mac | How to display hardware temperature on your Desktop with Geektool

June 17th, 2009 at 0:11

Note: More Geektool posts here.

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_01

Todays task is displaying hardware temperature on your Mac OS X Desktop using Geektool.

Many users do monitor hardware temperature with applications like iStatsMenus or MenuMeters … but why mess around with eye-candy-apps if we could ‘geek’ the task with some command-line power ?

So the main question is

How do we measure hardware temperature from the Mac OS X Terminal ?

Measuring temperatures in terminal

An easy solution is based on the free application Temperature Monitor from Marcel Bresink.

The download offers two applications

Temperature Monitor.app -> application
Temperature Monitor Lite.app -> menubar application

Temperature Monitor.app

Mainwindow

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_02

Preferences

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_03

Menubar

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_04

Temperature Monitor Lite.app

The Lite version is limited to a standalone menubar item with displays the temps

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_05

How does that helps ?

Well the solution is located inside the Temperature Monitor.app package and called tempmonitor

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_06

which can be used from terminal.

So if you need some informations about how temponitor works – consider reading the manual before you continue reading here.

Geektool it

As we can read temperatures from terminal now we just need to finish the Geektool-part and our solution should be finished.

In theory we can split the following into two sections

Generating some temperatures output
Displaying it with Geektool

Generate some temperatures output

I want to display all informations delivered by tempmonitor so i work with the following terminal command

/Applications/TemperatureMonitor.app/Contents/MacOS/tempmonitor -c -l -a

The output in terminal should look similar to this … while it might differ depending on your macs hardware

Well … we could dump that info into a textfile (cvs) …. but for this tutorial we keep it simple and use the plain command inside Geektool

Displaying the content

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_08

Which results in a Geektool window similar to this one

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_09

Conclusion

Its pretty wasy to display some temperature niformations on your Desktop . Tempmonitor is only one solution – others might be better for you – but i iguess the basic idea should be comprehensible now.

My right screencorner looks like this

20090617_geektool_temp_on_desktop_10

Would be great so see other Geektool-Tempearatures-solutions … so if you got your solution running feel free to post a picture.

Best regards

fidel

Tags: geektool, howto, menubar, temp, temperatures, tempmonitor

Note: More Geektool posts here. Todays task is displaying hardware temperature on your Mac OS X Desktop using Geektool. Many users do monitor hardware temperature with applications like iStatsMenus or MenuMeters ... but why mess around with eye-candy-apps if we could 'geek' the task with some command-line power ? So the main question is How do we measure hardware temperature from the Mac OS X Terminal ? Measuring temperatures in terminal An easy solution is based on the free application Temperature Monitor from Marcel Bresink. The download offers two applications Temperature Monitor.app -> application Temperature Monitor Lite.app -> menubar application Temperature Monitor.app Mainwindow Preferences Menubar Temperature Monitor Lite.app The Lite version is limited to a standalone menubar item with displays the temps How does that helps ? Well the solution is located inside the Temperature Monitor.app package and called tempmonitor which can be used from terminal. So if you need some informations about how temponitor works - consider reading the manual before you continue reading here. Geektool it As we can read temperatures from terminal now we just need to finish the Geektool-part and our solution should be finished. In theory we can split the following into two sections Generating some temperatures output Displaying it with Geektool Generate some temperatures output I want to display all informations delivered by tempmonitor so i work with the following terminal command /Applications/TemperatureMonitor.app/Contents/MacOS/tempmonitor -c -l -a The output in terminal should look similar to this ... while it might differ depending on your macs hardware Well ... we could dump that info into a textfile (cvs) .... but for this tutorial we keep it simple and use the plain command inside Geektool Displaying the content Which results in a Geektool window similar to this one Conclusion Its pretty wasy to display some temperature niformations on your Desktop . Tempmonitor is only one solution - others might be better for you - but i iguess the basic idea should be comprehensible now. My right screencorner looks like this Would be great so see other Geektool-Tempearatures-solutions ... so if you got your solution running feel free to post a picture. Best regards fidel

Posted by fidel, in How to, mac, Software, Terminal, _english

11 Responses to “mac | How to display hardware temperature on your Desktop with Geektool”

Dominic Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 01:52
Alter, deine Menubar^^ Brauchst du das “wirklich” alles?
Zum Thema noch: gute Idee. Aber ist wie immer Geschmackssache. Mir reicht iStat Menus in der Hinsicht vollkommen aus.
fidel Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 08:08
@Dominic:

na klar …. ich finde das garnicht so extrem

Bzgl Geektool:
mir ging es auch eher um das wie …. denke ich werde das im Alltag auch nicht lange verwenden …. bin auch aus Gewohnheit iStatsMenus User hehe.
Krueme1^Nico Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 12:21
Naja @ MenuBar bei nem 30″ Monitor auch kein Problem die Menubar … bei mir wär das sicher die ganze leiste xD

@Thema… Ja istats ist auch schöner …. und vor LAuter geekTool hätte ich da eh kein platz zu…
Istat Says:
June 29th, 2009 at 20:50
Istat…

Note: More Geektool posts here.Todays task is displaying hardware temperature on your Mac OS X Deskt [...]…
Nico Says:
July 18th, 2009 at 14:29
Ciao
Gibt es im Netz Links, von denen man lernen kann, wie man solch eine Applikation programmieren kann. Ich benoetige unbedingt ein Tool, mit dem ich Temp-Sensoren auf meinem iMac auslesen kann ……Wie und wo fange ich damit am besten an? Wie kann man die Menuebar denn nach seinem Geschmack konfigurieren?
Danke fuer die Hilfe
Nico
fidel Says:
July 18th, 2009 at 14:46
@nico:

was genau willst du den machen ?
einfach nur Temp deines iMacs auslesen ? Für diesen Fall gibt es massig apps … obiges Beispiel wäre eine mögliche … wobei ich mir hier halt mit Geektool zur Visualisirung was spezielles rausgesucht habe

Ähnliche Funktionen bieten Menumeters & iStatsMenus …jeweils als Menubar app.

Im Kenr solltest du dafür nicht selber programmieren müssen … vor allem da du dann wohl erstmal mit kleinen Aufgaben anfangen solltest…sofenr du keine vorerfahrung hast.

Kurzum:
versuch dein anleigen mal näher zu erklären …dann finden wir sicherlich ne Lösung.
Olaf Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 18:15
Klasse Sache. Jetzt bin ich ja so detailverliebt und möchte das ° vor dem C nicht missen. Geht wohl nicht.
Temperature Monitor lässt auch die Daten auf dem Monitor anzeigen, aber mir ist das alles nicht schlank genug. TM startet wohl auch nicht automatisch und macht sich im Dock breit.

Gruß,
Olaf
Christian Says:
July 18th, 2010 at 09:08
Gibt es eine Möglichkeit, nur die CPU Temperatur auszugeben? Also nicht alle möglichen Messwerte, sondern nur Bestimmte?
fidel Says:
July 18th, 2010 at 09:17
@christian
versuch dein glück mal mit GREP

Gruß
fidel
Christian Says:
July 20th, 2010 at 07:47
@fidel:
Danke, hat mit:
| egrep ‘CPU Core 1|CPU Core 3|CPU A’
funktioniert, in dem Fall zeigt er mir meine zwei Prozessorkerne und CPU A (=> die allgemeine Temperatur der CPU?) an.
fidel Says:
July 20th, 2010 at 09:41
@christian
es geht doch nix über grep – schön – freut mich zu hören.

Gruss
fidel

macfidelity

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rethinking the think-different thing