Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors • Hacker News Board

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#51

Post by PascLeRasc » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #34

arghwhat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, after 100.000th write your monitor is toast because the EEPROM died. Also note that most people change brightness in increments, with each step causing a write.

Is there a way to know how my monitor does this?

I've been reading that NAND flash doesn't support erasing individual bytes, while EEPROM does. If there's some way to attempt this and know the outcome, maybe that's a way to figure it out.

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#52

Post by madsbuch » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

herf wrote: post #17

There is a problem with "cheap" monitors and DDC/CI: some of them use EEPROMs to store brightness settings, and this limits you to about 100,000 writes. Worrying about this is the main reason we don't ship DDC/CI with f.lux. (I know that some more modern monitors use NAND and don't have limitations like this.) Anyone know if these fears are overblown?

This program should make sure to change brightness enough to reduce the lifespan to less than 2 years. Then the user will have free lifetime updates of monitors! (I reckon this would fall perfectly within normal use of a monitor. Hence, an RMA case will kick in)

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#53

Post by throw14082020 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

I regret installing this, as I cannot undo the brightness changes, even when I quit the app. How do i do this lol

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#54

Post by cloudmaster » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

The Windows equivalent would be Monitorian (https://github.com/emoacht/Monitorian). It doesn't have the adaptive curve algorithm, but I've been using it for over a year and it's indispensable.

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#55

Post by pi-rat » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

Frickin' brilliant, thank you! Worked with my LG display out of the box. Enjoy your coffee :D

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#56

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #9

Why is this needed in the first place? I was shocked when I could no longer control brightness after upgrading from my old 23" Apple Cinema Display.

[deleted]

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#57

Post by rosstex » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

I just tried Lunar out, it definitely makes the brightness on the external monitor higher than the Laptop monitor. How bright is too bright?

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#58

Post by jlnthws » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #14

snowwrestler wrote: post #8

This is a great example of why I like the Touch Bar on my Macbook Pro. When it is connected to an external monitor, I tap the brightness icon in the Touch Bar and get two sliders: one to control brightness on my laptop, and one to control brightness on my external monitor. This seems to be a native feature; I did not install anything to do it.

But why can't they expose these controls independent of the Touch Bar? I actually find it ridiculous as a 2015 MBP owner that there is no easy native way to do this basic thing unless, apparently, you have a Macbook with a Touch Bar

F1-F2 to change MBP brightness, CTRL+F1-F2 to change external monitor brightness. Works with my thunderbolt LG 5K. (I dislike the Touch Bar so I always use an external keyboard when at my desk)

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#59

Post by myowz » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

alin23 wrote: post #31

Creator of Lunar here. Thank you all for the kind comments and generous donations and many thanks to the OP for posting this! Let me know if you have any questions or quick feedback about Lunar.

Quick feedback: I tried it for the first time, thinking to myself 'wow I really want to turn down the brightness on this darn monitor...its been bothering me for too long' and I didn't find the UX very easy to perform that immediate task. In fact, I have to say, just from quickly downloading this and trying to use it, I don't totally understand what it does...but I did figure out how to manually drop the settings to a more comfortable level, and I don't expect I'll be opening the software again except to manually turn it up and down (and each time I'll probably have to figure out how to go to that side page that is hard to get to)

Hope that made sense! Thanks for the software!!! :)

Re: Lunar – macOS utility to set brightness and volume on external monitors

#60

Post by untog » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #39

herf wrote: post #17

There is a problem with "cheap" monitors and DDC/CI: some of them use EEPROMs to store brightness settings, and this limits you to about 100,000 writes. Worrying about this is the main reason we don't ship DDC/CI with f.lux. (I know that some more modern monitors use NAND and don't have limitations like this.) Anyone know if these fears are overblown?

You never know if a wear leveling algorithm has been implemented so flash type isn't going to make lifetime determinable. Even without, 100 erases a day will last for 3 years or longer.

3 years... long enough that any warranty will have expired. I’m starting to see why the manufacturers would do this.