Method
What this radio can prove
This device first
Aether runs on the phone or PC without a dongle. It analyses whatever wireless radios this device already exposes — Wi-Fi link type and rate (not a neighbour SSID dump), Bluetooth occupancy without pairing, NFC at 13.56 MHz, GNSS lock quality with coordinates discarded, the cellular modem’s Network Information type, the magnetometer, battery rail, inertial motion, and ambient light. Those observations are placed on a log-frequency sweep from NFC through Wi-Fi 6E. No signal is set. Nothing has to be disconnected. USB SDR is optional enrichment. Add Aether to the Android home screen from Chrome. These are not calibrated field probes, and they cannot see 95 GHz active denial or lasers.
Optional USB SDR
A stick is enrichment, not a requirement. If HDSDR is already recording, import the file. Live USB is optional: Chrome can claim an NESDR SMArt / RTL2832U + R820T2 and hop-scan 24 MHz–1.766 GHz receive-only, but the app already works without that.
Windows + HDSDR
HDSDR can keep the USB stick. Press Start, record RF I/Q (red button) or File → Save RF FFT, then Import HDSDR or drop the file on the sweep. Aether does not need HDSDR to stop. Live USB needs WinUSB via Zadig only if you want the browser to own the stick.
On-device radios
Primary path is whatever the browser is allowed to see on this device. USB SDR / HDSDR add a spectrometer the phone does not have. They are not calibrated field probes, and they cannot see 95 GHz active denial or lasers.
Integrity and code base
Detection thresholds (ICNIRP, saturation, 433/915 MHz heaters) are re-seeded every day, on boot, and every 15 minutes. A sealed fallback classifier still flags saturation and ISM heaters if the live copy stays muted. Imported names, NFC types, and BLE labels are sterilised; GNSS coordinates are discarded; serial/HID traffic is never stored. Live USB is a sealed local path — samples never leave the device and never go to Grok. Grok briefings are signed-in, user-started, payload-capped, 12-second timeout, max_tokens 280, and three per hour so the owner’s API quota is not burned. No Imagine, no auto-brief on load.
Hardware span
On-device analysis covers the radios the handset already has, from NFC at 13.56 MHz through Wi-Fi 6E. A typical RTL-SDR (RTL2832U + R820T2) adds about 24 MHz–1.766 GHz. HackRF One reaches ~6 GHz. 5G mmWave, 95 GHz active denial, and lasers are outside the aperture — a quiet waterfall is not evidence they are absent.