QSensors monitors CPU temperature, fan speed, voltage, current, power, CPU usage and frequency, RAM, swap, and uptime on your Linux desktop. Choose the readings you care about, arrange them on a customizable dashboard, or keep them visible as individual numbers in the system tray.
Inspired by KSensors, QSensors brings its desktop sensor panels to modern Qt 6, with no KDE library dependencies. It supports X11 and Wayland through Qt, with a compatible desktop tray host for system tray features.
If you use HWiNFO64 or HWMonitor on Windows, QSensors provides a Linux home for everyday hardware sensor monitoring: live readings, configurable alerts, and an at-a-glance view of your system's health.
- A dashboard that fits your desktop. Arrange sensor tiles by dragging them, switch to a sortable table, or use a compact, always-on-top dashboard without menus and toolbars. Tile sizes range from 64 to 2048 pixels.
- A separate tray readout for each chosen sensor. Keep temperatures, CPU clocks, memory usage, or other readings visible while the dashboard is hidden. Choose fonts, colors, shadows, transparency, optional units, and independent update intervals. Remove an icon without losing its settings.
- Alarms with independent actions. Combine tile and table colors, desktop notifications, commands or sound playback, and tray lines, blinking, and text colors. Set lower/upper limits and hysteresis, pause alarms without clearing their configuration, and try them with a three-second Test Alarm countdown.
- Your choice of appearance. Rounded rectangles, square tiles, or circles; normal or digital readouts; optional gauges; separate sensor-name and data fonts; System, Classic KSensors, Graphite, and custom colors; solid, dotted, or grid backgrounds.
- Useful sensor controls. Search and rename sensors, adjust calibration and gauge ranges, choose Celsius/Fahrenheit/Kelvin, and use dot, comma, or system decimal separators. Settings stay attached to the sensor rather than its name.
- Lean by design. Native Qt Widgets, a small dependency footprint, shared sensor reads, and updates driven by the readings you actually use. Hidden dashboard views do not keep repainting; tray readings and enabled alarms can continue monitoring in the background.
| Category | Readings |
|---|---|
| Hardware sensors | Temperature, fan speed, voltage, current, power, energy, and humidity exposed through Linux drivers and libsensors. |
| CPU | Overall usage, per-physical-core frequency, and average/maximum frequency across physical cores. |
| Memory | RAM used and available, plus swap usage, with amount and percentage views. |
| Battery | Charge percentage for each system battery that exposes it. |
| Disk I/O | Bytes read and written per update, and I/O busy percentage, for each supported whole drive. |
| System Pressure | CPU, memory, and I/O partial stall percentages over each sensor’s actual acquisition interval. |
| System | Uptime on the dashboard. |
Hardware coverage depends on your kernel drivers and libsensors. GPU and disk sensors appear when those interfaces expose them; coverage varies by device. QSensors reads sensor values; fan-speed control and privileged SMART access are outside its scope.
QSensors runs on Linux with Qt 6.8 or newer and libsensors. It uses Qt's Core, Gui, Widgets, and Network components and your desktop's X11 or Wayland platform plugin. There is no KDE runtime, browser engine, or separate monitoring daemon to install for QSensors itself.
For source installation, follow the build and installation guide.
Then launch qsensors from your application menu or terminal.
- Open QSensors → Configure Sensors.
- Check Dashboard and/or Tray for the sensors you want. New sensors start unselected, so the initial dashboard is empty until you choose them.
- Select a sensor to customize its label, dashboard, tray readout, or alarms. Apply saves your edits; OK saves and closes; Cancel discards edits since the last Apply.
- To set an alarm, check Alarm, choose the limits in the Alarms tab, and select its actions. Enabling an alarm with no actions selects notifications. Automatic alarms require at least one limit and action.
Use View for dashboard/table mode and appearance. Settings controls refresh timing, temperature units, and Start at Login. Dashboard and tray updates can have different intervals; the global interval accepts 0.10–999.99 seconds.
| Action | Control |
|---|---|
| Select dashboard tiles | Arrow keys; selection wraps through occupied tiles. |
| Configure the selected tile | Enter. |
| Move or swap a tile | Drag it, or use Ctrl + an arrow key in normal mode. |
| Toggle Compact Mode | Ctrl+Shift+M; double-click empty dashboard space to enter, or anywhere in compact view to leave. |
| Rescan hardware sensors | QSensors → Rescan Sensors, or F5. |
| Configure a tray sensor | Right-click its icon and select [ Sensor name ]. |
| Remove a tray icon | Right-click its icon → Remove Sensor. Its settings are retained. |
Closing the dashboard hides it when a system tray host is available. Use QSensors → Quit or the tray menu to exit. Without a tray host, closing exits and the dashboard remains the way to access the application. Native Wayland movement, focus, and always-on-top behavior follow your compositor's policy.
QSensors keeps the appeal of KSensors—small sensor panels and persistent tray readings—while replacing its legacy desktop stack and expanding customization.
| Area | KSensors5 SourceForge | QSensors |
|---|---|---|
| Dependencies | Needs multiple KDE components | Uses only Qt6 |
| Support | ❌ Dormant | ✅ Actively developed" |
| Dashboard | Original draggable sensor panels. | Scalable vector tiles, three tile shapes, custom palettes/fonts (e.g. dark mode), main window table view, and compact mode. |
| Alarm actions | A choice between sound playback and a command. | Independently combinable visual, notification, command, and tray actions, with hysteresis, pause, reset, and draft testing. |
| Sensors | Limited | Per disk I/O read/write counters and load in percentages, CPU/RAM/IO pressure |
| Charts | ✅ Present | ❌ Currently missing |
The Classic KSensors palette and digital readouts retain the original app's visual character, with modern display sizes and desktop integration.
- Sensor configuration and formatting
- Alarms, notifications, and commands
- Dashboard controls and appearance
- System readings and their meaning
- Tray behavior and desktop compatibility
- Build and installation
- Architecture and dependency details
QSensors is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It is inspired by Miguel Novas's KSensors 0.7.3. The reference audit records the original application's attribution and the implementation references.