btemp

Terminal UI for live temperature graphs from lm-sensors, in the spirit of btop: color-coded braille line charts that update as your hardware changes.

Repository: github.com/bverkley/btemp

Screenshot

Additional examples can be added under screenshots/.

Requirements

• Linux
• lm-sensors installed and configured so the sensors command works (JSON preferred: sensors -j)

Setup (typical)

1. Install the package for your distro (often named lm-sensors or sys-apps/lm-sensors).
2. Probe chips (once, as root): sudo sensors-detect and accept the defaults you are comfortable with.
3. Load any suggested kernel modules, then run sensors and confirm you see temperatures.

Build

cargo build --release

Binary: target/release/btemp

Run

./target/release/btemp

• q quit
• r refresh now
• + / - adjust poll interval (250 ms–10 s)

If sensors is missing or returns no data, btemp shows a short message pointing you at lm-sensors setup.

How it works

btemp prefers sensors -j and falls back to plain sensors text. Readings are grouped into panels (CPU with composite + per-core style rows, storage/NVMe, GPU, motherboard, other) using adapter and label heuristics.

Storage (wide terminal, ≥44 cols): sensors are grouped by drive (chip). Each drive shows the model name once as a header (from /sys/class/nvme/*/model when PCI matches the chip id). Under that: a tall composite braille chart on the left (Composite sensor when present), and auxiliary sensors (Sensor 2, etc.) stacked on the right with matching total height. Narrow terminals fall back to a flat list.

Graphs: temperature history uses ratatui Canvas + Braille: the chart sweeps many vertical samples (interpolated between history points) so the trace reads as solid columns. Like btop, the fill is colored by height in the chart (cool greens at the bottom of the trace, warmer tones toward the top), not a single color from the instantaneous temperature. Graph rows expand vertically within each panel. The horizontal axis is a fixed sample window (same size as the history buffer): traces are right-aligned, so with few samples the left side stays empty and the wave grows toward the left as the buffer fills, then scrolls like btop instead of compressing all points to full width.

CPU: the CPU panel title includes the model name line from /proc/cpuinfo when readable. Individual rows still show sensor labels (e.g. Tctl).

Storage columns: under each drive, the composite chart uses 67% of the width and auxiliary sensors 33% (explicit percentage split).

Temperature scale: the Y axis is in °C from your data range; the braille colors are a vertical heat ramp (position in the graph), similar to btop. Values show as °C (Unicode degree sign).

Privacy and data

btemp is local-only: it runs the sensors command, reads /proc/cpuinfo (for the CPU panel title), and reads sysfs under /sys/class/nvme (to match NVMe model names to sensor chips). It does not open network connections, send telemetry, or log your readings to disk. Anything on screen is already available to other local processes with similar permissions.

Screenshots or screen shares of the TUI can expose hardware model names and temperatures; treat them like any other system monitor.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

Credits

• Idea and direction: Brian Verkley
• Code: Built with Cursor

License

MIT (see LICENSE-MIT).