Helios 0.3.0 Beta 2

Bundle version 0.3.0, build 7, tag v0.3.0-beta.2. The first public beta of 0.3.0, after
0.2.1 Beta 1. Helios now explains why, watches how the Mac
holds up over months, runs on every Apple Silicon Mac and adds a few tools that save clicks.
What was verified before release is in VALIDATION_0_3_0_BETA_2.md.

Beta 1 was withdrawn within hours. It hid the Longevity page from everyone who finished the
welcome or pressed Apply Goals. Beta 2 fixes that and brings it back once for anyone it was hidden
for. Nothing else changed.

The build is not notarized. macOS asks you to confirm the first launch; see the
installation guide.

Ask Helios why

• Ask Helios on the Overview, and a Why? section on the CPU, Thermals, Battery, Storage and
  Network pages, answer: why is my Mac slow, hot or loud, why does the battery drain, why does it
  not sleep, why did it restart, why is the Wi-Fi or internet slow, why is the disk filling up.
• Each answer reads what I see → why I think so → what you can do, says how sure it is
  (Likely or Possible) and what it could not check.
• Restart answers read macOS's own crash and shutdown reports on this Mac. Nothing leaves the Mac.

Longevity (new page)

• Battery: wear over time and a projection to 80 %, cycles, time spent full on the adapter,
  charging while warm, and an optional reminder at 80 %. Helios never changes how the Mac charges.
• Power adapter and cable: the adapter's rating, what it offers over this cable and what the
  Mac agreed on, so a cable that holds a 96 W adapter to 60 W is pointed out.
• SSD: writes per day, the drive's own endurance estimate and a projection, marked as a rough
  estimate.
• Cooling: temperature under similar load compared with the Mac's first four weeks (a sign of
  dust or a blocked vent), honest that Helios cannot measure the room.
• Memory: time under memory pressure and how much swap it writes to the SSD.
• Grades in words (Excellent, Good, Needs attention) with the facts behind them, never a
  bare score. Without enough history an area says so instead of guessing.
• Export a report of the week as PDF or HTML, and an optional weekly summary notification.

Network

• Network check on request: Wi-Fi, router, DNS and internet, timed separately, with the answer
  in one sentence ("The router answers in 4 ms, the internet in 180 ms: the problem is with your
  provider"). Also notices VPNs and phone hotspots.
• Wi-Fi channel crowding (without asking for Location), and Wi-Fi drops over the last hour.
• Data usage per app (optional, off by default), per day, with a note on a phone hotspot. It
  stays on this Mac.
• Latency over time (optional, off by default): three tiny echoes to the router and the
  internet every five minutes, a chart of the last day or week, and Why is the internet slow?
  compares the last hour with your Mac's usual. Kept for seven days on this Mac.

Tools

• Keep Awake: for a while, while on power, until an app quits, or until you stop it; optionally
  the display too. It ends itself at 10 % battery or critical heat. In the menu-bar popover and
  the Overview.
• Command palette: ⌃⌥⌘Space from anywhere: pages, actions and processes.
• Rules: "if → then" for temperature, battery, power source, running apps, time of day and CPU load,
  with safe actions only (notify, Keep Awake, fans back to System or Auto, run a Shortcut).
• Tell me when it's done: an app quits, the CPU calms down, a download finishes.
• helios:// links, a helios command line (helios status --json) and Shortcuts.
• Mouse (experimental, Settings › Advanced, off by default): reverse only the scroll wheel so
  the trackpad keeps natural scrolling, and set how far one notch scrolls. Trackpads and Magic
  Mouse are never changed. It needs Accessibility access, which macOS asks for again after every
  update because Helios is not notarized.

Every Apple Silicon Mac

• Helios recognises every Apple Silicon chip (M1 to M6 with Pro, Max and Ultra, and A18 Pro) and
  59 Mac models.
• Sensor maps are now checked on your Mac during normal use and labelled Confirmed on this
  Mac, Validated for this chip or From catalogue, may be inaccurate. Calibrate on the
  Thermals page speeds this up. Unconfirmed temperatures never raise alerts or drive Auto.
• The base M3 map was corrected (the catalogue's performance-core keys were GPU keys), and M1
  Ultra's second chip was added.
• Export SMC Dump… saves an anonymous list of the Mac's sensor keys for a bug report.

Fan control (experimental outside one Mac)

• Fan control can now be turned on, as an experiment, on every Apple Silicon Mac with fans,
  including Macs that drive the fans without the Ftst key (M5 and later) and Macs with two or
  three fans.
• On any Mac other than the validated one (Mac16,1 with macOS build 25G83) it needs your consent
  for that exact model and macOS build, then a 20-second fan test at the lowest speed. The
  speed limit is 70 % of the factory maximum and there is no Boost. If a fan does not obey
  during the test, fan control stays off for that model and build; if macOS simply does not hand
  the fans over at that moment, you can run the test again.
• Your Mac on a newer macOS than 25G83 counts as experimental too: after updating, confirm
  again in Settings › Cooling and run the fan test.
• Settings › Cooling now says in one line where fan control stands on this Mac.
• Unchanged: Helios never cools less than macOS, hands the fans back on any error, before sleep and
  when it quits, and the helper's own 95 °C guard.

Also

• The original 0.1 interface (Legacy) is gone; Helios has one interface.
• Diagnostics is now Checkup: what Helios found (each with its Why?), what would let it see
  more, what it can read, and All readings, every value Helios reads, unprocessed, on request.
• On a large window the Overview uses a second column for Ask Helios, tools and summaries.
• After the update, What's New walks through each new area in a few short pages, including how to
  turn on fan control and what the fan test does.
• Background macOS processes have plain names ("Spotlight indexing", "Web pages (WebKit)").
• Macs with several fans show them all ("2 fans · 2400–2600 RPM").
• A chart that covers only part of its range says how much data it has.
• The Hardware page lists storage and fans, earbuds' left, right and case battery, and says when
  nothing else is connected.
• A high-temperature event now says what else was going on (macOS's thermal verdict and the
  busiest app).
• The Battery page falls back to a Helios estimate of the time remaining while macOS is still
  calculating.

Known limits

• Fan control is physically tested on one M4 MacBook Pro only. Everything else is experimental by
  design and depends on reports from people who try it.
• The base M5's efficiency-core sensors are unknown; that group shows as Unknown.
• Longevity needs time: a battery trend after about a month, the cooling comparison after four
  weeks of use.
• Without a paid Apple Developer ID there are no widgets and no automatic updates, and the helper
  must be reinstalled after every update.

Upgrading from 0.2.x

• Replace the app in Applications. Settings, history and fan-control consent are kept.
• Reinstall the fan helper once: the What's New window shows Reinstall Helper (also in
  Settings › Cooling), and macOS may ask you to approve it. This version changes how the app
  and the helper talk to each other, so the old helper does not answer it.
• On any Mac other than the validated one, fan control is now experimental: confirm it in
  Settings › Cooling and run the 20-second fan test. What's New walks you through it.
• 0.2.x offers this release in its update check.

Download

• Helios-0.3.0-beta.2.dmg — open it and drag Helios onto the Applications folder.
• Helios-0.3.0-beta.2.zip — the same app as a ZIP.
• SHA256SUMS.txt — checksums of both files.

"Source code (zip)" is the source, not the app.

Support Helios

Helios is free and made by one person. If it helps you, a coffee helps pay for test Macs:
buymeacoffee.com/snejda.

Helios 0.2.1 Beta 1

Bundle version 0.2.1, build 5, tag v0.2.1-beta.1. A focused update to
0.2.0 Beta 1 for what testers on other Macs see first.
What was verified before release is in VALIDATION_0_2_1_BETA_1.md.

The build is not notarized. macOS asks you to confirm the first launch; see the
installation guide.

Temperatures on more Macs

• CPU and GPU temperatures, the P-core, E-core and GPU summaries and the menu-bar
  temperature now also work on M1, M2, M3, M5 and M6 Macs. Before, those Macs showed
  only raw sensors.
• The sensor maps for these chips come from the public Stats sensor catalogue (MIT
  licensed) and have not been checked on real hardware yet. Helios says so on the
  Thermals page. Only the M4 family is verified.
• They are display-only. Fan control, Cooling Rules and the helper are unchanged and
  still use only the verified M4 map.
• Temperature alerts (90 °C / 95 °C by default) now also work on those Macs. They only
  inform you; they never change the fans.
• Sensor sections that used to say Trusted now say Identified, because on most Macs
  the identity comes from the catalogue.

Fan control

• Fixed: Automatic, Manual and Boost no longer fall back to System whenever the GPU goes
  to sleep. Its temperature sensors switch off then, and Helios treated that as untrusted
  telemetry. Every other sensor problem still hands the fans back to macOS at once, and the
  helper's own safety checks are unchanged.

Diagnostics

• The manual compatibility report no longer lists sensors stored in a format Helios does
  not read (ioft, si32) as decode errors. They still appear in the sensor inventory with
  their type. Genuinely broken readings are still reported.
• A temperature sensor that is switched off (the GPU sensors read about −4.5 °C while the GPU
  sleeps) is now reported as not measuring instead of as a failure, so the failure counter in
  diagnostics no longer climbs during normal use.
• Several sensors failing at the same moment count as one failure episode, not one per sensor.
  The report format is unchanged.

Welcome and sharing

• A shorter welcome: what Helios can do for you as cards you tap, instead of behind
  Customize…. Fan control (and the helper step) appears only if you pick Keep my Mac cool,
  and is skipped when the helper is already installed.
• The welcome always asks about anonymous reports, with two checkboxes, both off until you
  tick them: a daily health report and the new weekly compatibility report (which
  sensors and fans the Mac has and what they read, sent automatically once a week). Each has
  a preview built from your Mac. The same choices are in Settings › Privacy & Diagnostics and
  in the What's New window.
• The DMG window now tells you to drag Helios onto the Applications folder.

Uninstall and updates

• Settings → Advanced → Uninstall Helios now does everything: returns the fans to macOS,
  turns off Launch at Login, unregisters the helper, optionally erases local data, then moves
  Helios.app to the Trash and quits. If any step before the Trash fails, nothing else is
  touched. If the app cannot move itself (disk image, a temporary location chosen by macOS),
  Helios shows it in Finder.
• After an update a short What's New window appears once, with a °C / °F choice and the
  fan helper's status. A fresh installation sees the welcome setup instead.
• °F now applies everywhere it was missing: the fan curve editor, the notification
  thresholds in Settings, notification texts, the Expert thermal map and the Legacy window.
• Sensors that are switched off for a moment are listed under Not measuring right now, and
  sensors in a format Helios does not read under Not readable by Helios, instead of under
  Read failures. They no longer fill the log.
• The cooling option Restore Auto when Helios starts is now called Keep Auto after sleep and
  restart, which is what it always did.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 Beta 1

• Replace the app in Applications. Settings, history and fan-control consent are kept.
• If you use fan control, reinstall the helper once: the What's New window shows
  Reinstall Helper (also in Settings → Cooling), and macOS may ask you to approve it.
  A new app version changes the helper's signature, so the old helper does not answer it.
• Beta 1 offers this release in its update check.

Known limitations

• The display maps for M1, M2, M3, M5 and M6 are unverified; a compatibility report from
  such a Mac (Settings → Privacy & Diagnostics) is the fastest way to correct them.
• Fan control is still limited to Macs with a verified thermal map (M4 family).
• Everything listed under Known limitations for 0.2.0 Beta 1 still applies.

Helios 0.2.0 Beta 1

Helios 0.2.0 Beta 1 — release notes

Bundle version 0.2.0, build 4, tag v0.2.0-beta.1. Built on the 0.1.0 Pre-beta 2
baseline. What was verified before release is in
VALIDATION_0_2_0_BETA_1.md.

Beta 1 is not notarized. macOS asks you to confirm the first launch; see the
installation guide.

A new Helios

Helios now answers Is my Mac OK? before it shows numbers.

• New main window. Overview, then Components (CPU, GPU, Memory, Thermals,
  Battery, Energy, Storage, Network, Hardware) with live values in the sidebar, and
  Insights (Activity, History, Diagnostics). ⌘1…⌘9 open the pages. Helios shows in the
  Dock only while a window is open.
• Overview and Why? One answer for your Mac, four health areas, a live chart that
  follows what needs attention and an inline explanation of every status.
• Menu-bar popover with a compact summary and per-metric popovers in the same style.
• Welcome. Tell Helios what matters; it configures the menu bar and starts only the
  samplers you need.
• Legacy interface. The original 0.1 window stays available in Settings → Advanced.

Cooling

• Fan layer (experimental, off by default). Helios adds cooling on top of macOS and
  never cools less. Modes: System, Boost (15 minutes), Manual (a minimum speed) and
  Automatic.
• Fan curve. Automatic follows an editable temperature → speed curve, separately for
  power adapter and battery, with presets, a Response slider and an optional step-rules mode.
• Speed limit. Helios stays at or below 90 % of the factory maximum and hands the fans
  back to macOS when more cooling is needed. You can unlock the full range in Settings.
• Restore Auto when Helios starts (off by default) re-arms Auto after launch and after
  the helper reconnects. Manual and Boost are never restored.
• Safety. Fan control returns to macOS on any error, before sleep, when Helios quits or
  the helper restarts, and recovers from a killed helper at the next start. It works on any
  Mac the read-only probe accepts, once you turn it on for that model and macOS version.
• Menu bar. The cooling item shows the fan state over average/hottest temperature.

Battery and energy

• Energy page. Ranges from one hour to seven days or a custom range, an on-battery
  filter, apps using more than in the period before, unobserved (asleep) time, app actions
  (Quit, Force Quit, Show in Finder) and CSV or JSON export.
• Battery page. Health, cycles, capacity, power and condition, plus health over time,
  recorded once a day.
• Hardware page with what this Mac is and what Helios can read.

Alerts and diagnostics

• Notifications you can tune per area; defaults warn at 90 °C and 95 °C chip temperature.
  Alerts only inform and never change fan control.
• Optional beta diagnostics gained an opt-in fan-control statistics section (off by
  default, in memory only, bucketed, visible in "View what is shared").

Smaller changes

• The Thermals page shows average and hottest temperature; CPU, GPU, Memory and Network
  pages and popovers gained the missing detail (cores, swap, upload, Wi-Fi).
• Seven days of app-energy history use a fraction of the memory, and local history is
  no longer rewritten constantly.
• "Right now" groups helper processes under their app.
• The log no longer repeats the same fan message twice a second.

Upgrading

• The helper protocol changed. After updating, Settings → Cooling → Reinstall if Helios
  asks for it.
• Fan control consent is stored per Mac model and macOS build; after a macOS update, turn
  it on again.
• The build is Apple Development signed, not notarized.

Known limitations

• Fan control is experimental. Taking the fans from macOS needs several seconds, and fans
  cannot stop the chip from throttling during a short spike.
• Trusted temperature sensors are mapped for the M4 family only; other chips stay read-only
  for fan control until their maps are verified.
• Some physical fan tests (sleep or lid close while holding, reboot with ownership) are not
  finished.
• App-energy history is kept for seven days.

Helios 0.1.0 Pre-beta 2

Helios 0.1.0 Pre-beta 2

Pre-beta testing build

Helios is still under active development. This build is intended for early testing and feedback.

Pre-beta 2 focuses on release polish, privacy, diagnostics reliability, onboarding, update checks, and launch-at-login support.

What's new

• Native GitHub release update checking
  • automatic checks are throttled
  • manual Check for Updates is available in About
  • no Helios telemetry or persistent device identifier is sent during update checks
• Improved onboarding
  • clearer first-run flow
  • diagnostics consent remains optional
  • optional Support Helios page
• Launch Helios at Login support
• Diagnostics hardening
  • automatic diagnostics remain OFF by default
  • clearer preview-before-send behavior
  • improved retry, cooldown, lifecycle, and failure reporting
  • compatibility reports remain explicitly user initiated
• Improved About and Privacy & Diagnostics UI
• Additional regression coverage and release validation

Compatibility

• macOS 13 or newer
• Apple Silicon (arm64) only
• Fan control is available only on explicitly validated hardware/OS profiles
• Unknown or unvalidated systems remain in System/read-only cooling mode

Installation

Download:

Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.2.dmg

Open the DMG, drag Helios to Applications, eject the DMG, then launch Helios from Applications.

This build is signed with an Apple Development certificate and is not notarized.

If macOS blocks the first launch:

1. Try opening Helios once.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
3. Find the message that Helios was blocked.
4. Click Open Anyway.
5. Confirm the launch.

Do not disable Gatekeeper, SIP, or other macOS security protections.

Updating from Pre-beta 1

Replace the existing Helios.app in Applications with the Pre-beta 2 copy.

If the privileged helper shows as unavailable after replacing the app, reinstall the helper from Helios Settings. Existing monitoring data and preferences should otherwise remain available.

Privileged helper

The privileged helper is not required for normal monitoring.

It is installed only after explicit user action. Installing the helper does not automatically authorize fan writes. Unsupported or unvalidated systems remain System/read-only.

Privacy

• Monitoring and history are primarily local
• Automatic beta diagnostics are disabled by default
• Manual diagnostic and compatibility reports require preview and explicit Send
• Update checks are independent of diagnostics consent and contain no Helios telemetry or Helios device identifier
• The privileged helper is limited to cooling/fan functionality

Validated in this build

This exact release candidate was tested through:

• full Helios regression suite
• clean Release build
• code-signature verification
• DMG integrity verification
• ZIP extraction and signature verification
• Pre-beta 1 → Pre-beta 2 replacement install
• helper reinstall/reconnect
• launch at login across reboot
• onboarding replay
• manual update check
• diagnostics/privacy UI smoke testing

Primary validation host: base M4 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Downloads

• Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.2.dmg — recommended
• Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.2.zip — direct app archive
• SHA256SUMS.txt — SHA-256 checksums

SHA-256

44158a12d61d934a5c80b195872561514dbd278070314446f9cdf8d17e989608  Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.2.dmg
b6282dc207444e516f59c57f7c8e7426c4c9bba15121a802d2b64ca8d30cf494  Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.2.zip

Feedback

Bug reports and hardware compatibility feedback are especially useful during pre-beta testing.

Please include:

• Helios version/build
• Mac model and chip
• macOS version
• steps to reproduce
• expected behavior
• actual behavior

Do not publicly post credentials, serial numbers, unreviewed diagnostic reports, or sensitive screenshots.

---

Version: 0.1.0 (2)
Tag: v0.1.0-prebeta.2
Commit: 0709737

Helios 0.1.0 Pre-beta 1

Helios 0.1.0 Pre-beta 1

Pre-beta testing build

Helios is still under active development. This build is intended for early testing and feedback.

Helios is a native Apple Silicon macOS utility focused on system telemetry, diagnostics, history, energy/process insight, privacy, and carefully gated cooling controls.

Compatibility

• macOS 13 or newer
• Apple Silicon (arm64)
• Fan control is available only on explicitly validated hardware/OS profiles
• Unknown or unvalidated systems remain in System/read-only cooling mode

Installation

Download:

Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.dmg

Open the DMG, drag Helios to Applications, eject the DMG, then launch Helios from Applications.

This build is signed with an Apple Development certificate and is not yet notarized for public distribution.

If macOS blocks the first launch:

1. Try opening Helios once.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
3. Find the message that Helios was blocked.
4. Click Open Anyway.
5. Confirm the launch.

Do not disable Gatekeeper, SIP, or other macOS security protections.

Privileged helper

The privileged helper is not required for normal monitoring.

It is installed only after explicit user action.

Installing the helper does not automatically authorize fan writes. Unsupported or unvalidated systems remain System/read-only.

Privacy

• Monitoring and history are primarily local
• Beta diagnostics are disabled by default
• The privileged helper is limited to cooling/fan functionality

Validated in this build

This exact artifact was tested through:

• clean DMG installation
• first-run onboarding
• diagnostics default OFF
• telemetry without the privileged helper
• explicit helper installation
• helper signing and ServiceManagement registration
• app relaunch and reconnect
• reboot persistence
• sleep/wake recovery
• Helios removal flow

Primary validation host: base M4 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Downloads

• Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.dmg — recommended
• Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.zip — direct app archive
• SHA256SUMS.txt — SHA-256 checksums

SHA-256

d0343024d1feb4d9679c9f88cd3c722a43aa73ebbe7f6af632886b3b86961e6e Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.dmg
3258348089d4be9df23dee7947187002a4a7fb08cdcb72a1138d442357dffbf5 Helios-0.1.0-prebeta.zip

Feedback

Bug reports and hardware compatibility feedback are especially useful during pre-beta testing.

Please include:

• Helios version/build
• Mac model and chip
• macOS version
• steps to reproduce
• expected behavior
• actual behavior

Do not publicly post credentials, serial numbers, unreviewed diagnostic reports, or sensitive screenshots.

---

Version: 0.1.0 (1)
Tag: v0.1.0-prebeta.1
Commit: 3021c2c