Overview & Introduction

Welcome to the LocalTelemetry User Guide!

This documentation walks through installing, configuring, and getting the most out of LocalTelemetry on Windows.

What is LocalTelemetry?

LocalTelemetry is a native, privacy-first hardware monitoring utility for Windows built with .NET 10 and Svelte 5. It continuously reads low-level hardware sensors and displays real-time performance vitals directly on the Windows taskbar.

Instead of running floating widgets, desktop gadgets, or heavy overlays that obstruct your workspace or full-screen games, LocalTelemetry anchors directly to the taskbar. It operates as a lightweight background process with minimal CPU overhead, only initializing the embedded WebView2 engine when you open the settings interface.

To read the personal story, background, and engineering philosophy behind this project, see Why I Built LocalTelemetry.

Default out-of-the-box taskbar overlay displaying 5 dual-row columns with automatic hardware vendor brand colors applied.

Core Capabilities

• Taskbar Overlay: Displays live system vitals directly on the Windows 10 & 11 taskbar with high-DPI scaling, ClearType typography, and zero desktop window clutter.
• Kernel & Driver-Level Polling: Direct low-level polling for Intel (RAPL MSR), AMD (Ryzen SMU / ADL), and NVIDIA (NVML) for package wattage, clock speeds, and temperatures.
• Gapless Network History: Reconstructs daily bandwidth from your Windows installation date via Windows SRUM (SRUDB.dat) alongside live speed metering.
• Laptop Battery Telemetry: Real-time battery charge percentage and charge/discharge rate in Watts directly on the taskbar overlay, plus manufacturer, device model, designed capacity, and full charge capacity in the System dashboard.
• Non-Intrusive Safety Alerts: In-place taskbar flashing and focus-safe desktop toast notifications that warn of thermal throttling without minimizing full-screen games.
• Svelte 5 Customization Dashboard: Complete control over metric visibility, drag-and-drop sequencing, per-metric colors, and warning thresholds.
• Privacy-First & Local Storage: All hardware sensor metrics and bandwidth logs remain strictly on your local machine with zero analytics or tracking. Software updates check the official GitHub Releases API either on-demand or at your configured schedule without transmitting personal telemetry.

User Guide Chapters

Explore the step-by-step guides for each feature:

1. Installation & Requirements System requirements, Inno Setup installer vs. Portable ZIP package, and Administrator (UAC) driver privileges.

2. Quickstart Guide First launch setup, enabling the taskbar overlay, and basic configuration.

3. System Tray & Taskbar Overlay System tray controls, overlay positioning, layout modes, and Windows Explorer restart recovery.

4. Telemetry Metrics & Sensors Comprehensive reference of all supported hardware metrics, polling APIs, measurement units, and update rates.

5. Threshold Alerts & Toast Notifications Configuring warning limits, visual taskbar flashing, and focus-safe desktop toast notifications.

6. Settings & Customization Detailed walkthrough of all 10 settings tabs: General preferences, sensor monitoring, overlay placement, metric layout, appearance themes, alerts, and system specs.

7. Traffic & Network History Daily internet usage tracking, monthly calendar heatmap, Windows SRUDB.dat history backfill, and local JSON Lines storage.

8. Troubleshooting & FAQ Frequently asked questions, sensor diagnosis, and application log locations.