OpenBurnBar
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Platforms · every surface, one daemon

BurnBar runs on the screens you actually look at.

One Mac, one daemon, one local journal — surfaced anywhere it matters. The menu bar is the home base; the phone, the tablet, the Nest Hub on the kitchen counter, and the pixel clock on the desk are everywhere else. Below: live re-renders of the in-app preview code on every device. No screenshots.

Download for macOS Jump to smart displays All surfaces
The smart-display showcase

Faithful re-renders. Live data. Today's pick.

Your menu bar is one surface. Your Nest Hub on the kitchen counter and your Ulanzi pixel clock on the desk are two more — already shipping. The mockups below are faithful re-renders of the in-app preview code, hydrated from today's live router rundown.

Shipping (per-device QA matrix)

Google Nest Hub

Google · 7-inch smart display · Cast V2

BurnBar casts a live provider dashboard to the Nest Hub on your kitchen counter. Refresh, brightness, theme, and provider filter are all controlled from the Mac app.

  • Cast V2 + Home Assistant blueprints — no third-party server
  • Provider rail, big-total, ambient, photo-blend layouts ship today
  • Acceptance probe before "healthy" — `docs/SMART_DISPLAY_DEVICE_QA.md`
Shipping (per-device QA matrix)

ULANZI TC001

Pixel clock · 32×8 LED matrix · AWTRIX HTTP

A faithful 32×8 LED matrix render — same glyph tables, same palette, same per-pixel glow blur the BurnBar daemon paints to AWTRIX firmware.

  • AWTRIX HTTP — works on stock or community firmware
  • Four layouts · provider dashboard, quota carousel, burn status, alerts
  • Ember & whimsy palette by default · five palettes ship
Surface matrix

Every surface BurnBar ships on. Status pill on every one.

The two devices above have live mockups. Every other surface is listed here with its current shipping status, scope, and CTA. Nothing is hidden, even the planned ones.

  • Public beta

    macOS menu bar app

    macOS 14+

    The home base. Lives in the menu bar, reads local agent logs, surfaces cost, tokens, quota, sessions, and insights.

    • LSUIElement — no Dock icon, no windows stealing focus
    • Dashboard, providers, models, sessions, projects, streams, search
    • Hermes chat panel sits inside the dashboard
    • Daily digest, smart insights, quota refresh, daemon-backed control plane
    • Optional Firebase sync, optional iCloud session mirror, optional Sentry diagnostics
  • In App Store review

    iOS & iPadOS companion

    iOS 17+

    Quota Watch, Pulse, Streams, Hermes, Chart Studio. The Mac runs the data; the phone/tablet renders it natively.

    • Native Swift Charts via Chart Studio — 10 chart kinds plus sandboxed Mermaid
    • Trend Atlas insights rotate across 9 rules
    • Lock-screen Live Activity, Dynamic Island, Siri shortcut
    • Adaptive split-view + sidebar nav on iPad, keyboard shortcuts ⌘1–4, ⌘R, ⌘H
    • Hermes Realtime Relay reaches the Mac's local assistant remotely (paid feature)
  • Source-only beta

    Cursor & VS Code extension

    Cursor / VS Code 1.95+

    An activity-bar panel that hooks into the daemon over the local UNIX socket. Build locally and load unpacked — no marketplace listing yet.

    • Burn for the active workspace, scoped to the current Cursor agent run
    • Quota panel pulled from the same daemon the menu bar reads
    • Routed-provider gateway support — Z.ai, MiniMax, Ollama Cloud via Cloudflare tunnel
    • Open VSX / VS Marketplace publication is on the roadmap, not shipped
  • Shipping

    Local daemon

    Embedded in macOS app

    The control plane. A launchd-managed UNIX socket service every surface talks to.

    • Auth-token-gated JSON-RPC + HTTP gateway
    • Owns provider routing, quota refresh, retrieval, mission control
    • JSONL run journal — every agent invocation, every tool call, replayable
    • Repairs itself when launched from a stale plist or moved app bundle
  • Shipping

    Command-line interface

    macOS

    openburnbar — eight commands for scripting, agents, and operators. Same daemon, no extra account.

    • health · controller · questions · followups · missions
    • mission-approve · simulator-runs · simulator-replay
    • Pipes cleanly into git hooks, CI, and other agent scripts
  • Shipping (with iOS app)

    Widgets & Live Activity

    iOS / iPadOS

    Lock-screen quota, Dynamic Island countdown, home-screen cost sparkline. Siri shortcut: "What's my burn today?"

    • Hero small, cost sparkline medium, dashboard large
    • Live Activity on iOS 16.1+ with top provider + tokens + cost
    • App Intents for Spotlight + Siri
  • Shipping (per-device QA matrix)

    Smart displays

    Nest Hub · Pixel Clock · Chromecast

    One-click "Make display work" — casts a live OpenBurnBar dashboard, with proof of acceptance before marking healthy.

    • Google Nest Hub via Cast V2 + Home Assistant blueprints
    • ULANZI TC001 via AWTRIX HTTP or stock-firmware simulator
    • Per-device QA matrix gates support claims — see docs/SMART_DISPLAY_DEVICE_QA.md
  • In development

    Android companion

    Android 8+

    Read-only Firestore consumer — renders burn data other clients push to Firebase. Source under android/.

    • Material 3 + Jetpack Compose, edge-to-edge
    • Full screen set: burn · streams · pulse · providers · hermes · chart studio · smart display · store · you
    • No Play Store distribution path yet

Surface registry · website/src/data/surfaces.ts · Device registry · website/src/data/platform-surfaces.ts

Add a surface

The next device is one config row away.

BurnBar's surface system is data-driven. Adding a new platform (Apple TV, Pi-zero pixel screen, smart fridge) is two files of work:

  1. Declare it. Add a row to SURFACES in website/src/data/surfaces.ts — name, platform pill, shipping status, bullets, optional CTA. It shows up in the matrix above immediately.
  2. Mock it (optional). If it has a screen, add a row to PLATFORM_DEVICES in website/src/data/platform-surfaces.ts and drop a new screen component next to NestHubScreen.astro. PlatformShowcase picks it up via the mockup dispatch key.
  3. Ship its claim. Update the QA matrix at docs/SMART_DISPLAY_DEVICE_QA.md with a probe + acceptance test before flipping the status pill to shipping.

Pick the screen you'll actually look at.

Free menu-bar app, $400 of hosted quota per month covered by the included plans, every surface optional.

Download for macOS Smart display QA matrix