Someone revived two vintage wind meters from an airport tower using an ESP32-C6

Credit: Evening_Stretch100 Published Nov 2, 2026, 2:35 AM EST Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Someone saved vintage airport wind meters and gave them a digital second life with an ESP32 They 3D printed a case and wired an ESP32 to the dials to take readings from personal weather data. Gets wind data via AcuRite Atlas → RTL-SDR → Raspberry Pi → WeeWX → MQTT, and falls back to weather reports. If you have some vintage hardware lying around and you're not sure what to do with it, always hand it over to a tinkerer. It saves it from going to landfill, and the tinkerer can do something cool with it. For instance, someone managed to save these two vintage wind meters from an airport tower, then got to work hooking them up to their weather station so they can have a second, more digital, life. This ESP32-C6 project saved some stunning dials from the landfill It's practical, too Over on the ESP32 subreddit, user Evening_Stretch100 tells a story about how an old control tower at their local airport was being torn down. Of course, it had some old hardware inside of it sitting around, presumably doomed to the dumpster if nobody bothered to take it. They set eyes on a vintage wind speed and direction meter and decided to give it a new lease on life. What they got was pretty bare-bones, so they 3D printed a case to house everything, then attached a XIAO ESP32-C3 to the dials. One of them detailed how fast the wind was going (which ended up being easier than they expected to wire up) while the other showed the direction (which was a bit trickier). As for the wind data, Evening_Stretch100 hooked it up to an AcuRite Atlas they had. The Atlas beamed its data over using RTL-SDR on a Raspberry Pi, which chewed it over using WeeWX and sent the result using MQTT. The wind dials then adjusted depending on what the Atlas had read. If the DIY weather station ever goes quiet for two minutes, the ESP32 resorts to weather reports for its data. If you'd like more like this, check out the time someone turned a vintage rotary phone into an AI voice assistant.