Digital Stealth Care · roadmap · updated 4 Oct 2026
Where it is heading. All of it optional by design.
Add things because you want them, never because you must. The base unit works alone. Everything with a date has shipped. Nothing ahead of today carries one.
Shipped, with a dateIn testing or being builtPlanned, no dateJump to what has shipped
Next
The brain is home. Next, the ecosystem.
In testing · being built
Building now
In the works right now: infrared and RF remote control, the brain taking demand over from the hub, closed-loop irrigation and more gear recognised on pairing. Also in the works, being tested switched off: a new device model and a planner in the brain. They run alongside the hub's own control and do not control anything yet (what runs today).
Planned · ecosystem
Accessories, all brand-agnostic
Wireless climate sensors, CO₂ regulators, a PPFD lighting controller, set-and-forget timelapse cameras, canopy air sensors, a local Trend box for long-term logging, an irrigation controller, and the Nutrient Nurse kit for head, medium and runoff readings.
Planned · V3 board
A purpose-built board
Same firmware, same brand-agnosticism, less soldering. It sits beside the DIY build, never in place of it. Every alpha build is free, and yours to keep. Release pricing for later versions has not been decided. How larger systems are licensed is not decided yet.
Where it stands
From a single ESP32 to a headless hub with a brain.
17 Sep to 1 Oct 2026
9.0 to 9.9.1: to the first public alpha
- 9.0Smoke, gas and CO alarms with an opt-in heater and lamp cut-off, Bluetooth LE sensors, paired devices recognised from DSC-KitLib, the product libraries served from the Pi, the grow tools and the measured 3D room.
- 9.1.0A day later: 98 tracked bugs closed in one sweep and kit firmware 8.3.0.0 on the hub, the pots and the panel.
- 9.2.0Gave every switched device one write path and added a host action runner.
- 9.3.0Made spaces first-class with Take over and Hand back.
- 9.4.0The silent-failure program.
- 9.5 to 9.8Followed on 29 and 30 September. 9.7.0 and 9.8.0 carry the new device model and planner, shipped switched off. 9.8.0 goes with hub and pot firmware 8.5.0.0 and plug firmware 8.3.0.0.
- 9.8.9On 1 October the new screens became the default: Today, Spaces, Devices, Issues and Settings. The new planner works out its plans alongside, while the hub's own control still runs the room.
- 9.9.1The alpha image is out for alpha testers: a fresh card asks for an owner PIN, each card makes its own keys the first time it starts, and the new screens are on by default. The planner still controls nothing.
Running on the test kit; the alpha image goes to people who join the alpha. Every release, version by version: releases.
Shipped
Local brain
The logic lives on a Pi
Catalogues, Want and Need, the roster, the grow tools and the dashboard run on the Pi brain with its own local webserver, closed loop with the hub. DSC does not use Home Assistant.
14 Sep 2026
8.3.0: ingest orchestrator
One persistent session per device, poll-rate ladders that read faster while a probe is in use, change-driven recording, and kit firmware 8.2.0.0 on the hub and probes.
8 Sep 2026
8.1.0: public release
A public release, a kit card that carries real firmware, and the operator desk that grew after a rough night on 9 September: a typed journal, a cancellable light catch-up, air numbers that are arithmetic. 8.2.0 is a surface number, lab only.
25 Jul 2026
v4.0: headless hub, ESP-NOW primary
The hub went headless, ESP-NOW became every device's primary transport, and the wall panel became DSC-CONTROL. (That release still had Home Assistant as a backup path. DSC has since dropped it and does not use Home Assistant.) Two panel hotfixes followed, honestly labelled: v4.0.1 superseded, v4.0.2 unreleased.
Jun to Jul 2026
v1.0 to v2.4
The rewrite: ten-stage grow engine, three control strategies, photoperiod on the box's own clock, the demand model, sensor watchdog, failsafe snapshot and restore. Then the damper, the hardening pass, the clone tent, zone control and closed-loop roots.
Before general release
Gates before general release
Today the hub controls climate and lights, and the brain runs the dashboard, the logs and the libraries. What stands between the alpha and a general release is the first hour: flashing the card and reaching a running room has to work from scratch, onboarding has to work for someone who has never seen DSC, the documentation has to be in place, and every step has to be as easy as we can make it. Until then every build is an alpha build, and this page says so. The open items are on the changelog, in the state they are really in.
Release checklist
Build guides polished with photos: hub, pot node, flashing. The user guide checked against every release. The supported-gear library checked against what alpha testers own. Firmware and the guide published together.
Mission
Knowledge without a financial barrier. Hardware without lock-in. A controller proven in the hardest-case environments so it works everywhere, including food resilience.
One day, somewhere, this is going to matter.
Running on our test kit: 9.10.0 · kit firmware 9.0.0.0 · last report 22 Oct 2026
Every alpha build free, and yours to keep