Become a sponsor to trailcurrentoss

Hi, we're TrailCurrent 👋

TrailCurrent is a fully open-source platform for monitoring and controlling recreational vehicles, camper vans, overlanding rigs, and trailers. Everything is open: the circuit boards, the firmware, the in-vehicle software, the cloud backend, and the mobile apps.

Commercial RV control systems are expensive, closed, and hard to repair or extend. When the manufacturer stops supporting them, you're stuck. TrailCurrent takes a different approach: every module is documented, reproducible, and built on standard protocols and commodity parts, so you can build it, fix it, and change it yourself.

What we build

• Hardware modules – Custom PCBs designed in KiCAD and ESP32 firmware for power distribution, relay control, GNSS positioning, environmental sensing, trailer monitoring, vehicle leveling, battery shunts, solar charge controllers, door and cabinet sensors, control panels, and displays.
• Headwaters edge gateway – A Dockerized platform on a Raspberry Pi 5 with MQTT, Node-RED, local dashboards, and offline maps. It works with no internet connection and syncs to the cloud only when you choose.
• Peregrine voice assistant – A completely offline voice assistant (wake word, speech-to-text, local LLM, text-to-speech) that controls your rig without sending your voice anywhere.
• Playbill – An in-rig entertainment desktop for evenings off the grid.
• Cloud and mobile – An optional Node.js backend plus native Android and cross-platform React Native apps for remote monitoring and control.
• Reusable libraries – CAN (TWAI) drivers, OTA update libraries, and utilities for ESP32 and ESP32-C6 that anyone can use in their own projects.

Our principles

• Modular – Add, swap, or remove modules without redesigning the whole system.
• Offline-first – Your rig should work in the middle of nowhere.
• No lock-in – CAN bus, MQTT, HTTP, ESP32, KiCAD, PlatformIO, and Docker throughout.
• Secure by design – OTA verification, secrets management, and encrypted transport built in from the start.

Where your sponsorship goes

Open hardware costs real money. Every board revision means PCB fabrication, components, test equipment, and in-vehicle testing. Your sponsorship helps pay for:

• Prototype PCB runs and parts for new and revised modules
• Development hardware (ESP32 boards, Raspberry Pi 5, Radxa boards, sensors)
• Field testing in real vehicles and real conditions
• Documentation, build guides, and wiring diagrams so more people can build their own systems
• Time spent on maintenance, bug fixes, and answering questions

Whether you're running TrailCurrent in your rig, borrowing a library for your own ESP32 project, or just believe vehicle tech should be open and repairable, thank you for supporting the project. 🚐⚡