winget install --id=Vinyas.WattAWidget -e WattAWidget pins a small always-on-desktop widget that shows your PC's live power draw - true battery telemetry on battery, a self-calibrating CPU+GPU sensor estimate on AC - with a 30-minute sparkline, 24-hour and 7-day history charts, kWh and electricity-cost estimates, and a battery health readout.
A tiny always-on-desktop widget for Windows that shows what your PC is actually drawing — live watts, Screen Time-style history, kWh, and what it costs you. Single ~1 MB exe, no installer, no services, no network access.
Via winget (once published):
winget install wattawidget
Or manually: grab the zip from Releases, extract
WattAWidget.exe anywhere, run it. Right-click the widget → Start with
Windows if you want it at logon.
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Drag | Move the widget |
| Double-click | Cycle compact → 24-hour → 7-day view |
| Right-click | View, theme, electricity rate, battery health, reset stats/calibration, autostart, exit |
No .NET SDK needed — it compiles with the C# compiler that ships in Windows:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1
First run downloads LibreHardwareMonitorLib and HidSharp from nuget.org
(embedded into the exe as resources) and produces bin\WattAWidget.exe.
The icon is generated from code: tools\make-icon.ps1.
Battery mode reads BatteryStatus WMI telemetry — that number is the whole
machine, screen included. AC mode reads CPU package and discrete-GPU power
sensors, which miss the base load; the learned offset (see above) closes most
of that gap. Treat AC numbers as good estimates, not lab measurements.
Windows SmartScreen warns when I run it. The exe is unsigned — click "More info → Run anyway", or build from source yourself. Code signing may come later.
My antivirus inspects it closely. LibreHardwareMonitor's sensor library contains a kernel driver used for reading CPU power registers; some AV heuristics notice it. The library is a well-known open-source project (see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md).
AC watts say "no power sensors found". Sensor access sometimes requires administrator rights — right-click → Restart as administrator. Battery-mode readings never need admin.
How do I uninstall? Exit the widget first — right-click → Exit, or run
wattawidget --exit (winget can't remove a running exe). Then
winget uninstall wattawidget (or delete the app folder). Your data lives in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\WattAWidget — delete it too for a full cleanup, plus
schtasks /Delete /TN WattAWidget /F if you enabled autostart.
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\release.ps1 -Version 1.0.1
Or from Linux / macOS / WSL:
./tools/release.sh 1.0.1
That bumps the version, builds as a sanity check (PowerShell variant only —
compilation needs Windows), commits, tags, and pushes.
CI then compiles, publishes the GitHub release, and — via wingetcreate —
submits the winget update PR automatically. One-time setup: add a repo secret
WINGET_TOKEN (classic PAT, public_repo scope). The winget job only works
once the package's initial winget-pkgs PR has been merged.
MIT — see LICENSE. Bundles LibreHardwareMonitorLib (MPL-2.0) and HidSharp (Apache-2.0): THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.