The Nano can blink your apogee out on its status light, one digit at a time in colour, so you can read your peak height straight off the rocket with no computer and no cable. This page explains how to read those blinks, and the three moments the Nano will show them: straight after a flight, at startup, and any time you ask for it with the button.
The apogee is blinked out one digit at a time, most significant digit first, with each digit place shown in its own colour and the number of blinks giving that digit's value. It reads from the thousands right down to one decimal place. Here is how to read it:
Reading the altitude flashes
The Nano blinks the apogee height in metres to one decimal place, one digit at a time, most significant digit first, with leading zeros skipped. Each digit place has its own colour:
10,000s 1,000s 100s 10s 1s 0.1s
- A burst of quick white blinks that slow down, ending in a long white flash, marks the start of each reading.
- The number of blinks in a colour is that digit's value (1 to 9).
- A digit of zero is shown as one long, steady hold of that colour, about 2.5 seconds against the half second of a normal blink.
- The light simply goes dark for a moment between one digit and the next.
- After the last digit there is a short pause, then it repeats. Connect USB or power-cycle to stop.
Example readout, 246.4 m
Reading left to right: the white start flashes, then green twice for the 2, cyan four times for the 4, yellow six times for the 6, and blue four times for the .4, which is 246.4 m. The light goes dark for a moment between each colour.
Example readout, 2,033.7 m
This one includes a zero: the white start flashes, then purple twice for the 2, a long steady green hold for the 0, cyan three times for the 3, yellow three times for the 3, and blue seven times for the .7, which is 2,033.7 m.
The most common time you will see the blink out is right after a flight. As long as the maintain power setting is on, which it is by default, the Nano stays awake once it has saved the log and blinks the apogee straight away, so you can read your peak height off the landed rocket before you even reach it. If maintain power is off, the Nano sleeps as soon as the log is saved and shows nothing until you ask for it in one of the ways below. There is more about this on the flight complete page.
You can have the Nano blink your most recent apogee once every time it powers on. On the settings page, set show altitude to on. From then on, the moment you switch the Nano on it blinks out the apogee from your last saved flight a single time, then carries on into its normal mode. It is a quick way to confirm your previous result before packing up or heading to the next pad.
This setting is off by default, so out of the box the Nano does not blink at startup. If there is no saved flight yet, for example on a brand new or freshly reset device, nothing is shown and the Nano simply starts up as usual.
You do not have to wait for either of those moments. A short press of the boot button, a quick tap rather than a long hold, blinks out the apogee of your most recent flight there and then. It works whether the Nano is sitting on the pad running on battery or plugged into a computer over USB, so you can recall your last peak height whenever you like, as many times as you like.
If there is no flight saved yet, a short purple flash answers the press to let you know the button worked and there is simply nothing to show. Note that this is a quick tap only: holding the button down for several seconds is reserved for other functions, so just press and release to read your apogee.