Personal FPV Lap Timer
A single node lap timer that can be networked for multi-pilot (multi-node) racing.
A compact, self-contained RSSI-based lap timing solution for 5.8 GHz FPV drones. Perfect for personal practice sessions or small indoor tracks, up to large scale race events in multi-node mode. No transponders, no complex infrastructure — just plug in, wirelessly connect, calibrate, and fly.
Up to 8 devices can wirelessly mesh network and sync together for head-to-head racing (no additional hardware needed) — one master device acts as race director and broadcasts Start / Stop to every connected client, with live laps streaming back from each pilot in real time. Acts like a mesh network. No router required. Even while meshed, each lap timer is still accessible by its own pilot.
| Race Screen | Configuration |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Calibration Wizard — Recording | Calibration Wizard — Complete |
|---|---|
 |
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| Master Race Screen | Master Pilot Edit |
|---|---|
 |
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| Calibration Wizard — Recording | Calibration Wizard — Complete |
|---|---|
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FPVRaceOne uses an RX5808 video receiver module to monitor your drone's RSSI (signal strength). As you fly through the gate:
- Approach — RSSI rises above the Enter threshold → crossing begins
- Peak — RSSI peaks when you're closest to the gate
- Exit — RSSI falls below the Exit threshold → lap time recorded
RSSI │ /\
│ / \
│ / \ ← Single clean peak
Enter ├──/──────\───
│ / \
Exit ├/──────────\─
└─────────────── Time
The time between consecutive peaks is your lap time. The signal processing pipeline is tuned with sensible defaults out of the box, with a single Pipeline Smoothing slider for fine-tuning the balance between responsiveness and noise rejection.
- WiFi Access Point — works with any browser on any device with wifi, no app required
- Mesh Network — up to 7 lap timers can connect to a designated master unit, in addition to the standard Wifi Access Points.
A single 5-stage RSSI processing pipeline: Kalman → Median-of-3 → 7-sample moving average → EMA → step limiter
- Guided fly-over recording with real-time RSSI chart
- Automatic 3-peak detection with manual override
- Enter / Exit threshold calculation with conservative safety margins (Enter ≈ 95 % of weakest peak, Exit ≈ 7 RSSI units below Enter, raised above the noise floor)
- Peak-spread warning if the three peaks aren't reasonably equal — flagged for re-fly before applying
- Live RSSI chart shows exactly what the lap detector sees (final pipeline output)
Network up to 8 devices together with no router and no extra hardware. One device runs in Master mode (race director); up to seven Client devices join the master's WiFi and forward laps automatically.
- Master Recruit — the master scans for every
FPVRaceOne_*AP in range and configures each one as a client in one tap. Ad-hoc events with pilots who haven't pre-configured their timers go from "everyone open Settings" to "tap one button" - One-tap Start All / Stop All — broadcast a synchronised race start to every pilot on the network
- Live per-pilot dashboard on the master — each client renders as a card with pilot name, running indicator (●/○), live lap count, and last lap time, updated via Server-Sent Events with sub-second latency. Slot cards labelled A through G match what the director sees in serial logs
- Edit pilot from the Race tab — pencil icon on every slot card opens a per-pilot editor for name, color, band, channel, RSSI thresholds, and skip flag — works on the master's own host card too
- Calibration Wizard from the modal — run the full guided wizard against any connected client; the wizard records on the target client and pushes thresholds back when you click Apply
- Live RSSI feed in the modal — toggle on the right of the title polls the selected client at 5 Hz; the firmware-side peak-since-last sampler catches a brief gate pass even at that rate. Red Enter / orange Exit threshold lines track the sliders as you drag
- Move (Swap) Pilot to Slot — letter dropdown (A–G) reassigns a node to a different slot; if it's occupied, the two pilots swap places and both persist their new slot to NVS
- DNF tracking — a pilot who taps Stop locally during a master race shows up as DNF on the director's screen; the rest of the heat continues uninterrupted
- Solo-practice override — each client has an Ignore Race Director Start/Stop if already racing toggle so a director's broadcast doesn't kill an in-progress practice run
- Master discovery — clients can scan for available masters in range and pick one from a list (no manual SSID typing required)
- Same UI on every device — every client also runs as a fully featured standalone timer when no master is broadcasting
- Spoken laps using your browser's built-in voice (Web Speech API) — no audio files on the device, so the announcer follows whichever device has the web UI open
- Configurable announcement format (pilot + lap + time, pilot + time, lap + time, time only)
- Per-pass beep or full speech, 2-lap and 3-lap consecutive variants
- Lap times of 60 seconds or longer are announced as "X minute(s) Y point ZZ" — long-track friendly
- Single on/off Voice toggle in Settings
- Real-time lap tracking with gap-to-best analysis
- Fastest lap highlighting
- Fastest 3 consecutive laps (RaceGOW format)
- Interactive race timeline + playback for every saved session
- Marshalling mode — add, remove, or edit laps after the race ended
- Download the session as JSON; re-import later. Race history lives in RAM only on the current hardware — download to keep.
- One-tap OTA from GitHub Releases — built into the device. Enter your home WiFi once; the device joins, checks the latest release, downloads the firmware + filesystem images, flashes both, and reboots.
- Updates are blocked while a race is running. Failed downloads keep the previous firmware, so the device can't be bricked from a flaky network.
- Manual flashing via our custom tool FPVRaceOne-Flasher (windows) — see docs/FLASHING_OPTIONAL.md.
| Band | Channels (MHz) |
|---|---|
| A (Boscam A) | 5865, 5845, 5825, 5805, 5785, 5765, 5745, 5725 |
| B (Boscam B) | 5733, 5752, 5771, 5790, 5809, 5828, 5847, 5866 |
| E (Boscam E) | 5705, 5685, 5665, 5645, 5885, 5905, 5925, 5945 |
| F (Fatshark) | 5740, 5760, 5780, 5800, 5820, 5840, 5860, 5880 |
| R (RaceBand) | 5658, 5695, 5732, 5769, 5806, 5843, 5880, 5917 |
| L (LowBand) | 5362, 5399, 5436, 5473, 5510, 5547, 5584, 5621 |
| DJI v1 25 MHz | 5660, 5695, 5735, 5770, 5805, 5878, 5914, 5839 |
| DJI v1 25 CE | 5735, 5770, 5805, 5839 |
| DJI v1 50 | 5695, 5770, 5878, 5839 |
| DJI O3/O4 10/20 | 5669, 5705, 5768, 5804, 5839, 5876, 5912 |
| DJI O3/O4 20 CE | 5768, 5804, 5839 |
| DJI O3/O4 40 | 5677, 5794, 5902 |
| DJI O3/O4 40 CE | 5794 |
| DJI O4 RaceBand | 5658, 5695, 5732, 5769, 5806, 5843, 5880, 5917 |
| HDZero RaceBand | 5658, 5695, 5732, 5769, 5806, 5843, 5880, 5917 |
| HDZero E | 5707 |
| HDZero F | 5740, 5760, 5800 |
| HDZero CE | 5732, 5769, 5806, 5843 |
| Walksnail RaceBand | 5658, 5659, 5732, 5769, 5806, 5843, 5880, 5917 |
| Walksnail 25 | 5660, 5695, 5735, 5770, 5805, 5878, 5914, 5839 |
| Walksnail 25 CE | 5735, 5770, 5805, 5839 |
| Walksnail 50 | 5695, 5770, 5878, 5839 |
Pre-made and flashed hardware — (ETSY LINK Coming Soon!)
- Power on the device
- Connect your phone or laptop to the
FPVRaceOne_XXXXnetwork (password:fpvraceone) - Open
http://192.168.4.1in your browser (http://192.168.5.1in Master mode) - Go to Settings → Set your VTx band and channel
- Go to Calibration → Run the wizard to set RSSI thresholds
- Press Start and fly!
FPVRaceOne can check for and automatically updates itself from GitHub Releases — no PlatformIO, no cables, no flashing tools required for normal updates.
- Open the web UI → Settings → Firmware Update
- Enter your home WiFi credentials (one-time)
- Tap Check for Updates — the device briefly joins your home network, queries GitHub, then returns to AP mode
- If a newer release is available you'll see the version and release notes — tap Update Now
- The device flashes the filesystem, then the firmware, then reboots once. Total time ~1–3 minutes.
- Hard reload your browser to guarantee new changes are loaded (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac. Tap-and-hold the refresh button on mobile Chrome to get "Hard reload")
Updates are automatically blocked while a race is running.
Product: FPVRaceOne
Platform: Seeed XIAO ESP32-C6
License: MIT
Status: Stable Beta — actively maintained
See CHANGELOG.md for the version history.
FPVRaceOne is derived from FPVGate v1.2.0 by LouisHitchcock, which is itself a heavily modified fork of PhobosLT by phobos-. The original project provided the foundation for RSSI-based lap timing on ESP32.
Note that prior or alternate versions of FPVGate will not flash to FPVRaceOne official hardware.
This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.
Built for pilots, by pilots.