A custom multi-node wireless survey platform I built from a random idea into real hardware. One board, a wall of radios, local logging, GPS ready. No subscriptions. No cloud. Just raw data in your hands.
The production hardware and companion app are both actively being built. The design shown previously has been retired while the new platform is completed and validated.
Both are being built in the open — follow along on Discord and watch the gate evolve.
HellzGate C5 is a passive, multi-node wireless survey platform. One master coordinates a cluster of ESP32-C5 scanner nodes that listen across Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, aggregate to the master, geo-tag, and log — all on your own local network. Start with a board's worth and scale the cluster from there. Nothing leaves the device unless you send it.
Single-port. No batteries.
2.4 & 5 GHz.
Bluetooth LE scanning.
Per-record geo-tagging.
A bank per board — and scaling.
HellzGate didn't start in a lab. It started as an itch — I wanted to actually see the wireless world around me, and one little radio was never going to be enough. So I sketched a box full of them and started building. Here's how it went.
What if instead of one radio sniffing the air, I had a whole cluster of them working together — each one on its own channel, all reporting back to one place? One radio shows you a keyhole. I wanted the whole door.
It started as a scribble — a rectangle, a row of little boxes for the nodes, arrows pointing to a "brain," and a screen on the front. That doodle is basically the layout the board still uses today. Sometimes the dumb-looking sketch is the whole plan.
Next came the sprawling prototype — a pile of modules, a spider-web of jumper wires, and way more nodes than any breadboard should hold. Ugly, held together by stubbornness, but it worked. It proved the whole idea: a master herding a bank of nodes really could scan wide and log clean.
The first custom carrier turned the prototype into real hardware and exposed the engineering work the production platform needed. That original design is now retired; the lessons from it are feeding the current board.
The first boards are on my bench. Firmware is being written from scratch for this exact hardware — ground-up, purpose-built, nothing borrowed. The companion app is in active development and entering Phase 1. My board, my code, my roadmap — shipped in phases as each piece is ready and right.
v2 hardware is actively in development — embedded GPS, qualified USB-C PD power, digital node control, and a smaller field-ready design. The companion app is in active development alongside GateLink. The gate is only getting sharper — follow every step on Discord.
We're finalizing v2 before we open orders. When the boards are ready to ship, this is where you get one — direct, no middlemen.
The full-performance build: a ten-C5 survey array with embedded GPS, protected digital node power and qualified USB-C PD input. Use a compatible wall supply or external PD power bank.