🖥️ HWInfo TUI

December 1, 2025 · View on GitHub

CI Release PyPI - Version PyPI - Python Version GitHub Release WinGet Package Version License

A terminal plotting tool for visualizing real-time hardware sensor data from HWInfo64 (Windows), inspired by gping.

HWInfo TUI Demo

# top left pane
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.CSV "CPU Package Power" "Total System Power" "GPU Power" --time-window 120 --refresh-rate 1

# bottom left pane
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.CSV "Physical Memory Load" "Total CPU Usage" "GPU D3D Usage" --time-window 120 --refresh-rate 1

# top right pane
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.CSV "Core Temperatures" "CPU Package" "GPU Temperature" --time-window 120 --refresh-rate 1

# bottom right pane
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.CSV "Core Thermal Throttling" "Core Critical Temperature" "Package/Ring Thermal Throttling" --time-window 120 --refresh-rate 1

✨ Features

  • Real-time Monitoring: Live sensor data visualization with configurable refresh rates
  • gping-inspired UI: Clean interface with statistics table and interactive chart
  • Unit-based Filtering: Automatically groups sensors by units, supports up to 2 units simultaneously
  • Dual Y-axes: Charts can display different units on left and right axes
  • Clean Interface: Focused visualization without unnecessary interactive distractions
  • Responsive Design: Automatically adapts to terminal size with compact mode
  • Fuzzy Sensor Matching: Partial sensor name matching with suggestions
  • Rich Statistics: Min, max, average, and 95th percentile calculations

📦 Installation

WinGet Package Version

winget install hwinfo-tui

Or download the portable executable - no installation required.

Cross-Platform

PyPI - Version

pip install hwinfo-tui

From Source

git clone https://github.com/hwinfo-tui/hwinfo-tui.git
cd hwinfo-tui

# Quick setup (recommended)
./setup.sh  # or setup.bat/setup.ps1 on Windows

# Manual setup
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # or venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install -e .

🚀 Quick Start

  1. Configure HWInfo64 logging (Windows): Open HWiNFO → Sensors → Start Logging → Choose CSV format and location

  2. Monitor sensors:

    # Basic usage
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU Package"

# Multiple sensors
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Core Temperatures" "GPU Temperature" "CPU Package"

# Mixed units with custom settings
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Total CPU Usage" "Core Temperatures" --refresh-rate 0.5 --time-window 600

💡 Usage Examples

# Single unit (temperature)
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Core Temperatures" "GPU Temperature" "CPU Package"

# Single unit (percentage)
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Total CPU Usage" "GPU Core Load" "GPU Memory Usage"

# Dual units (temperature + percentage)
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Core Temperatures" "Total CPU Usage" "GPU Temperature"

# Dual units (power + temperature)
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU Package Power" "CPU Package" "GPU Power"

# List available sensors
hwinfo-tui list-sensors sensors.csv
hwinfo-tui list-sensors sensors.csv --unit "°C" --limit 20

📋 Command Line Reference

Main Command

Usage: hwinfo-tui [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

A gping-inspired terminal visualization tool for monitoring real-time hardware sensor data from HWInfo.

Options:

  • --version - Show version information and exit
  • --install-completion - Install completion for the current shell
  • --show-completion - Show completion for the current shell
  • --help - Show this message and exit

Commands:

  • monitor - Monitor hardware sensors in real-time
  • list-sensors - List all available sensors in the CSV file

monitor

Usage: hwinfo-tui monitor [OPTIONS] CSV_FILE SENSOR_NAMES...

Monitor hardware sensors in real-time.

Arguments:

  • CSV_FILE (required) - Path to HWInfo sensors.csv file
  • SENSOR_NAMES... (required) - One or more sensor names to monitor (supports partial matching)

Options:

  • -r, --refresh-rate FLOAT - Update frequency in seconds (0.1-60.0) [default: 1.0]
  • -w, --time-window INTEGER - History window in seconds (10-7200) [default: 300]
  • --help - Show this message and exit

list-sensors

Usage: hwinfo-tui list-sensors [OPTIONS] CSV_FILE

List all available sensors in the CSV file.

This command helps you discover sensor names for monitoring.

Arguments:

  • CSV_FILE (required) - Path to HWInfo sensors.csv file

Options:

  • -u, --unit TEXT - Filter sensors by unit (e.g., '°C', '%', 'W')
  • -l, --limit INTEGER - Maximum number of sensors to display (1-1000) [default: 50]
  • --help - Show this message and exit

⚙️ HWInfo64 Setup (Windows)

  1. Download and install HWInfo64 (Windows only)
  2. Open Sensors window → File → Start Logging
  3. Choose CSV format and location
  4. Set logging interval (1-2 seconds recommended)
  5. Use the generated CSV file with HWInfo TUI

🔧 Unit Filtering

HWInfo TUI automatically filters sensors based on their units:

  • Single Unit: All sensors with the same unit (e.g., °C)
  • Dual Units: Up to 2 different units on separate Y-axes
  • Auto-exclusion: Incompatible sensors excluded with warnings
# Third unit [W] would be excluded and show a warning
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "Core Temperatures" "Total CPU Usage" "CPU Power"

💻 System Requirements

  • Python: 3.8 or higher
  • Terminal: Any modern terminal with color support
  • Platform: Windows (HWInfo64 is Windows-only)
  • Dependencies: typer, rich, plotext, pandas, watchdog

Note: While HWInfo TUI can run on any platform with Python, HWInfo64 is only available for Windows. On other platforms, you can use HWInfo TUI with CSV files generated on Windows.

🚀 Performance

  • Memory Usage: < 50MB baseline, < 100MB with full data retention
  • CPU Overhead: < 2% of single core during normal operation
  • Startup Time: < 2 seconds from launch to first display
  • Update Frequency: Configurable from 0.1 to 60 seconds

🛠️ Troubleshooting

No matching sensors found

hwinfo-tui list-sensors sensors.csv  # Check available sensors
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU" "GPU"  # Use partial names

Too many units excluded

  • Maximum 2 units supported - group sensors by similar units

File not found

  • Ensure HWInfo is actively logging to the CSV file
  • Verify file path and permissions

Poor performance

hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU" --refresh-rate 2.0 --time-window 120

Debug mode

HWINFO_TUI_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU"

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Development Setup

# Clone and setup
git clone https://github.com/hwinfo-tui/hwinfo-tui.git
cd hwinfo-tui
./setup.sh  # or setup.bat on Windows

# Activate environment
source ./activate.sh  # or activate.bat/activate.ps1 on Windows

# Run tests
pytest

# Run the app
hwinfo-tui monitor sensors.csv "CPU"

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

  • Inspired by gping for the clean TUI design
  • Built with Rich for beautiful terminal output
  • Uses plotext for ASCII charts
  • Powered by Typer for the CLI interface

📝 Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history and updates.