xOTA is in beta 🎉
After years of work, I’m finally at the point where I’m ready to share xOTA with the world.
Like many projects, the scope of xOTA grew well beyond the original concept. That expansion introduced delays—especially when paired with the ongoing challenge of balancing work, life, and a passion project. As a result, getting to this stage took longer than I originally hoped.
And, as any solo developer knows, it’s easy to procrastinate when there’s no hard deadline. But over the past several weeks, interest in xOTA has picked up, and I’ve started receiving emails asking about its status. That attention was exactly the spark I needed to push toward the finish line.
After a focused final sprint over the last few days and weeks, I’m excited to release an early access version of the site. More updates, improvements, and features will follow—but for now, I’m thrilled to finally open the doors.
As with any project, you can endlessly refactor and optimize into oblivion. There needs to be a point where it works good enough to be in production. Subsequently, for this first release, there are some missing features and probably some bugs.
Below you will find a current list of the largest features (in order) I would like to get implemented sooner than later.
| Feature | Description | Planned Release | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOTA Spotting | Post spots to the SOTA platform | N/A | We are currently working with the SOTA team to get xOTA as a trusted application |
| APRS Functionality | Use APRS to interact with xOTA | N/A | I have had issues allowing the xOTA callsign propagate through iGates, need to figure out why |
| AI Chat agent | Send commands to xOTA with natural language instead of command syntax | N/A | |
| Spot scheduling | Allow users to schedule activations over the regular command syntax | N/A | |
| Self-service MFA | Provide users the ability to configure MFA on their account | N/A |
As xOTA enters its beta phase, I’m incredibly excited to see how the community uses it—and how your feedback helps shape what comes next. If you run into bugs, have ideas, or just want to share how you’re using the platform, I’d love to hear from you.
If you have skills that could help move the platform forward and are willing to contribute some of your time, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll get in touch and see how you can be part of the project’s growth. -> Contact Us
73, Will Pfanner