MrBlakeandClaude Opus 5.5
2ef62e85cd
- Show charge/discharge power in watts, a battery graphic with charge bolt, a power history graph and the estimated time until full or remaining (respecting the 80 % charge limit) in the app, the panel widget, its tooltip and `predatorctl status` - Add packaging/arch/PKGBUILD that builds a pacman package; the kernel module ships as DKMS source and is rebuilt for every kernel - Bump version to 1.1.0 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Predator Control
An open-source PredatorSense replacement for Linux, built for the Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71) and tested on CachyOS with KDE Plasma 6.
It gives you everything the Windows control center does – performance modes, fan control, per-key keyboard RGB, the rear lightbar and battery health – as a desktop app, a Plasma panel widget, and a command line tool.
Features
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Performance | Eco / Quiet / Balanced / Performance / Turbo (ACPI platform profiles), separate profiles for AC and battery with automatic switching when you plug in or unplug |
| Fans | Auto, Max (cooler boost), manual speed per fan, or a custom temperature curve for CPU and GPU with drag-and-drop editor |
| Keyboard RGB | 12 hardware effects (static, breathing, rainbow wave, ripple, neon, rain, explosion, pulse, stars, meteor, aura, …), colour, brightness, hidden effect variants, presets |
| RGB Studio | Paint individual keys with the mouse, live preview on the keyboard, quick fills (WASD, arrows, F-row, numpad …), German ISO and US ANSI layouts |
| Lightbar | All rear lightbar effects with colour, brightness and speed – or let it follow the keyboard |
| Battery | live charging indicator in watts with power graph and time until full / remaining, 80 % charge limit, calibration, health and cycles |
| Firmware options | Boot animation & sound, LCD overdrive, keyboard backlight timeout, USB charging while off |
| Monitoring | CPU/GPU temperatures, fan RPM, CPU load and clock, memory – without waking the dGPU |
| Panel widget | Click the icon in the Plasma panel to change everything quickly; buttons open the full app directly on the right page (e.g. RGB Studio). Middle-click cycles the performance mode |
| Persistence | All settings are restored at boot and after suspend/resume |
Supported hardware
| Model | Keyboard MCU | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Acer Predator Helios 16 PH16-71 | Chicony 04F2:011A / 04F2:0117 |
primary target |
Other Predator/Helios models with the same keyboard controller and WMI
interfaces will likely work. Reports are welcome – please include the output of
predatorctl status, lsusb | grep 04f2 and cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name.
Installation
pacman package (Arch, CachyOS, Manjaro, EndeavourOS …) – recommended
Download predator-control-<version>-any.pkg.tar.zst from the
releases page and install it:
sudo pacman -S --needed linux-cachyos-headers clang lld llvm # headers for your kernel (stock Arch: linux-headers)
sudo pacman -U predator-control-1.1.0-1-any.pkg.tar.zst
The service starts automatically and the kernel module is built by DKMS for every installed kernel.
To build the package yourself: cd packaging/arch && makepkg -f.
Switching from
install.shto the package? Runsudo ./uninstall.shfirst (your settings are kept).
Install script (any distribution)
Requirements: a kernel with acer-wmi (any recent kernel), Python 3, PySide6,
DKMS and kernel headers. On Arch / CachyOS / Manjaro the installer pulls in everything.
git clone https://git.mrblake.cc/MrBlake/Cachy-Predator-Keyboard.git
cd Cachy-Predator-Keyboard
sudo ./install.sh
Then:
- App: start Predator Control from the application menu, or run
predator-control - Panel widget: right-click the panel → Add or Manage Widgets… → search for Predator Control and drag it into the panel – or enable it under System Tray Settings → Entries. If it does not show up yet, log out and back in.
- CLI:
predatorctl status
On other distributions install the dependencies yourself and run sudo ./install.sh --no-deps.
Secure Boot: the kernel module is unsigned. With Secure Boot enforcing module
signatures you have to sign predator_wmi yourself (e.g. with sbctl or a MOK key).
Keyboard RGB and performance profiles work without the module.
Uninstall with sudo pacman -R predator-control (package) or sudo ./uninstall.sh (add --purge to also delete your settings).
Usage
Panel widget
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Left click | Opens the quick-settings popup |
| Middle click | Cycles to the next performance mode |
| RGB Studio… | Opens the app on the RGB page |
| Manual / Curve (fans) | Switches mode and opens the fan page |
Command line
predatorctl status # overview
predatorctl profile performance # low-power | quiet | balanced | balanced-performance | performance
predatorctl profile-cycle
predatorctl fans auto | max | curve
predatorctl fans custom 60 80 # CPU 60 %, GPU 80 %
predatorctl kbd static ff0000 -b 255 # effect, colour, brightness (0-255)
predatorctl kbd off | on
predatorctl kbd-brightness +25
predatorctl lightbar wave --color 00d4ff --speed 7
predatorctl lightbar --sync on # lightbar follows the keyboard
predatorctl battery-limit on
predatorctl open rgb # open the app on a page
Tip: bind predatorctl profile-cycle or predatorctl kbd-brightness +25 to a
keyboard shortcut in System Settings → Shortcuts.
How it works
Plasma widget ──┐ ┌── /sys/firmware/acpi/platform_profile (profiles)
Qt app ─────────┼── Unix socket ──► predatord (root) ──┼── /dev/hidrawN (keyboard MCU, USB HID)
predatorctl ────┘ state.json ◄──┘ └── predator_wmi kernel module ── ACPI WMI
(fans, lightbar, battery, firmware options)
- predatord – a small Python daemon running as root. It owns all hardware access,
stores settings in
/etc/predator-control/config.json, writes a live state snapshot to/run/predator-control/state.json, restores everything at boot/resume, switches profiles on AC changes and runs the fan curve. Only root and members of thewheelgroup may send commands (checked viaSO_PEERCRED; configurable viaallowed_group). - predator_wmi – a ~200 line kernel module that binds to Acer's gaming, battery and APGE WMI interfaces and exposes a single root-only sysfs attribute to call WMI methods. All protocol knowledge stays in user space.
- Keyboard – talks directly to the keyboard MCU through hidraw (8-byte feature reports plus a 512-byte per-key frame) – no kernel driver needed.
- Temperatures and fan RPM come from the mainline
acer-wmihwmon andcoretemp.
Correcting the key map
The LED matrix positions of a few keys (ISO # and <) are best guesses. If a key
lights up in the wrong place in the RGB Studio, create
~/.config/predator-control/layout.json with {"<key label>": <cell number>} entries
(cell = column × 6 + row, row 0 = bottom row).
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| "predatord is not running" | sudo systemctl enable --now predatord, then journalctl -u predatord |
| "permission denied" | add yourself to wheel: sudo usermod -aG wheel $USER, log in again |
| Fans / lightbar / battery greyed out | the module is not loaded: sudo modprobe predator_wmi, check dmesg |
| Keyboard does not react | check predatorctl status and that lsusb shows 04f2:011a or 04f2:0117 |
| Profile changes back on its own | another tool also manages platform_profile (e.g. power-profiles-daemon or tuned); disable automatic switching in either tool |
| Widget missing after install | log out and back in, or run plasmashell --replace & |
Credits
The hardware protocols were reverse-engineered by others – this project would not exist without them:
- Venator – PH16-71 keyboard MCU protocol, lightbar, key map (GPL-2.0)
- Linuwu-Sense – fan control, battery health and firmware option WMI calls (GPL-2.0)
- The mainline Linux
acer-wmidriver – platform profiles and sensors
Disclaimer
This is an independent community project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by Acer Inc. "Predator", "Helios" and "PredatorSense" are trademarks of Acer Inc. The software talks directly to firmware interfaces – use it at your own risk, especially custom fan curves: keep an eye on temperatures.