder-lilygo-XXXX.local/ in a browser, where XXXX is the last four characters of the board's MAC address. Enter your backend address, which must start with https://, your ingest token, and the setup key shown on the board's screen. That page is plain HTTP and the key stays valid for re-pairing, so do this from your own home network, not a shared or guest one. The setup planner shows the exact values for your install. From then on the board decodes your sensors off the air (about every 16 seconds) and posts them to your backend.

Prefer the command line, or flashing from a phone-less setup? The firmware also builds and uploads with PlatformIO — see the backend repository's lilygo-relay/ directory.