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USING THE SPECTER NODE IN THE APP

Connect up to three wireless field sensors, tune thresholds per node, calibrate orientation, and capture synchronized evidence

The SPECTER Node is a small wireless field sensor with a magnetometer and a proximity antenna. Once it is on your network it appears inside SPECTER on its own rail widget, streams live telemetry, and can fire an evidence capture on its own. This page covers using a node you already have. To build one, see Build Your Own SPECTER Node.

On this page

PAIRING

SPECTER hosts the connection and the node finds it automatically. There is nothing to type in.

  1. Power the node on the same Wi-Fi network as the SPECTER computer.
  2. SPECTER broadcasts a discovery beacon on the network. The node hears it and connects back.
  3. Within a few seconds the node appears in the node rail widget with a live connection dot.
SPECTER node rail widget
The node rail widget with live magnetometer and proximity readouts.
Not seeing your node? The app discovers nodes via a local network broadcast. If the node is connected to Wi-Fi but SPECTER does not see it, check that Windows Firewall is not blocking inbound traffic on the SPECTER ports, and that your Wi-Fi access point does not have client isolation enabled (common on hotspots and guest networks).

THREE-NODE RELAY MESH

SPECTER supports up to three Nodes. Direct Wi-Fi remains the preferred path. With Relay Assist enabled, a Node that cannot reach the app can forward through one nearby Node or through one intermediate Node for a maximum of two peer hops.

  1. Connect every Node directly first and assign a unique slot: Node 1, Node 2, or Node 3.
  2. Open Settings > Sensors & Alerts > SPECTER Node > Relay Assist.
  3. Generate one group key and apply it to the directly connected Nodes, or enter the same key in each Node's local portal.
  4. Place at least one Node where it retains a reliable direct app connection, then place the remaining Nodes outward through the location.

The Settings route list identifies direct and relayed Nodes, reports one-hop or two-hop paths, and shows channel, quality, command round-trip time, and dropped-frame estimates. Routes fail over automatically when another direct gateway is available.

Relay Assist carries telemetry, event frames, and targeted Node commands. Firmware installation and OTA updates still require direct Wi-Fi.

RAIL WIDGET READOUTS

Each connected node gets its own panel in the bottom dock. The panel shows a live field mesh on the left and stacked MAG/PROX traces on the right, so you can see the current reading and the recent history at a glance.

ReadoutMeaning
Magnetometer amplitudeCombined field strength. Spikes when the local magnetic field shifts.
ProximityField near the antenna. Reads a higher value as something gets closer.
ConnectionLive, or offline after a sustained loss of signal.
Mode tagShows whether the node is in touch mode or extended-range (RC) mode, and the current RC sub-channel.
The node auto-baselines at boot, so it settles to the ambient field of wherever you set it down. Give it a couple of seconds after power-on before reading it.

LIVE TRACES IN THE RAIL

Each node panel shows two 3-minute rolling traces: one for magnetometer amplitude and one for proximity. The traces use the same data buffer that the settings panel uses for threshold tuning, so the rail, the settings cards, and the wall displays always agree.

If a trace column appears blank, the node may not have enough data yet, or the panel height is too small for the canvas to render. The traces need a minimum panel height to draw.

PER-NODE ALERT THRESHOLDS

Each node has its own MAG and PROX alert threshold. A node placed in a noisy room can run a higher threshold than one in a quiet corner, so each one fires only on genuine local changes.

The threshold card for each connected node is in Settings > Sensors & Alerts > SPECTER Node. Each card shows:

The device is the single source of truth. The app reads the node's reported threshold from telemetry and the capture level follows it, including any guard band the node applies on top. There are no separate app-side snapshot trigger sliders that can disagree with the device.

MAG slider range is 0 to 100. Older versions of the app showed a 0 to 4095 range, but the firmware has always constrained magnetic sensitivity to 0 to 100. Any previously stored value above 100 resets to the default (70) on first load.

AUDIBLE ALERT MUTE

The AUDIBLE ALERT button in the detector bar is a master mute for every connected node. When muted, all node tones stop immediately, including the proximity alert beep, the boot tone, and diagnostic tones. The LED animations continue.

This requires firmware 2.15.0 or newer. Nodes running older firmware will not respond to the mute command.

APP-SIDE NODE CONTROLS

In Settings > Sensors & Alerts > SPECTER Node, the app provides several rig-wide controls that affect every connected node at once:

IDENTIFY ALL and REBASELINE ALL are convenience buttons that broadcast to all nodes. Individual nodes can also be identified or rebaselined from their own portal or from the expanded field vector view.

TRIGGERED SNAPSHOTS (ENABLE)

The ENABLE toggle in the detector bar controls automatic evidence capture. When ENABLE is off, SPECTER continues to detect and display anomalies on screen, including the anomaly dialog, rail flash, and hit log entries, but does not save a gallery item for automatic captures.

Use this when you want to watch the live field without filling the gallery with captures, or when an operator is reviewing the session but not collecting evidence yet.

DISPLAY ORIENTATION CALIBRATION

Each node can be calibrated so the on-screen direction finder arrow points the way the real world does. This is purely a display transform, it rotates the on-screen vector to match how the physical node is oriented in the room. It does not change detection, baselines, thresholds, or any sensor readings.

How to calibrate

  1. In the node's threshold card, find the Display Orientation section.
  2. Hold a magnet at the pod's physical FRONT and press the FRONT button. The arrow should swing to point "up" for that direction.
  3. For better accuracy, also hold the magnet at BACK, LEFT, and RIGHT and press the matching buttons. FRONT alone gives a usable rotation; FRONT plus BACK averages out the room's static field; LEFT and RIGHT reveal whether the pod is left or right-handed.
  4. The status line reads ALIGNED with the rotation angle in degrees, and MIRRORED if the pod is left-handed.
  5. Press CLEAR to reset orientation and start over.
Why handedness matters. Some LED rings are wired clockwise and others counterclockwise. The calibration solves the handedness first, then applies the rotation from the already-mirrored vector. If you swap the order, a left-handed pod will show the wrong angle.
The TOP button stores a Z-axis reference but does not affect the solve, since the direction finder is a 2D top-down display. It reads "TOP STORED (3D)" so the press is not inert.

Orientation is saved per node, so each node remembers its own rotation. The oriented vector is published to the wall's direction finder and the rail; the raw unrotated vector rides along as magRaw.

DIRECTION FINDER

The Direction Finder is a top-down compass radar in the Instrument Bay on a second screen. It shows not just how strong a magnetic disturbance is, but which direction it is coming from.

With multiple nodes connected, the direction finder draws one needle per node, each with independently smoothed angle and amplitude so they do not snap. The dominant node (strongest signal) keeps the solid arrow; other nodes draw dashed, dimmer, color-coded, numbered needles.

For the needles to agree with the physical room, run the display orientation calibration on each node first.

NODE TRAJECTORY & CONVERGENCE

When two or more nodes fire threshold events close together in time, SPECTER correlates them and shows a Node Trajectory readout at the bottom of the screen. This tells you not just that multiple nodes triggered, but the sequence and timing between them, which can reveal the direction and speed of something moving through the space.

How it works

Three-node convergence

When all three nodes fire within the same 1.2-second window, SPECTER shows a THREE-NODE CONVERGENCE alert at the top of the screen with the full sequence and total span in milliseconds. This is a significant multi-sensor event worth noting in your investigation log. The convergence alert has a 4-second refractory so a single burst does not repeat the toast.

Trajectory correlation works on genuine hardware event frames only. It never suppresses individual node events and never turns one node event into another. Each node still triggers independently on its own threshold; the trajectory readout is a correlation overlay that helps you read the pattern.
The trajectory shows which nodes fired and when, not where something was. For the spatial bearing, use the Direction Finder, which shows the magnetic vector from each node in real time.

NODE-TO-NODE SYNC

The SYSTEM tab in the node portal has a SYNC ALL button that copies this node's tuning to every other node on the same local network. This is useful when you have dialed in one node's sensitivity, LED configuration, and alert timing and want every node to match.

What gets synced

What is NOT synced (deliberately)

After a sync, the receiving nodes recalibrate. The sync applies new thresholds, and the receiver re-zeroes both sensor channels to clear any stale baseline. The portal shows "keep clear for ~10 seconds" while this happens. Do not stand near the nodes during the recalibration period, or your own field will be measured as the new baseline.
Sync runs in its own background task, so the app link and telemetry stay alive during the operation. The portal reports progress as it reaches each node.

EXPANDED FIELD VECTOR VIEW

Double-click any node's field mesh in the bottom dock (or click the NODE grid button) to open the expanded Field Vector overlay. This replaces the center feed with a large magnetic vector display and a full tuning panel for that individual node.

What it shows

Tuning controls in the expanded view

The sensitivity multipliers are display-only. They make the trace more or less prominent on screen, but the alert threshold sliders are what control when a detection event fires. If you want fewer false alerts, raise the threshold, not the sensitivity.

Press Esc or click the X in the top-right corner to close the expanded view and return to the normal feed.

RF INTERFERENCE FILTER

The expanded field vector view includes an RF filter panel for recording-mode operation. This lets you capture and suppress the magnetic signature of known interference sources (crew radios, fluorescent ballasts, nearby electronics) so they stop generating false proximity alerts.

How to use it

  1. Open the expanded view for the node you want to filter.
  2. While the interference source is active (hold a crew radio key, or position the node near the ballast), press and hold HOLD TO CAPTURE INTERFERENCE.
  3. The node records the magnetic signature of the source. Release the button when the capture is done.
  4. The captured signature appears in the RF list below the button, labeled with the date and time.
  5. Toggle SUPPRESS MATCHES to enable filtering. When on, the node will suppress proximity alerts that match a captured RF signature instead of firing a detection event.
You can capture multiple signatures. Each one is listed separately. Toggle SUPPRESS MATCHES on or off at any time without losing the stored signatures.
The RF filter is per-node, not global. Each node sees a different interference environment, so you should capture and filter on each node individually.

MULTI-NODE DIAGNOSTIC CAPTURE

When you have two or three nodes running side by side and they behave inconsistently (one over-triggers, another is sluggish, a third has a noisy baseline), the CAPTURE ALL (2 MIN) button in Settings > Sensors & Alerts > SPECTER Node fires the same 2-minute field-capture log at every connected node simultaneously and compares them side by side.

What it does

  1. Press CAPTURE ALL (2 MIN) in Settings, under the SPECTER Node section. The button text changes to "CAPTURING..." and the status line shows per-node progress.
  2. Each connected node starts recording its raw sensor data at ~20 Hz for 2 minutes: proximity delta, magnetometer delta, RC capacitance charge/fault state, alert phase, and Wi-Fi RSSI.
  3. When the capture window ends, the app downloads all the CSVs automatically, computes per-node statistics, and flags any node whose numbers stand out from the group.
  4. A folder opens on your desktop containing one CSV per node, a SUMMARY.txt with the comparison, and a manifest.json.

What the stats mean

The capture runs over each node's own local web portal (HTTP), not the app's WebSocket link, so it works even if the WS connection is flaky. Relay-assist virtual nodes (nodes forwarded through another node) are skipped because they have no direct LAN address to hit.
The capture uses the same per-node portal diagnostic log feature, but fires it at all nodes at once from the app instead of you opening each portal individually. The CSV format is identical.

PER-NODE PORTAL DIAGNOSTIC LOG

Each node's own web portal (at its LAN IP address, or 192.168.4.1 when on its setup Wi-Fi) includes a CAPTURE 2 MIN LOG button on the main page. This records ~2 minutes of raw sensor data at ~20 Hz and lets you download it as a CSV file.

How to use it

  1. Open the node's web portal in a browser (find its IP address in Settings, under the node route list, or join its setup Wi-Fi and go to 192.168.4.1).
  2. Press CAPTURE 2 MIN LOG. The button changes to "CAPTURING..." and a status line shows the row count and time remaining.
  3. When the capture finishes, a DOWNLOAD CSV button appears. Click it to save the file.

CSV columns

For comparing multiple nodes at once, use the multi-node diagnostic capture button in the app instead of opening each portal separately. It runs the same capture on all nodes simultaneously and adds the comparison summary.

The portal also has a stall log (visible at /diag/stalls) that records any time the node's main loop blocked for more than 40 ms, which is useful for diagnosing intermittent portal or telemetry freezes.

INTERNET RELAY (OFF-WI-FI NODES)

For nodes that cannot be on the same Wi-Fi network as the SPECTER computer (for example, a node placed in a separate building with internet access), SPECTER can generate a secure relay URL that the node uses to connect over the internet through a Cloudflare tunnel.

Setup

  1. In SPECTER, go to Settings > Sensors & Alerts > SPECTER Node.
  2. Find the Internet relay URL field (labeled "for nodes off your Wi-Fi").
  3. Click COPY RELAY URL to copy it to your clipboard.
  4. Open the node's own web portal and paste the URL into its Internet Relay field.
  5. Save and reboot the node. It will connect to your SPECTER over the internet instead of local Wi-Fi.
The tunnel is per-machine isolated. Each SPECTER install gets its own deterministic hostname. No shared server relays the video. The feed stays private to your session.
Leave the node's relay field blank to keep using normal local Wi-Fi discovery. The relay is a fallback, not a replacement. Requires Internet mode and a valid license.

NODE SETTINGS PORTAL

Each node hosts its own web portal at 192.168.4.1 when you join its setup Wi-Fi (named SPECTER-NODE-01, SPECTER-NODE-02, etc.). The portal has several tabs for configuring the node directly, without the app.

Wi-Fi tab

Settings tab

LED tab

Theremin tab

System tab

THE SNAPSHOT TRIGGER

Arm the snapshot trigger and SPECTER will capture an evidence frame automatically whenever a sensor delta crosses your alert threshold. Magnetic crossings and proximity crossings are evaluated separately, each with its own short cooldown so a noisy room does not flood the gallery.

Each auto-capture lands in the gallery like any other detection, with its type, confidence, and synchronized timecode.

Pair this with the Instrument Bay on a second screen to watch the Direction Finder while the node arms your captures.

If you want detection to appear on screen without saving evidence, turn off the ENABLE toggle in the detector bar.