Your screen brightness, handled automatically.
PixelSense watches how bright your room is and what's on your screen, then adjusts your monitor's brightness so your eyes don't get tired. No more squinting at a blinding white page after working in a dark editor, and no more manually reaching for brightness buttons every time the sun moves.
I'm a student, and I spend a lot of hours in front of a screen — coding, studying, reading documentation. After long sessions I'd get headaches and tired eyes, and I realized one big reason was that my monitor brightness never changed. I'd be coding in a dark editor, then open a browser with a white background, and the sudden brightness difference was painful.
Windows has a "Night Light" feature, but that just adds a color filter on top — it doesn't actually change how bright the screen is. I wanted something that physically dims the backlight when my room is dark or when the screen content is mostly bright, the same way my phone adjusts automatically.
So I built PixelSense. It talks directly to the monitor hardware using DDC/CI for external monitors and WMI for laptop panels (the same hardware interfaces that physically control your screen) and adjusts the real backlight. It's not a color overlay — it's actual brightness control.
It's still a work in progress. Some parts use simulated sensor data while I finish the native integrations. But the core engine works, the UI is functional, and the architecture is designed to be extended.
Dashboard |
Settings |
Comfort Profiles |
History |
📹 Demo GIF coming soon — I'll record a short clip showing PixelSense adjusting brightness as you switch between apps.
These features are implemented, tested, and verified (85 out of 85 unit tests passing):
Brightness Control
- Discovers connected monitors on Windows automatically
- Reads and writes brightness through real hardware control (WMI for laptop panels, DDC/CI for external monitors)
- Smooth brightness transitions — no sudden jumps, brightness ramps up/down gradually
Comfort Intelligence
- Decision engine that figures out what brightness your screen should be, based on room light level and screen content
- Comfort profiles — save your preferred brightness for different situations (e.g., "daytime coding" vs. "evening reading")
- Visual comfort engine that calculates how much to compensate when conditions change
- Rate limiter that prevents the screen from flickering with too-frequent changes
User Interface
- Overview dashboard showing current comfort score, ambient light, and display brightness
- Settings page with toggles for screen content analysis, sensor assist, fullscreen behavior, and battery saver
- Comfort profile management — create, edit, switch between profiles
- History page tracking brightness changes over time
- Guided first-launch wizard to set up your initial comfort preferences
- Developer diagnostics page showing CPU/RAM usage and polling info
- Dark mode, keyboard navigation, and screen reader support (ARIA labels)
Under the Hood
- All settings saved to disk and restored on launch
- System tray with context menu (Show, Settings, Quit)
- Offline and private — all processing happens locally, no data leaves your computer, no accounts needed
Some parts of PixelSense use simulated data while native integrations are being built:
- Native ambient light sensor — the architecture is built, but currently uses placeholder readings instead of your laptop's actual light sensor. Real Windows Sensor API integration is next.
- Native screen capture — same situation. The engine is ready, but frame capture from the screen uses a mock. Real DXGI Desktop Duplication capture is planned.
- Transition cancellation — if a new brightness change starts while an old one is still running, they should cancel cleanly. This isn't wired up yet.
- Fullscreen detection — PixelSense should pause or reduce polling when you're in a fullscreen game or movie. Currently hardcoded to "not fullscreen."
- Battery-aware power modes — the
PerformanceandBatterySavermodes are defined but onlyBalancedis active. Needs Windows power notification integration. - macOS and Linux — PixelSense is Windows-only right now. Provider stubs exist for other platforms but nothing is implemented.
- Windows 10 or 11
- Node.js v18 or newer — download here
- Rust v1.84 or newer — install via rustup
- Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 — needed for compiling native Windows code. During installation, select the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
There are no pre-built binaries yet, so you'll need to build it yourself:
# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/1Bharat007/pixelSense.git
cd pixelSense
# 2. Install JavaScript dependencies
npm install
# 3. Run the app in development mode
# (this compiles the Rust backend and starts the React frontend together)
npm run tauri dev# Run all 85 unit tests
cd apps/desktop/src-tauri
cargo test -p app --libRoom Light Level ──┐
├──▶ Decision Engine ──▶ Smooth Transition ──▶ Monitor Hardware
Screen Content ────┤
│
Your Preferences ──┘
Three inputs go in. One brightness value comes out. Your monitor adjusts physically. You don't have to do anything.
For the full technical architecture (Rust module boundaries, trait-based design, subsystem responsibilities), see ARCHITECTURE.md.
| Layer | Technology | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Backend | Rust | Fast, safe, low memory usage — important for something that runs all day in the background |
| Frontend | React 19 + TypeScript | Familiar UI framework, type-safe |
| Desktop | Tauri v2 | Lets us package a web UI with a Rust backend as a native Windows app, much lighter than Electron |
| Hardware | WMI (laptop panels) + DDC/CI (external monitors), via Win32 | Direct hardware brightness control — not a software overlay |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS | Utility-first CSS for consistent design |
Contributions are welcome, especially from people who haven't contributed to open source before.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to set up the dev environment, run tests, and submit a PR.
Check out issues labeled good first issue for small, approachable tasks.
MIT — see LICENSE for details.
Built by Bharat Bushan because screens should be smarter about brightness.
Note: Windows may show a "Windows protected your PC" SmartScreen warning when you run the installer, since it isn't signed with a paid code-signing certificate (common for free, independent software). Click "More info" then "Run anyway" to proceed. You can verify the file is untampered by checking its SHA256 hash matches what's listed in this release's assets.