Hello all!
I’ve started writing a custom firmware for my RGB keyboard so that I can use it to display device performance stats that interest me, and I thought you all might find it interesting:
Row 3 Tab → \ represents CPU utilization and temperature (stress test running while photo was taken to show more lights)
Row 4 Caps Lock → Enter represents RAM usage
Row 6 Ctrl → Right arrow represents battery usage (power draw while discharging, % charged while charging)
Each row has color changes depending on what’s appropriate.
The F12 key (with framework logo) is used to show whether the dGPU is powered on or not. Red means it’s powered on, blue mean’s it’s in d3Cold. dGPU shouldn’t be on at the time I took that photo, so it’s already proving useful!
Update: I’ve also added mute and wifi status indicators since this was posted.
Future plans: Add a stat to Row 5 (likely GPU related), show current volume level and brightness level on the vol/brightness control keys, wifi connection status on airplane key, and etc.
I’d like to use the numbers 0-9 to show stuff that I want the exact value of. E.g., I could show 45% CPU usage by highlighting the 4 at full brightness, and the 3 at half brightness.
I’ve open-sourced the code, but it’s not polished or yet quite intended for people to make use of yet.
Firmware Source Code:
Data Host Application:
Note that this is currently only built to be compatible with my laptop, on Linux. If there’s enough interest, it should be possible to generalize it.
