The drone that keeps returning
A sound above the rooftops tells you very little. A received track adds a position, a timestamp and a trail you can follow. Layer400 brings that local reception onto a map, so you can look at the movement in relation to your home, garden and neighbourhood.
Imagine noticing a drone near your garden on several evenings. Open the map around your home, select the received drone and look at its recent path and reception age. You can see whether the recorded movement passes along the street, pauses nearby or moves away.
If you want to compare the evenings, use available playback to revisit the relevant dates. Keep the times and track links together with your own notes. That gives a conversation about repeated activity something more useful than “it was here again”.
Questions worth answering
- Where is the reported drone now, and which way is it moving?
- Does the recorded path pass my home or stay nearby?
- Is there activity at similar times on different days?
The features that fit this setting.
Find the activity around your street
Move to your neighbourhood and open a drone’s details. Its trail and report age help you understand the movement you are actually looking at.
Public live map · identity evidence required; serial-only RID cannot automatically link to ADS-B. Broadcasts are not authenticated by this association.Explore this feature →Add context about the flight’s starting point
With a verified, enabled free account, inspect available reported controller or takeoff locations. These are reference points for the flight, not a directory of people.
Verified, enabled free accountExplore this feature →Return to the moment that caught your attention
Revisit a recorded time window and compare it with when you heard or saw the drone. History access and available recordings apply.
Sign-in and history entitlement applyExplore this feature →Share the observation clearly
Send a public track link so someone else can open the same recorded activity, without including your private account information.
Public track references · available recordingsExplore this feature →Set an area. Choose what brings you back.
Start with an area around your home and the streets immediately around it. A small, purposeful zone makes more sense than treating the whole town as your doorstep.
A new-drone notification can bring your attention back to the map while you are indoors. Open the event to look at the reported position and time before deciding whether it is relevant to you.
- Choose the place. Use the map’s area-alert entry to select your centre and radius, then name the saved area in your account.
- Choose the activity. Review the rules available to your account and enable the ones relevant to this place.
- Choose the channel. Configure an available email, browser push or webhook channel, check quiet hours and send a test.
- Open the observation. Use the event timeline’s Live or Playback link as available to inspect what triggered your attention.
Area alerts · limited rollout. Account and channel availability apply. Email, opt-in browser push and signed webhooks have separate delivery states; notification timing depends on the rule, quiet hours and delivery channel. Check your account’s options and send a test before building a routine around notifications.
Explore your account’s area-alert options →
An area selects relevant received activity. It does not change the receiver’s listening range or create a flight restriction.
Give the receiver a useful home.
- Choose a permanent home for the receiver with dependable power and internet. Use the hardware guide to choose a supported Raspberry Pi and radio combination.
- Plan antenna placement around the roofline and surrounding buildings, with an installation you can safely maintain.
- Link the receiver to your account, confirm it is reporting in My receivers, then explore activity around your home before choosing an alert area.
Questions for this setting.
Can I explore before installing a receiver?
Yes. Start with the public live map and explore received activity near you. Adding a receiver contributes a local listening point that you can manage from your own account.
Can this tell me who owns the drone?
The useful starting point is the received flight record. Available broadcast identifiers and controller or takeoff references provide context; they do not establish a person’s identity.