hx-esp32-cam-fpv — Digital FPV on a $10 camera

What you get

A full digital FPV stack, end to end.

Low-latency video link

Frames are transmitted in real time as they are read from the camera sensor, using Wi-Fi packet injection — no waiting for the full frame to arrive first.

640×360 · 800×456 · 1024×576 · 1280x720

MAVLink telemetry & RC

Bidirectional, FEC-encoded serial link carries MAVLink 2 telemetry downlink and RC_CHANNELS_OVERRIDE uplink for full control.

MAVLink 1 / 2 · MSP RC translation

DisplayPort MSP OSD

Render INAV / Betaflight / Ardupilot OSD at 115200 with selectable fonts — your whole HUD, drawn on the ground station.

MSP DisplayPort · MSP RC

Dual recording

Record to SD on both the air unit and ground station simultaneously — identical quality, no recompression.

.avi on air + ground

Forward error correction

FEC 6/12 by default doubles bandwidth so any 6 of 12 packets can drop and the frame still recovers — no acknowledgements, no retransmits.

k=6 n=12

Adaptive compression

Per-frame JPEG quality is tuned in real time to the available bandwidth, SD write speed and Wi-Fi queue — the key to a usable stream.

2-12MB · bandwidth-aware

Two boards, one flight

A tiny air unit. A ground station that listens for kilometers.

XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense air unit with OV5640 camera

VTX · Air unit

XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense + OV5640

Compact, under 300mA, with the best image quality and 720p HQ DVR. The recommended build.

Build the air unit →

Radxa Zero 3W ground station with dual Wi-Fi cards

VRX · Ground station

Radxa Zero 3W, dual diversity

Build the ground station →

See all hardware variants →

Who is this for?

Built for DIY enthusiasts.

This project is for DIY enthusiasts who want to build an FPV system for their own vehicles — RC planes, drones, RC cars and RC boats. This is for people who are experienced in electronics, soldering and embedded programming.

RC Planes Drones RC Cars RC Boats

Pros and cons

Honest expectations

What you gain vs analog

Clean digital image, no analog interference
Simultaneous recording on air unit and ground
Digital OSD with MAVLink telemetry & RC
Tiny, low-power air unit (<300mA @ 5V)
Reuses OpenIPC / RubyFPV ground-station hardware

Honest drawbacks

Blocky JPEG compression artifacts
No wide dynamic range, distorted colors
Poor low-light performance (especially OV2640)
Occasional dropped frames on busy channels
Outclassed by all commercial digital FPV systems

How it works →

Ready to fly

Pick your boards. Flash. Fly.

Head to the GitHub repository to explore the project, or go straight to the downloads page to grab the firmware — or flash it online.

Start the build guide →

Ground stations & apps

Images and companion apps

Radxa Zero 3 SD Card Image ↓ Flashable SD-card image for Rada Zero 3W/3E, Runcam WiFiLink VRX and Emax Wyvern Link VRX Raspberry Pi SD Card Image ↓ SD-card image for Raspberry Pi Zero 2W / 3 / 4 Android app ↓ View the link, telemetry and OSD on an Android phone or tablet (APK). Oculus Quest app ↓ Immersive headset viewer for Meta Quest. Fly in VR-scale FPV (APK).

Air unit firmware

Firmware by board

Pick your board, then choose a stack. Broadcast is the standard one-way video link; APFPV adds the access-point pairing workflow. Flash online from a Chrome-based browser, or download the binary.

Board	Broadcast	APFPV
ESP32-CAMOV2640 · OV3660 · AI-Thinker	Download Flash online	Download Flash online
XIAO ESP32-S3 SenseOV2640 · OV3660 · OV5640 · autodetect	Download Flash online	Download Flash online
ESP32-C5OV3660 · OV5640 · 2.4 + 5.8GHz · experimental	Download Flash online	Download Flash online

All assets on GitHub →