SHOPPING

What to buy at each level of the Newcomer onramp. Organized to match the onramp’s tier numbering.

No prices listed. Hardware prices drift week-to-week per vendor; the canonical answer is “click the link and see today’s price for today’s variant.” Vendor links point at manufacturers when possible (more stable than reseller listings).

Where multiple paths exist at the same tier, pick one. More devices ≠ more leaderboard points (one API key = one driver — see Newcomer onramp § Common pitfalls).

Tier 1 — Phone only

The cheapest possible start. Validate you like the hobby before spending money.

Tier 2 — Cross-post WiGLE captures to WDGWars

Same Tier-1 hardware. Add software + a second account.

Tier 3 — Quick reference: solder vs solderless

The Tier 3 hardware paths split cleanly on whether you need to solder. Pick on that axis first; pick on-device-upload vs PC-upload (Tier 3a vs 3b) second.

If you don’t solder and don’t want to learn yet: M5 Cardputer + LOCOSP Bruce fork (Tier 3a Path A) is the cleanest “just works” pick. Apex 5 is the cleanest cheap-pick if you only care about capture and don’t need on-device upload.

If you want to learn: a soldering iron, lead-free solder, helping hands, and 30 minutes of YouTube get you to GPS-on-ESP32. That’s the same skill the rest of the hobby keeps using.

Tier 3a — Dedicated device with on-device upload

Pick one of the five paths below. Paths A through D upload directly to WDGWars from the device; Path E uploads from your phone instead. Either way, no PC step.

Path A — M5 Cardputer + LOCOSP Bruce fork (most turnkey) — No soldering

Best for: someone who wants the easiest end-to-end experience with a built-in screen + keyboard.

Flash via esptool or M5Burner. Set bruceConfig.wdgwarsApiKey in the device config.

Optional C5 dual-band upgrade for Cardputer ADV / Tab5: the LAB5 M5MonsterC5 add-on adds an ESP32-C5 + sub-1 GHz radio carrier. Pair with C5Lab/projectZero firmware for the Marauder/projectZero feature set on a Cardputer chassis. Adds capture surfaces (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, sub-1 GHz) the stock Cardputer can’t reach. Not required for WDGWars uploads, but worth knowing about for hardware-curious newcomers who landed on Path A.

Path B — XIAO ESP32 + Piglet (most modern, web UI) — Soldering required

Best for: someone who likes web dashboards over device-screen menus.

Piglet has a web UI: open the device IP in a browser, paste your API key, hit “Test Key” → “Upload All.”

Path C — Hak5 Pineapple Pager + LOCOSP payload (pocket form factor) — No soldering

Best for: someone who already owns or wants a Hak5 device.

Requires a 3D GPS fix before scanning starts. Manual “SYNC NOW” button to upload.

Path D — Raspyjack rig + WDGWars payload (Pi-based) — No soldering

Best for: someone comfortable with Linux + GPIO who wants a fully scriptable platform.

Path E — Biscuit (phone-driven, nothing to solder, no GPS module) — No soldering

Best for: someone who wants to drop a board in a bag, drive, and do everything from their phone. Also the only path here that answers “what wardrives with an iPhone”, since WiGLE has no iOS client.

No GPS module needed: the phone’s GPS tags the captures and the app does the logging and uploading. Firmware updates go over Wi-Fi OTA from the app.

One caveat survives on this path: the firmware is closed source and distributed as binaries, so it is the only option in this tier whose upload behavior you cannot read for yourself. Uploading itself is settled. WiGLE works over WiGLE’s own API, and WDGWars uploads were field-verified on 2026-07-25 across Biscuit Pro, Ultra, and the free DIY firmware, which runs ahead of LOCOSP’s press page still saying “(integration in progress)”. The DIY route costs nothing but a board you may already own, which makes it a free way to test the whole workflow before buying hardware.

Tier 3b — Cheapest path (capture-only, you upload from PC)

Bare ESP32-WROOM or CYD + GPS + Marauder — Soldering required

Cheapest entry into dedicated hardware, more steps per upload.

GPS module is mandatory — without it, Marauder writes empty wardrive dumps. See Hardware survey §3 for the source-code reference.

CYD + HaleHound — Soldering optional

Best for: someone who wants the most active handheld firmware on the cheapest capable screen, and would rather flash from a browser than from a toolchain.

Optional add-ons the firmware supports: CC1101 (sub-GHz), NRF24L01+PA+LNA (2.4 GHz), PN532 (NFC/RFID). None of them are needed for wardriving. No WDGWars uploader, so this is an SD-pull-then-feeder path. Same hardware also runs Bruce and Marauder, so a CYD is the least committal board on this page: see Hardware survey §4.

Apex 5 — pre-flashed Marauder + GPS — No soldering

Best for: someone who’d rather pay extra to skip the GPS soldering.

Flipper Zero + WiFi DevBoard (Marauder) — Soldering required

Best for: someone who already owns a Flipper Zero and wants to use it as the controller for a wardriving rig. The Flipper itself doesn’t have a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radio; the WiFi DevBoard plugs into the GPIO header and adds an ESP32-S2 running Marauder.

Same GPS rule as bare Marauder: no module, no wardrive lines. The Flipper provides display + power + UI; the DevBoard does the actual Wi-Fi scanning.

Pwnagotchi (handshake-focused, not WiGLE-CSV native) — No soldering

Best for: someone who specifically wants the Pwnagotchi build for the WPA handshake side of the hobby. Listed here because newcomers ask about it constantly. Pwnagotchi does NOT produce WigleWifi-1.6 CSV out of the box — it captures PCAP handshakes and (with the GPS plugin) location-tagged metadata. Conversion path to WDGWars exists but isn’t a one-liner. Don’t buy a Pwnagotchi expecting points-per-mile parity with a Marauder rig.

Tier 3 — High-end purchased option

M5 Tab5 Wardriver

Best for: someone who wants the most-screen-real-estate option.

The Hackster post is the recipe — the project doesn’t have a one-click installer yet.

Tier 4 — WDGWars-only data slots

These data types only score on WDGWars; WiGLE doesn’t accept them.

ADS-B aircraft (Muninn feeder)

Stationary capture rig. Mount the antenna where it has sky view.

MeshCore LoRa nodes (Heimdall feeder)

Pocket-portable, captures other LoRa nodes within radio range. MeshCore is the supported protocol for Heimdall today — Meshtastic exports need a parser nobody’s written yet (see Hardware survey §9). If your goal is feeding the meshcore_nodes slot, buy hardware you can run MeshCore-compatible firmware on.

Meshtastic-ecosystem gear (related but different protocol)

If you’re getting into the broader LoRa scene rather than specifically chasing the WDGWars MeshCore slot, Meshtastic is the more popular mesh protocol. The hardware below runs both Meshtastic and (on most boards) MeshCore — pick the firmware after picking the goal. Re-flash to MeshCore if you want Heimdall to ingest it today.

Tier 5 — Always-on capture lab

A scaled-up rig for serious coverage. Most of these you already have if you’ve reached this tier. A Linux laptop is a drop-in substitute for the Pi here — Kismet runs the same on a ThinkPad / Framework / any monitor-mode-capable USB-Wi-Fi rig. The Pi is just the cheap always-on box; the software is what matters.

Tier 6 — Portable Linux rigs (run the game + capture on one device)

Handheld Linux computers that can run both the WatchDogsGo game itself and the capture stack (Kismet, dump1090, Muninn, Heimdall). The “high-tier player” form factor.

Path A — ClockworkPi uConsole (LOCOSP’s reference platform for the game)

Best for: someone who wants the hardware LOCOSP/WatchDogsGo names in its repo description. Capture + play on one handheld.

Path B — ClockworkPi DevTerm

Best for: someone who prefers a BlackBerry-style keyboard form factor over the uConsole’s handheld layout. Same compute-module socket as the uConsole, so the capture-side gear is identical.

Path C — Steam Deck as a portable warbox

Best for: someone who already owns a Deck and wants to wardrive without buying new hardware.

Tier 7 — High-end SDR + outdoor antenna chain

Stepping up from a basic RTL-SDR dongle to serious RF capture. Most of these feed Muninn the same way an RTL-SDR does — decode with dump1090-fa or readsb, point Muninn at the output directory. The TX-capable ones extend into transmit work (know the legalities for your region before you key up).

Handheld standalone SDR — HackRF PortaPack

A HackRF One with a screen, keypad, and battery sled. Runs the Mayhem open firmware so it captures, replays, and transmits across 1 MHz–6 GHz without a computer attached. Closest thing the SDR scene has to a “tricorder” form factor.

Standalone use cases: ADS-B / AIS / POCSAG capture in the field, sub-GHz capture (315/433/868 MHz), GSM survey, Wi-Fi beacon spotter, recordings to microSD. Not a WDGWars uploader on its own — pull the SD output to a PC and run it through Muninn (aircraft) or wigle-to-wdgwars (Wi-Fi CSV).

Higher-tier SDRs (computer-attached)

Outdoor antennas

Different antenna types for different jobs. Most ADS-B feeders just need the FlightAware blade; the rest are for wider-band work.

RF accessories worth owning at this tier

Better monitor-mode Wi-Fi adapters

IMSI-catcher detectors (RX-only, defensive use)

Different game from the rest of Tier 7 — these don’t feed WDGWars at all, but they’re listed here because they reuse the same SDR you bought for ADS-B. RX-only: passively log cellular base stations and flag anomalies suggesting a rogue eNB. Transmitting on cellular bands is a federal felony in most countries; these tools strictly receive.

Software that matches the gear

Tier 8 — Vehicle install (always-on roaming capture)

If your daily commute is the capture run. Listed for completeness so the tier ladder doesn’t dead-end; nothing here is bench-tested by this repo’s author. Most wardrivers use ad-hoc car setups rather than permanent installs.

Region-specific resellers and curated kits

The manufacturer storefronts above ship globally but rarely fastest or cheapest. These resellers are worth checking for region-domestic shipping or pre-assembled kits.

What NOT to buy (newcomer trap)

• Bare ESP32-C3 boards as a wardriving target. Marauder has no C3 binary, Bruce has no C3 port, GhostESP runs but the output lacks BSSID on some commands. C3 is poorly served by stock firmware. If you have one, treat it as a “build your own ESPHome probe firmware” project, not a turnkey wardriver. Details in Hardware survey §3.
• A second device on the same API key thinking it doubles your points. Same key on two devices is one driver with two feeders, not two contesting drivers. See Newcomer onramp § Common pitfalls.
• Marauder firmware without a GPS module. The wardrive dumps will be empty. GPS is mandatory, not optional.
• iPhone alone for the capture side. No official WiGLE app on iOS, and the third-party scanners don’t feed WiGLE-format CSV cleanly. The workaround is an iPhone plus a board that pairs to it: Biscuit (Tier 3a Path E) is the current answer, where the phone supplies GPS and the upload while the board supplies the radio.

Credits for everything listed

See Credits for the maintainers, projects, and vendors that make this hobby possible.