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arbowl / cyberdeck-battery-indicator

A GUI battery indicator for raspberry pi and x728 UPS
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Cyberdeck Battery Indicator

A GUI battery indicator for Raspberry Pi and x728 UPS

Background

I build a RasPi 4 cyberdeck and used the x728 UPS for the battery supply. It worked great, but I wanted a way to monitor the battery without having to open the provided x728bat.py script (which to their credit is hugely useful as-is and is needed to figure out how to poll the UPS).

I made this for personal use in my free time, so please be patient if there are any bugs. Feel free to reach out with any improvements, questions, or suggestions: arbowl@tutanota.com

This launches at startup and displays a battery icon on the taskbar to show the battery status.

How to install

Automated way

  1. Click "Code <>" > "Download ZIP"
  2. Navigate to your "Downloads" folder
  3. Extract the contents of the ZIP file
  4. Open a terminal inside that folder (alternatively, open the terminal and type cd Downloads)
  5. Enter sudo chmod +x install.sh
  6. Enter sudo ./install.sh
  7. Done!

Manual way

  1. Open a terminal

  2. Enter cd /home/pi

  3. Enter git clone https://github.com/arbowl/cyberdeck-battery-indicator

  4. Enter cd cyberdeck-battery-indicator

  5. Enter chmod 755 battery_indicator.py

  6. Enter sudo nano /etc/xdg/autostart/display.desktop

  7. Type the following:

    [Desktop Entry]

    Name=

    Exec=/usr/bin/python3 /home//cyberdeck-battery-indicator/battery_indicator.py

  8. Press ctrl+X, then press Y, then press enter

  9. Done!

It should now run at startup. If it doesn't work for you, cd to the directory (e.g. cd /home/pi/cyberdeck-battery-indicator), type python3 battery_indicator.py, and check for error messages. Most likely there is a path/directory or permission error.

Credits

I first realized a taskbar battery indicator was feasible via this repo, and I used their icons: https://github.com/ppyne/crowPi-L_BatteryStatus

I used code from the Geekworm repo to figure out how to obtain charge info: https://github.com/geekworm-com/x728

This tutorial is helpful for creating startup routines: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-run-a-raspberry-pi-program-script-at-startup/