Telemetry Metrics & Hardware Sensors

LocalTelemetry continuously monitors your computer's hardware vitals and displays them directly inside your Windows taskbar. Every metric can be reordered, enabled or disabled, and styled with custom colors in the Settings panel.

This page explains what each metric measures, how it is labeled on the taskbar overlay, and the settings available to customize its display.

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CPU Metrics

Processor vitals monitor your CPU's workload, package temperature, operating clock speeds, and real-time power draw.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
CPU Usage	CPU	42%	Overall processor utilization percentage across all active threads
CPU Temp	CPU	65°C / 149°F	Current CPU package temperature
CPU Frequency	CPU	4.35GHz	Operating clock speed (effective frequency)
CPU Package Power	CPU	65W	Real-time CPU power consumption in Watts

CPU Options (Settings -> Monitoring)

• Clock Mode:
  • Average: Displays the mean clock speed across all active processor cores.
  • Max Active Core: Displays the peak frequency of the highest-clocked core (useful for observing single-core turbo boosts).
• Usage Source:
  • Overall (Task Manager): Global average CPU utilization across all threads, matching Windows Task Manager.
  • Max Thread (Gaming): Utilization of the single most loaded core or thread, useful for identifying single-threaded CPU bottlenecks in games.

Sensor Architecture & Fallback

On Intel systems, temperatures are read from MSR 0x1A2/0x1B1. On AMD systems, temperatures are read from SMN registers (0x00059800) or the SMU power management table. If low-level driver calls fail, LocalTelemetry automatically falls back to Windows ACPI thermal zone queries via WMI (root\wmi).

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GPU Metrics

Graphics card telemetry tracks GPU core utilization, video memory consumption, core clocks, temperatures, and board power.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
GPU Usage	GPU	78%	Graphics processing unit utilization percentage
GPU Temp	GPU	68°C / 154°F	GPU core temperature
GPU VRAM Usage	GPU	4120MB	Dedicated video memory (VRAM) currently in use
GPU Frequency	GPU	2150MHz	Current GPU graphics core clock speed
GPU Power	GPU	120W	Total graphics card power draw in Watts

GPU Options (Settings -> Monitoring)

• GPU Usage Source:
  • Driver (NVML/ADL): Directly queries vendor driver APIs for kernel engine busy time (matches tools like MSI Afterburner and GeForce Experience).
  • WDDM (Task Manager): Queries the Windows graphics engine scheduler, matching Windows Task Manager.

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RAM (Memory) Metrics

Memory telemetry tracks active system memory consumption and overall capacity utilization.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
RAM Usage	RAM	58%	Percentage of total physical memory currently in use
RAM Used	RAM	18.5GB	Active physical memory in Gigabytes

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Storage (Disk) Metrics

LocalTelemetry automatically discovers your installed physical storage drives (NVMe SSDs, SATA SSDs, and mechanical HDDs) and tracks active read and write throughput.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
[Drive] Read	NVMeR / SATAR / HDDR	250KB/s / 1.2GB/s	Active read data throughput for the detected physical disk
[Drive] Write	NVMeW / SATAW / HDDW	14.8MB/s / 450KB/s	Active write data throughput for the detected physical disk

How Disk Labels Work on the Taskbar

The overlay creates concise, readable labels based on your storage drive's bus type and position:

• Single Drive of a Type: If your PC has one NVMe SSD, the label displays simply as NVMeR (Read) and NVMeW (Write) without unnecessary numbering.
• Multiple Drives of the Same Type: If you have two NVMe drives or multiple SATA drives, sequential numbers are added to distinguish them (e.g. NVMe1R, NVMe2R, SATA1W, SATA2W).
• Auto-Scaling Speed Units: Throughput automatically scales to the cleanest unit: KB/s for light background I/O, MB/s for active transfers, and GB/s for high-speed sequential transfers.

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Network Metrics

Network telemetry monitors real-time transfer rates across your primary network adapter alongside session totals.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
Download	DOWN↓	1.2MB/s (or 9.6Mb/s)	Current incoming network throughput (displays -- when disconnected)
Upload	UP↑	350KB/s (or 2.8Mb/s)	Current outgoing network throughput (displays -- when disconnected)
Total Transferred	Total	14.25GB	Cumulative data transferred (download + upload) during the current session (scales from B up to TB)

Network Options (Settings -> Network)

• Show Speed in Bits/s: Toggle between bytes per second (B/s, KB/s, MB/s, GB/s) and bits per second (b/s, Kb/s, Mb/s, Gb/s) to match internet speed test conventions.
• Adapter Selection: Choose Auto (Best Match) to let LocalTelemetry track whichever adapter is currently active, or pin monitoring to a specific Ethernet or Wi-Fi interface.

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Laptop Battery Metrics

On laptops, handheld PCs, and battery-powered Windows devices, LocalTelemetry provides real-time power analytics.

Metric (Settings Name)	Overlay Label	Typical Display	What It Measures
Battery	BAT	85%	Remaining battery charge percentage
Charge Rate	BAT	+45.0W / Full / -18.5W	Real-time battery charging power or discharging rate in Watts

Battery Display States

• Charging on AC Power: Displays incoming charge wattage prefixed with a plus sign (e.g. +45.2W).
• Fully Charged on AC Power: Displays Full once the battery reaches 100% and charging completes.
• Running on Battery: Displays real-time power consumption prefixed with a minus sign (e.g. -18.5W) so you can monitor your laptop's current energy draw.
• Desktop Systems: Battery metrics are automatically hidden when no physical battery is present.

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Display & Formatting Settings

You can customize how metrics appear and behave across the settings pages:

• Polling Interval (Settings -> General): Select how frequently sensors are refreshed:
  • 0.5 s (500 ms): Fast response for intensive benchmarking or gaming.
  • 1 s (1000 ms): Default balanced refresh rate.
  • 2 s (2000 ms): Lower background polling activity.
  • 5 s (5000 ms): Ultra-low CPU wakeups.
• Temperature Scale (Settings -> General): Toggle Show Temperatures in °F to switch between Celsius (°C) and Fahrenheit (°F).
• Metric Order & Visibility (Settings -> Layout): Drag and drop metrics to change their order on the taskbar, or remove metrics you don't need.
• Colors & Themes (Settings -> Appearance): Customize metric text colors individually, or click Reset All to Defaults to apply authentic hardware manufacturer brand colors automatically.

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TIP

Looking for developer architecture or internal configuration keys? If you are building custom plugins, inspecting raw JSON configuration files, or debugging sensor drivers, see the Hardware Drivers Architecture Guide and Backend Architecture Guide.