hannesgith / lunar

Intelligent adaptive brightness for your external monitors

Lunar

Intelligent adaptive brightness for your external display

Lunar is a macOS app for controlling monitors, with native support for both Intel and Apple Silicon

Note: Lunar changes the actual (physical) brightness and contrast of the monitor.

It doesn't use a software overlay.

Table of Contents

• Installation methods
• Features
• Known to work list
• Troubleshooting
• Caveats
• Contributing
• Building

Installation methods

• Download PKG from Official website
• Download PKG from the Releases page
• brew install --cask lunar

Features

• Native keyboard control and hotkeys for setting brightness, volume and contrast that respect the min/max values per monitor
• Sensor-based Adaptive Brightness (and contrast) based on an external light sensor
• Sync-based Adaptive Brightness (and contrast) based on the built-in light sensor of the MacBook or iMac
• Location-based Adaptive Brightness (and contrast) based on the sunrise/sunset times in your location
• App Exception list if you need more brightness for specific activities (watching movies, design work)
• Input switching from a convenient dropdown or using up to 3 input-specific hotkeys
• Screen orientation change from the menu bar or using hotkeys (Ctrl+0/9/8/7 mapped to 0°/90°/180°/270° for the display with the cursor on it)
• Hidden resolutions accessible from a dropdown in the Display Settings menu
• BlackOut: turn off monitors (or the built-in display) selectively while also keeping important functions:
  • USB-C charging still works
  • Monitor audio keeps playing
  • Monitor USB hub remains available
  • The built-in keyboard and trackpad are still available for use
  • Avoid overheating the MacBook because of using it with the lid closed

It doesn't interfere at all with the native adaptive brightness that macOS implements for the built-in display.

It works well along Night Shift and True Tone (and f.lux if Gamma/Software controls are not used).

Display Page

Display Settings

Built-in Display Page

Display Input Hotkeys

Configuration Page

Advanced Settings

Hotkeys Page

Tested and known to work with the following types of connections

• HDMI (1.0 - 2.1)
• DisplayPort (1.0 - 2.0)
• Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type-C)
• Thunderbolt 2 (mini DisplayPort)
• VGA
• DVI
• Adapters that forward DDC messages properly

Troubleshooting

Check the FAQ

Contributing

I'm pausing contributions for the moment as Lunar has paid features and isn't compilable because of missing parts of the source code (Pro features code is encrypted).

Building

Lunar can't be built from this repo yet as the source code for the paid features is hidden. I will try to post stubs for those paid features to at least make it compilable in an only-free-features form.