Dashb

A small Windows app that runs a local web server and serves a real-time system dashboard (CPU/GPU/RAM/network/disk) to any browser on your LAN. Point an old phone or tablet at it and turn it into a permanent PC monitor — no app install needed on the viewing device, just a browser.

Features

• Runs from the system tray; start/stop the server without closing the app.
• Multiple selectable dashboard themes (a segmented LED/LCD theme is bundled), each installable as a home-screen PWA on the viewing device.
• Optional Basic Auth to restrict access.
• Elevated sensor access on Windows (via a bundled LibreHardwareMonitor helper) for readings that require admin rights, such as some CPU temperature/power sensors.
• Custom themes: install a theme from a .zip, or drop one into the user themes folder, from the GUI.

Download and run

Grab the latest Dashb-vX.Y.Z-win64.exe from the Releases page. It's a single portable executable — no installer, nothing else to unpack.

1. Run the exe. Windows SmartScreen may warn that it's from an unrecognized publisher (the build isn't code-signed) — click More info > Run anyway.
2. Windows Firewall will likely prompt to allow network access the first time the server starts — allow it, or LAN devices won't be able to reach the dashboard.
3. On first sensor read, a UAC prompt may appear to elevate the bundled LibreHardwareMonitor helper. This is only needed for certain sensors (e.g. some CPU temperature/power readings); declining it still gives you the rest.
4. The app starts the server automatically and sits in the tray. Open http://<this-pc's-LAN-IP>:8080 from another device on the same network to view the dashboard, or http://localhost:8080 on the same machine.

Host, port, and Basic Auth can be changed from Settings in the GUI window (reopen the window by clicking the tray icon).

Enabling Run on startup registers the current executable for the current Windows user and starts Dashb in the system tray after sign-in. If the optional sensor-helper UAC prompt is declined or times out, Dashb will not prompt again in the background; restart the server when you want to retry elevation.

Uninstalling

Dashb is portable and doesn't register itself as an installed program, so there's nothing to remove from "Apps & features." To fully clean up:

1. Quit the app from its tray icon (or Quit in the main window).
2. Delete the Dashb.exe file you downloaded.
3. Optional — remove leftover user data:
   • Installed themes: %APPDATA%\dashb\themes
   • Saved settings (host/port/auth), stored in the registry rather than a file: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MyApp\Dashb (remove via regedit, or reg delete "HKCU\Software\MyApp\Dashb" /f in a terminal).
   • If Run on startup was enabled, its Dashb value under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Other platforms

Only Windows builds are published right now. The server and web themes are cross-platform, but macOS/Linux packaging hasn't been set up and validated yet — run from source (below) on those platforms in the meantime.

Building from source

Requires uv, Bun, and the .NET 8 SDK (Windows only, for the sensor helper).

# Web themes
cd web-app
bun install
bun run build
cd ..

# Elevated sensor helper (Windows only)
dotnet publish helpers/lhm-helper/Dashb.LhmHelper.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true

# Run from source
uv run python -m dashb

To produce a standalone Dashb.exe after the steps above:

uv run pyinstaller dashb.spec --noconfirm

The build ends up at dist/Dashb.exe. A manually-triggered GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) runs this same pipeline and publishes the result as a GitHub Release.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.