SiliconScope v2.0.0 — full menu-bar system monitor
The version where I deleted iStat Menus
I built SiliconScope while developing Spectalo, an on-device AI video player. To see how it
was driving the chip I ran two monitors at once — and neither fit: asitop / NeoAsitop had
the chip-level numbers but was rough to read and thin on detail, and btop was gorgeous yet
blind to exactly what I needed — ANE, the Media Engine, and memory bandwidth. Two apps
side by side was painful and a waste of screen.
I started to fork them, then decided to build it properly: one native, good-looking GUI for the
Apple-Silicon-specific signals that a normal person can read. v2.0 is the release where it
finally replaced iStat Menus on my own Mac — it grew the full menu-bar suite, per-unit
sensors, and battery health to get there.
Menu bar — every metric, its own item
Pin CPU · GPU · Memory · Network · SSD · Sensors · Battery each to its own menu-bar glyph +
rich dropdown (plus the combined "SS" cockpit glyph). iStat-style: fixed-width glyphs, decimal
(Finder) units, per-volume Disks, interfaces with IPv4, a Memory stacked bar with swap +
top-by-memory, and per-engine 60s trends.
Per-unit temperatures
Real E-Core / P-Core / GPU / Memory sensors via curated per-generation SMC key tables
(M1–M5; HID fallback on others). Validated on M1 Max; other generations are best-effort —
help verify yours with
sscope-cli --sensors.
Battery
Health %, cycle count, condition (AppleSmartBattery) + SoC power breakdown + energy-hungry
apps. Upright glyph: a bolt while charging, a plug on AC, red at/under 20%.
Dashboard
CPU and GPU cards now show overlaid multi-series trends (E+P, and GPU/Media/ANE), colors
shared across glyph · dropdown · dashboard.
Auto-update 🎉
Built-in Sparkle updater (EdDSA-signed, GitHub-Releases appcast). This is the last DMG you
download by hand — from here on it updates itself.
Install: open the DMG, drag SiliconScope to Applications. Signed + notarized; macOS 14+ on
Apple Silicon. No sudo, and nothing leaves your Mac.
Full changelog: CHANGELOG.md