MAVLINKHUD

Universal FPV: Turning Android into a Pro-Grade Field Monitor

December 29th, 2025
The FPV hobby has a hardware problem. To fly Digital (Walksnail, HDZero), you need an HDMI monitor. To fly Analog, you need a 5.8GHz receiver screen. To fly Long Range, you might need a laptop. MAVLink HUD is consolidating this mess by turning the high-performance OLED screen already in your pocket—your Android phone—into a universal, ultra-low-latency FPV monitor.

The Monitor Problem

Ground stations are heavy. If you are a professional ArduPilot operator or a long-range enthusiast, you likely haul a Pelican case full of redundant screens.

  • High Latency: Most "USB Video" apps on the Play Store are designed for webcams, not flying. They introduce 200ms+ of lag, making them unflyable for real-time operations.
  • No Telemetry: A standard HDMI monitor is "dumb." It displays the video, but your telemetry (OSD) is often baked into the pixel stream, degrading in quality as the signal breaks up.
  • Poor Brightness: Cheap field monitors struggle in direct sunlight. Modern Android phones, however, routinely hit 1000+ nits of brightness.

The Solution: The Universal Video Engine

We are implementing a ground-up rewrite of our video pipeline, bypassing standard camera APIs in favor of a native, bare-metal MediaCodec implementation. This allows MAVLink HUD to act as a "Universal Receiver" for almost any video source.

1. HDMI Input (Digital FPV)

This is the game-changer for Walksnail, HDZero, and DJI pilots.

By using a simple HDMI-to-USB-C Capture Card (available for ~$15), you can connect the HDMI output of your VRX module or Goggles directly to your phone.

  • Zero Configuration: The app auto-detects the USB Video Class (UVC) device.
  • The "Augmented" OSD: Because MAVLink HUD reads the telemetry stream separately (via ELRS/MAVLink), it renders a crisp, 60FPS vector HUD overlay on top of the video. Even if your video feed goes to static, your artificial horizon and home arrow remain perfectly smooth and readable.

2. Analog Input

For the die-hard analog pilots, we support standard OTG 5.8GHz receivers (like the Eachine ROTG02).

Instead of relying on the receiver's blurry internal OSD, you get the full-fidelity MAVLink HUD interface overlaid on your analog feed. It breathes new life into older airframes, giving them a modern "Glass Cockpit" feel without upgrading the onboard camera.

The Frontier: OpenIPC and WFB-ng

We are looking beyond standard video cabling. The future of long-range FPV is packet-based digital transmission.

We are building the infrastructure to support OpenIPC and WFB-ng natively on Android. By connecting a supported Wi-Fi card (like the RTL8812AU) via USB OTG, MAVLink HUD will act as a standalone Ground Station, handling the driver injection and packet decoding internally.

This eliminates the need for a separate Raspberry Pi or VRX module entirely—your phone becomes the receiver.

Hardware Setup

To turn your phone into this ultimate monitor, you need a USB-C Hub that supports Power Delivery (PD). Video processing is battery-intensive, so you want to charge your phone while receiving video data.

Recommended BOM

  • Host: Android Phone (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ recommended for best latency).
  • Interface: RedMagic Gaming Dock or Viture USB-C Adapter (Allows PD Charging + Data).
  • Capture Card: Genki ShadowCast or generic USB 3.0 HDMI Capture (MS2130 chipsets are excellent).
  • Display (Optional): XREAL Air 2 Pro AR Glasses (for a 120" virtual screen).

Roadmap

This video engine is the primary focus of our current development cycle.

  • Phase 1 (Active): Native UVC driver implementation for low-latency HDMI/Analog decoding.
  • Phase 2: Hardware-accelerated rendering pipeline to ensure the HUD overlay introduces zero frame drops.
  • Phase 3: Direct WFB-ng integration for the OpenIPC community.