SOUND TERRARIUM v108cs — A Tiny Airplane in the Living Sky ✈️

✈️ A Tiny Airplane in the Living Sky

v108cs adds a new ambient detail to SOUND TERRARIUM: a tiny distant airplane that occasionally crosses the sky.

This is intentionally not a conventional game event. There is no announcement, score, or sound effect. The airplane simply becomes another quiet part of the living world.

What's new

• A tiny airplane appears automatically only a few times per day
• Appearances favor morning and evening, with occasional daytime passages
• Travels slowly from left to right or right to left
• Takes roughly 40–60 seconds to cross the sky
• Uses a restrained 10 × 5 px side-on silhouette
• Automatic appearances are suppressed during rain, snow, and thunder
• No sound effect or on-screen notification
• At night, the aircraft becomes a dark gray silhouette
• A single yellow tail light blinks slowly in the night sky

The nighttime aircraft is deliberately dark so that its single blinking light can quietly stand out without making the airplane visually dominant.

🌱 BONSAI Spirit

The airplane follows the same principle as the moving ground grains: add life and depth without demanding attention.

The intended moment is simply:

“Hm? ...oh, an airplane.”

Small device. Small world. BONSAI Spirit.

SOUND TERRARIUM v108cr — Built-in Metronome

🎵 Built-in Metronome

The battery display has been retired.

On the Cardputer ADV, the battery reading was not accurate enough to be genuinely useful. Rather than keep an uncertain indicator on the screen, v108cr repurposes that space for something that fits naturally into SOUND TERRARIUM's sound-reactive world: a built-in metronome.

Controls

• B — Metronome ON / OFF
• ← / → — −1 / +1 BPM
• Hold ← / → — Continuous BPM adjustment
• ↓ / ↑ — Volume −10 / +10
• Default tempo: 120 BPM
• BPM range: 40–200
• Default volume: 80%
• Volume range: 20–100%

While the metronome is running, BPM is shown in a fixed position. When the volume is adjusted, the same position temporarily shows the volume (for example, 80% VOL) before returning to BPM.

The metronome runs independently of the existing event SFX, so UFO, shooting-star and other sounds can play without interrupting the beat.

And because this is SOUND TERRARIUM, the metronome is more than a utility — its rhythm can become part of the sound-reactive terrain. 🎵🏃‍➡️

🔋 Battery display retired

The previous battery indicator and its related firmware code have been removed. This frees both screen space and a little precious firmware space for the new metronome.

🌱 Also included

v108cr retains the existing SOUND TERRARIUM features, including:

• Sound-reactive 8-band terrain
• Three-layer ground perspective
• Real-world time and weather
• Sun / Moon and tide information
• Temperature-responsive runner colors
• Sunday 9 PM special shooting star 🌠
• Major meteor-shower events
• Retro UFO / beam / abduction SFX 🛸
• IMU tilt interaction and STEP reference
• Multi-network Wi-Fi setup

Build

Built for M5Stack Cardputer ADV with M5Stack ESP32 BSP 3.3.9.

• Flash: 1,300,915 / 1,310,720 bytes (99%)
• Free flash: 9,805 bytes
• Global RAM: 55,180 / 327,680 bytes (16%)

Small device. Small world. BONSAI Spirit. 🌱

SOUND TERRARIUM v108cm

SOUND TERRARIUM v108cm

A small visual-and-sound refinement for the tiny world.

What’s new

Ground perspective

The terrain now contains a restrained layer of moving ground grains to give
the scrolling landscape a little more depth.

• 14 grains total: 6 small, 5 medium, 3 large
• 1 × 1 / 2 × 2 / 3 × 3 px
• Approx. 1.0× / 1.7× / 2.7× terrain speed
• A clear band just below the surface keeps the distant ground uncluttered
• Black by day, dark navy by night

The effect is intentionally subtle: it should feel like depth in the soil,
not a new foreground effect.

Refined UFO flight SFX

The UFO flight sound now uses a faster retro square-wave sweep inspired by
late-1970s arcade flying-saucer sounds.

• Approx. 5.26 Hz triangular frequency sweep
• Approx. 640–1400 Hz with a gentle nonlinear sweep curve
• Generated in real time; no WAV/MP3 asset is stored in firmware
• Used while the UFO enters, leaves, or returns; beam and abduction SFX remain separate

Refined shooting-star SFX

The special shooting star now uses a longer synthesized sound inspired by a
bright “KIRAAN” followed by a quieter sparkling tail.

• Approx. 2.43 seconds
• Generated in real time; no WAV/MP3 asset is stored in firmware
• The visible shooting-star streak still lasts about 900 ms
• The SFX now has its own timer, so the sparkling tail can continue after the
  visible streak fades
• Works with both M (Meteor) and the automatic Sunday 9 PM event

Existing major meteor-shower events are unchanged.

Compatibility / build

Built successfully for M5Stack Cardputer ADV with M5Stack ESP32 BSP
3.3.9.

• Flash: 1,305,283 / 1,310,720 bytes (99%)
• Global RAM: 55,228 / 327,680 bytes (16%)

Flash headroom is extremely limited in the default APP partition.

Small device. Small world. BONSAI Spirit.

SOUND TERRARIUM v108ck — Event SFX Update

🔊 SOUND TERRARIUM v108ck — Event SFX Update

SOUND TERRARIUM can now make sounds of its own.

This update adds deliberately subtle, retro-style event SFX while keeping the microphone-driven terrain running in real time.

New event SFX

• J — Manual Jump: a tiny 8-bit jump chirp
• Shooting Star: a delicate sequence of irregular sparkling pings 🌠
• UFO Flight: a low retro pulse during arrival and departure 🛸
• UFO Beam: a quiet rising electronic beam sound
• UFO Abduction: a small synthetic “Aaa!” as the runner is lifted

Terrain-triggered automatic jumps remain silent.

SFX control

Press X to toggle all event SFX ON/OFF.

The current SFX ON/OFF state is also shown in the information overlay.

Audio architecture

Cardputer ADV now uses simultaneous microphone RX and speaker TX, allowing SOUND TERRARIUM to keep listening and reacting to sound while playing its own event effects.

All SFX are generated in real time — no WAV or MP3 assets are stored in the firmware.

Included binaries

• SoundTerrarium_v108ck.ino.bin — application binary
• SoundTerrarium_v108ck.ino.merged.bin — merged binary

SOUND TERRARIUM v108ca — Meteor Update 🌠

Meteor Update 🌠

The weekly Sunday 9 PM shooting star has been refined with a longer, gently widening trail that fades smoothly into the sky for a more romantic meteor effect.

You can now also trigger the same special meteor manually at any time with M: Meteor, similar to the existing U: UFO event control.

• 🌠 Refined the Sunday 9 PM special meteor effect
• ⌨️ Added M: Meteor for manual triggering
• 🌙 Warm yellow meteor under a fully dark sky
• ☀️ White meteor against a brighter sky
• 🌧️ The automatic Sunday event remains visible in clear or cloudy weather; in rain, snow, thunder, or other weather states, that week's star remains unseen
• 🌌 Existing major meteor-shower events remain unchanged

The Sunday event still follows local time rather than the day/night cycle, so the shooting star may also appear at 9 PM during bright summer evenings at high latitudes.

The Sunday meteor remains a small weekly surprise — but now you can call one into the little sky whenever you like. 🌠

For everyone who kept running this week.
Something good may be waiting for you next week. 🌠

SOUND TERRARIUM v108by — Sunday 9 PM Shooting Star 🌠

SOUND TERRARIUM v108by — Release Notes

Sunday 9 PM Shooting Star 🌠

• Added a special shooting star that appears once every Sunday at 9:00 PM local time.
• It appears when the current weather is clear or cloudy. In rain, snow, thunder, or other non-clear/non-cloudy weather states, that week's star remains unseen.
• Unlike the regular meteor-shower effects, the Sunday star is tied to the weekly moment rather than the day/night cycle, so it can also appear at 9 PM during bright summer evenings at high latitudes.
• The star softly shifts through white, pale blue, pale yellow, and white as it crosses the sky.
• The same Sunday event is included in both the Cardputer ADV and Web versions.

This is a small moment at the end of each week: look back on the week that has passed, and make a wish for the week ahead.

For everyone who kept running this week.
Something good may be waiting for you next week. 🌠

M5Launcher OTA

SOUND TERRARIUM is now available directly from the M5Launcher OTA catalog for Cardputer ADV.

Open M5Launcher → OTA, search for SOUND TERRARIUM, and install it directly. No manual download or SD-card copy is required.

Existing behavior retained

• Sound-generated terrain
• Runner animation and UFO behavior
• Weather, time, Sun/Moon, tide, pressure, precipitation probability, temperature and humidity display
• Major meteor-shower visual events
• Eclipse visual refinement from v108bx
• T / I information overlay behavior
• Cardputer ADV built-in microphone support
• IMU tilt behavior
• BMI270 reference step count
• Wi-Fi credential safety improvements
• Setup portal refinements
• Lightweight JSON parser hardening
• Tide-array parsing fixes
• JSON string escape decoding
• Battery status display and monitoring
• Temperature-responsive runner colors

Build note

The Cardputer ADV sketch still fits the default app partition used by the current build. The compiled sketch uses 1,309,927 of 1,310,720 bytes (99%), leaving 793 bytes free.

SOUND TERRARIUM v108bx

Eclipse visual refinement

• Refined the compact Sun/Moon astronomical model used for eclipse visuals.
• Improved lunar latitude handling so an ordinary new Moon is no longer shown as a solar eclipse.
• Solar eclipse artwork is now gated by both new-Moon alignment and lunar-node proximity.
• Lunar eclipse coloring is likewise limited to full-Moon alignment near a lunar node.
• This remains a visual approximation for the tiny display, not a local eclipse-path calculator.

Existing behavior retained

• Sound-generated terrain
• Runner animation and UFO behavior
• Weather, time, Sun/Moon, tide, pressure, precipitation probability, temperature and humidity display
• T / I information overlay behavior
• Cardputer ADV built-in microphone support
• IMU tilt behavior
• BMI270 reference step count
• Wi-Fi credential safety improvements
• setup portal refinements
• lightweight JSON parser hardening
• tide-array parsing fixes
• JSON string escape decoding
• battery status display and monitoring
• temperature-responsive runner colors

SOUND TERRARIUM v108bt

SOUND TERRARIUM v108bt — Release Notes

Lightweight JSON parser hardening

• Removed the ArduinoJson dependency and retained the lightweight manual JSON parser to keep the firmware within the default 1.2 MB APP partition.
• Hardened JSON object-scope handling so whitespace and pretty-printed JSON do not break object lookup.
• Fixed tide-array parsing so null values still consume their array position as NAN, preventing tide times and sea-level values from becoming misaligned.
• Tide calculations skip non-finite values safely.
• Added JSON string escape decoding, including \uXXXX Unicode escapes, standard JSON escapes, and valid UTF-16 surrogate pairs. This improves display of city and country names containing escaped Unicode characters.

Battery status display and monitoring

• Added battery status display with BAT OK / BAT LOW / BAT CRIT states.
• BAT OK is shown with the auxiliary information display, while BAT LOW and BAT CRIT remain visible as warnings.
• Battery monitoring uses:
  • 12-sample ADC averaging
  • 5-second sampling interval
  • 3-cycle recovery confirmation
  • LOW / CRIT hysteresis behavior

Existing behavior

• Weather, WMO condition handling, rain/snow/thunder visuals, Sun/Moon data, lunar phase, tide display, audio/FFT terrain generation, runner behavior, UFO events, STEP counter, and existing controls are unchanged.

Build size

Compiled with the default 1.2 MB APP partition used for this release:

• Maximum APP size: 1,310,720 bytes
• Sketch size: 1,309,339 bytes
• Remaining: 1,381 bytes
• Usage: approximately 99.89%

Because the firmware is intentionally very close to the partition limit, this release is treated as code-frozen after review.

v108bs - Wi-Fi credential safety update

🚀 Easy Install with M5Launcher

If you already have M5Launcher installed on your Cardputer ADV, you can install SOUND TERRARIUM directly over Wi-Fi:

OTA → Search → SOUND TERRARIUM → Install

No PC or USB flashing is required.

The .bin files below are also available for manual installation.

Wi-Fi credential safety update

• New or changed Wi-Fi credentials are saved only after a successful connection.
• A failed password no longer overwrites a previously saved password for the same SSID.
• After a failed connection attempt, the SOUND-TERRARIUM-SETUP access point starts again for another attempt.
• The setup page includes FORGET ALL to clear saved Wi-Fi networks when required.

Setup portal UI refinements

• The Wi-Fi setup home page no longer gets stuck showing an outdated version from the browser's cache after a firmware update.
• The "Testing..." page now explicitly tells the user to check the Cardputer's own screen for the actual connection result, since the page itself never updates.
• The Password field now starts on its own line instead of appearing next to the network dropdown.
• The "Wi-Fi cleared" confirmation page now renders at proper phone-screen scale (previously showed with tiny text) and automatically returns to the setup page after 1 second.

The sound-generated terrain, runner, weather, temperature colors, controls, and other visual behavior are unchanged from v108br.

v108br-temperature-response

The little runner now reacts to the current temperature at your selected location.

• 36°C to below 38°C: orange
• 38°C or above: red
• Above −20°C up to −10°C: light blue
• −20°C or below: blue
• Otherwise: the usual white

At night, the blue runner gains a white outline to stay visible against the ground—like a tiny piece of ice running through the landscape.

Only the white body pixels change; the original accent colors remain. All poses, including UFO capture, use the same effect.

Temperature updates normally occur every 30 minutes. While offline or after a failed weather request, the runner returns to its original appearance.

The same temperature response is also available in the Web version.

The attached SoundTerrarium.ino.bin is the regular firmware for Cardputer ADV, not the color-test build.

Installation options

M5Launcher / precompiled firmware

For users who do not want to compile the sketch, download the attached SoundTerrarium.ino.bin. This regular firmware has been installed and tested on a real M5Stack Cardputer ADV with M5Launcher 2.9.1.

M5Burner

SOUND TERRARIUM v108br is now published on M5Burner for the Cardputer. Its M5Burner merged firmware has been flashed and tested successfully on a real Cardputer ADV.

Automatic mirroring from M5Burner to the M5Launcher OTA catalog may take a few hours. Until the entry appears in M5Launcher, use M5Burner or download the attached SoundTerrarium.ino.bin for M5Launcher.

Arduino IDE / source code

For manual installation, development, or modification, use the editable SoundTerrarium/SoundTerrarium.ino source code in the repository. See the README for the installation notes and required components.

Web version

No Cardputer is required for the browser version:
https://kariagepompadour.github.io/SOUND-TERRARIUM-Web/