Balloon Live Sensor
User
Manual
Page 3
Firmware FS.04.17
Date: 2021-05-13
General Information
The Balloon Live Sensor (BLS) is a special sensor developed by the FAI Ballooning
Commission (CIA) together with Volirium AG (Flytec Balloon) to provide a common GPS
receiver and logger to be used in competitions and special performance flights. It is equipped
with a high-precision GPS receiver and barometric sensor to achieve the best possible
comparability between pilots.
The Balloon Live Sensor is complemented by the Balloon Live App running on iOS and
Android, and together they are the successor of the FAI Balloon Logger that was used over
many years in balloon competitions to record flight tracks, pilot declarations, and marker
drops.
The Balloon Live App provides a secure live data feed into the watchmefly.net platform
where authenticated event officials can easily access the performance data from each pilot
while it is happening. This tight and secure integration of the sensor, the app and the cloud
platform watchmefly.net allow a much faster scoring of competitions while ensuring the
privacy and integrity of the data from the sensor to the scoring official.
Besides the integrated functionalities, the Balloon Live Sensor can also be used as a
position source to any electronic device that can receive position data through Bluetooth
connections. Finally, the Balloon Live Sensor can record GPS positions at predefined
intervals to a track file that is written to the SD card in the device. The track will be written in
the internationally agreed .IGC file format with a digital signature to allow integrity checks of
the provided track.
Disclaimer
While the Balloon Live Sensor has been carefully developed and tested, neither Volirium AG
nor the FAI Ballooning Commission can be made liable for any kind of malfunction of the
device or damage while using it. All activities using the device are always performed in the
user’s responsibility.
Firmware Version
All information in this manual is based on the firmware (software) level as of the publishing
time of this document, as outlined in the document footer. This manual may not be updated
for newer firmware releases if function has not been changed.
The most current documentation and firmware can always be found on
the download page of the Balloon Live project at:
https://balloonlive.org/downloads/
