GeezerVison

DDC

Control the real brightness of any monitor, even on Apple Silicon.

Unlike other software that only simulate a brightness change by adding a black overlay over your screen, Lunar uses DDC (Display Data Channel) to send commands like set brightness to 30% or switch input to HDMI 2 directly to the monitor.

This keeps the colour rendering closer to reality, consumes less power and minimizes the backlight bleeding effect.

Apple Native

Smooth transitions for Apple displays

Apple vendored displays get special treatment as Lunar uses an implementation hidden inside macOS Display Services to control them natively. The list of displays include:

• Studio Display
• Pro Display XDR
• LG Ultrafine for Mac
• Thunderbolt Display
• LED Cinema (when connected via USB)

Manual Mode

The same familiar keys can now control your external monitors.

• Brightness Keys: adjust brightness for all displays at once
• Volume Keys: adjust the volume of the active monitor
• Input Hotkeys: set hotkeys to switch to other HDMI, DisplayPort or USB-C ports

The brightness keys can also be configured to adjust the monitor where the cursor is placed.

Sync Mode

Sync Mode brings the MacBook's adaptive brightness feature to all your external monitors.

Whenever macOS adapts your MacBook display using the built-in Ambient Light Sensor, Lunar will sync that adjustment to all your monitors.

Syncing also works with adjustments made by TouchBar or brightness keys.

XDR Brightness

Unlock the full brightness of your XDR display

The MacBook Pro (since 2021) and the Pro Display XDR feature an incredibly bright panel (1600 nits!), but which is locked by macOS to a third of its potential (500 nits...).

Lunar can remove the brightness lock and allow you to increase the brightness past that limit.

You can finally go outside and work on your laptop in the bright sunlight without squinting! You probably don't do this often, but it's nice to have, right?

Sub-zero Dimming

Dim the brightness below the screen limit

This is for the night owls who stay up too late, clacking on their laptop keyboards way after midnight.

Even at 0%, most monitors are not dark enough for your late-night coding sessions or for writing that last chapter of your book while the sunrise is drawing nearer.

With Lunar, when you reach 0%, you can keep pressing the Brightness Down key to go even lower.

Auto BlackOut

Turn off the MacBook display when a monitor is connected.

Activate Auto BlackOut and let Lunar turn off your MacBook display automatically when an external monitor is connected.

When the monitor is disconnected, the MacBook display will come back on.

There are some nice advantages to having the MacBook display off with the lid open:

• Sensor Mode: Lunar can use the built-in light sensor to adapt the monitor brightness automatically (Apple Silicon only)
• TrackPad, Keyboard, TouchID, webcam, speakers, microphone are still available
• Less anxiety about CPU heat melting your display

BlackOut

Focus on the real work by disabling screens that you don't need.

BlackOut enables you to selectively turn off displays using a single hotkey.

Use cases:

• Turn off the MacBook display without closing the lid
• Turn off external monitors while keeping the USB and charging capabilities
• BlackOut all displays except one so you can focus on it

Move the cursor on the screen you want to disable and press Control+Command+6 to activate BlackOut.

Press the hotkey again to deactivate BlackOut and return to the previous brightness.

FaceLight

Use your monitor as a really bright LED panel when you're having video calls in your cozy dark room.

If having your face well lit in a video call is more important than screen space, Lunar can help you with a single hotkey.

Press Control+Command+5 or use the Lunar menu to activate FaceLight and Lunar will increase the active monitor's brightness and contrast to maximum and place a warm-white overlay on top of your screen.

Press the hotkey again to deactivate FaceLight and return to the previous brightness.

Clock Mode

In Clock Mode, Lunar will automatically adapt your monitors based on a pre-defined schedule.

If you're working in a shared office and the sun shines from 9 to 5 no matter the season, Clock Mode is the thing for you.

There are 5 available schedules that can be set to any of the following schedule types:

• Time: set the configured brightness and contrast at a specific time of day
• Sunrise: set the configured brightness and contrast at sunrise
• Noon: set the configured brightness and contrast when the sun is at its highest point in the sky
• Sunset: set the configured brightness and contrast at sunset

For sunrise, sunset and noon there's a configurable offset, so you can do things like:

• set brightness to 70%, 30 minutes before sunrise
• set brightness to 30%, 1 hour and 30 minutes after sunset

Transitions

Clock Mode supports the following transitions:

• None: apply the brightness and contrast instantly on the defined time
• 30 minutes: start transitioning slowly to the defined brightness and contrast 30 minutes before the schedule time
• Full: transition brightness and contrast slowly from previous schedule until the next schedule

Location Mode

In Location Mode, Lunar will automatically adapt your monitors based on the sun position in the sky.

Location Mode shines in environments with lots of natural light, where the ambient light in the room correlates with the sun elevation.

If you're using a Mac Mini or a MacBook with the lid closed, Location Mode can be a good alternative.

If you still need the monitors to adapt to the light around you, Sensor Mode would be a better choice.

The M1 and M2 MacBooks can work with more than one monitor with the help of a DisplayLink adapter and a Raspberry Pi. (not needed for M1 Pro/Max)

Even though the M1/M2 MacBook has two Thunderbolt ports, only one of those can be connected to a monitor.

To work around this limitation, DisplayLink adapters can collect video data from the Mac through a simple USB connection and then send it to multiple monitors.

After connecting a DisplayLink adapter to your MacBook, install the required software and your monitors should appear in System Preferences -> Displays and in Lunar.

The DisplayLink software on macOS doesn't support passing through DDC or Gamma changes to the monitors, so we have to get inventive.

Lunar can control DisplayLink monitors with the help of a network connected Raspberry Pi.

The way Lunar does this is by having a Pi board connected to a separate HDMI port of your monitor and Lunar relaying the DDC commands through a custom server running on the Pi.

Minimum requirements

• An unused HDMI port on your DisplayLink monitor
• Raspberry Pi Zero W (cheapest Pi with Wi-Fi)
• Micro SD card with Raspberry Pi OS
• Mini HDMI to HDMI cable
• Micro USB cable and a 5V power adapter with a minimum of 1A output (this is usually present in most houses)

Setting up the Pi is as simple as clicking on Install DDC Server on Raspberry Pi and waiting for Lunar to install and configure the server.

Lunar can work around the lack of DDC support of some devices using two separate and very different methods.

The works out of the box method.

Lunar can approximate a decrease in brightness by changing the software gamma tables to make the colors look darker.

This doesn't change the hardware brightness as DDC does, so you have to manually set the monitor's brightness and contrast (using the monitor physical buttons) to the highest possible values that look good for your monitor.

This also means that monitor volume and input can't be controlled.

The why do I have to do this? method...

If your monitor simply refuses to accept commands from your Mac and you want your DDC controls back, Lunar can use a Raspberry Pi with network access for this.

The way this works is by having the Pi connected to a separate HDMI port of your monitor and Lunar relaying the DDC commands through a custom server running on the Pi.

Minimum requirements

• A monitor with an unused HDMI port
• Raspberry Pi Zero W (cheapest Pi with Wi-Fi)
• Micro SD card with Raspberry Pi OS
• Mini HDMI to HDMI cable
• Micro USB cable and a 5V power adapter with a minimum of 1A output (this is usually present in most houses)

Lunar can use DDC to control monitors on all Apple Silicon Macs!

Lunar can use the Apple Silicon GPU to communicate with monitors through the I²C protocol and do the following:

• Change the hardware brightness and contrast
  • these are the same values that you can change through the monitor buttons
• Adjust the volume
• Switch the input
• Power off the monitor

Make Lunar do things your way using macOS Shortcuts

Create your own complex presets, arrange monitors in organized layouts, and automate every aspect of your monitors.

Shortcuts can even be used to fix macOS issues like swapped screen positions and rotations.

Designing with reference modes like P3-D65 also gets easier as Shortcuts can switch to any mode and add hotkeys to the actions.

Check out the Shortcuts page to find some useful pre-made shortcuts that you can add with a click.

Lunar CLI

Control and automate your monitors from the command-line.

/Applications/Lunar.app/Contents/MacOS/Lunar install-cli

• lunar get and lunar set: Quickly set/get monitor values if you have a single external monitor
• lunar displays: Control and query each display separately
• lunar lux: Check the ambient light around you
• lunar ddc: Send arbitrary DDC commands
• lunar gamma: Control the Gamma tables per monitor
• lunar listen: Get a stream of brightness change events
• lunar lid: Check if the lid of the Macbook is open or closed