Lunar

Smooth transitions for Apple displays

Apple vendored displays get special treatment as Lunar uses an implementation hidden inside macOS Display Services to control them natively. The list of displays include:

Studio Display
Pro Display XDR
LG Ultrafine for Mac
Thunderbolt Display
LED Cinema (when connected via USB)

Control everything from the keyboard

Manual Mode

The same familiar keys can now control your external monitors.

Brightness Keys: adjust brightness for all displays at once
Volume Keys: adjust the volume of the active monitor
Input Hotkeys: set hotkeys to switch to other HDMI, DisplayPort or USB-C ports

The brightness keys can also be configured to adjust the monitor where the cursor is placed.

Screenshot showing Lunar's input hotkeys

Keep all your displays in sync

Demo showing syncing MacBook brightness to the external monitor

Sync Mode

Sync Mode brings the MacBook's adaptive brightness feature to all your external monitors.

Whenever macOS adapts your MacBook display using the built-in Ambient Light Sensor, Lunar will sync that adjustment to all your monitors.

Syncing also works with adjustments made by TouchBar or brightness keys.

Break past brightness limits

XDR Brightness

Unlock the full brightness of your XDR display

The 2021 MacBook Pro and the Pro Display XDR feature an incredibly bright panel (1600 nits!), but which is locked by macOS to a third of its potential (500 nits...).

Lunar can remove the brightness lock and allow you to increase the brightness past that limit.

You can finally go outside and work on your laptop in the bright sunlight without squinting! You probably don't do this often, but it's nice to have, right?

Demo showing a MacBook Pro 2021 with brightness at 1600 nits

A white window on the MacBook Pro screen being at much higher brightness

Demo showing MacBook brightness going below 0%

MacBook screen brightness at 72% below 0

MacBook screen brightness at 17% below 0

Sub-zero Dimming

Dim the brightness below the screen limit

This is for the night owls who stay up too late, clacking on their laptop keyboards way after midnight.

Even at 0%, most monitors are not dark enough for your late-night coding sessions or for writing that last chapter of your book while the sunrise is drawing nearer.

With Lunar, when you reach 0%, you can keep pressing the Brightness Down key to go even lower.

React to the ambient light around you

Lunar sensor hardware showing an ESP32 and a generic ambient light sensor

Sensor Mode

Sensor Mode brings adaptive brightness for any Mac device.

If you use a Mac Mini, a MacBook with the lid closed, or even a Hackintosh, Lunar can automatically adapt your monitors' brightness and contrast based on readings from an external ambient light sensor.

The sensor is wireless, can be powered by USB or Lithium-ion battery and can even be used for multiple computers as long as they're in the same network as the sensor.

Do it yourself

BlackOut distracting screens

Auto BlackOut

Turn off the MacBook display when a monitor is connected.

Activate Auto BlackOut and let Lunar turn off your MacBook display automatically when an external monitor is connected.

When the monitor is disconnected, the MacBook display will come back on.

There are some nice advantages to having the MacBook display off with the lid open:

Sensor Mode: Lunar can use the built-in light sensor to adapt the monitor brightness automatically (Apple Silicon only)
TrackPad, Keyboard, TouchID, webcam, speakers, microphone are still available
Less anxiety about CPU heat melting your display

Demo showing how you can turn off individual displays

BlackOut

Focus on the real work by disabling screens that you don't need.

BlackOut enables you to selectively turn off displays using a single hotkey.

Use cases:

Turn off the MacBook display without closing the lid
Turn off external monitors while keeping the USB and charging capabilities
BlackOut all displays except one so you can focus on it

Move the cursor on the screen you want to disable and press Control+Command+6 to activate BlackOut.

Press the hotkey again to deactivate BlackOut and return to the previous brightness.

FaceLight for your FaceTime

or Zoom, Meet, Teams, whatever

Demo showing how to use the external monitor as a soft light panel while in a video call

FaceLight

Use your monitor as a really bright LED panel when you're having video calls in your cozy dark room.

If having your face well lit in a video call is more important than screen space, Lunar can help you with a single hotkey.

Press Control+Command+5 or use the Lunar menu to activate FaceLight and Lunar will increase the active monitor's brightness and contrast to maximum and place a warm-white overlay on top of your screen.

Press the hotkey again to deactivate FaceLight and return to the previous brightness.

Lunar

vs

MonitorControl and DisplayBuddy

With an emphasis on Lunar being the best, of course

Feature	Lunar	MonitorControl	DisplayBuddy
DDC support Native brightness control for all modern monitors
Brightness and volume keys support Control monitors using the same keys used by macOS
Fallback when DDC fails Software dimming using Gamma or Dark Overlay
Native macOS feel OSD, native UI, OS integration
Dim brightness below zero Use software dimming to go below the screen 0% brightness limit
Input switching Switch to HDMI/DisplayPort/USB-C port from the app			No brightness preset per input
Sync brightness between displays Allows macOS adaptive brightness on external monitors		No auto-learning algorithm	No per-monitor brightness curve No auto-learning algorithm
Built-in light sensor support Monitors adapt to ambient light even when the MacBook display is off
Turn off the MacBook display Automatically turn on/off the MacBook display when a monitor is connected
XDR brightness Go over the 500nits limit of the 2021 MacBook Pro
External light sensor support
Scheduled brightness presets
DDC support for DisplayLink
DDC on the HDMI port of M1 Macs
macOS Shortcuts
Command-line integration
Color calibration controls
Automatic App-based Presets
Custom Presets with Hotkey
Use monitor as a light-panel in meetings
Sunrise/sunset based adaptive brightness
Open source code	Source available for non-paid features
Pricing	$23 for `5` Macs Free included features	$0	$23 for `2` Macs $30 for 5 Macs

Menubar interface

Preferences interface

Comparison between the preferences window of Lunar, MonitorControl and DisplayBuddy

Put your monitors on a schedule

Clock Mode

In Clock Mode, Lunar will automatically adapt your monitors based on a pre-defined schedule.

If you're working in a shared office and the sun shines from 9 to 5 no matter the season, Clock Mode is the thing for you.

There are 5 available schedules that can be set to any of the following schedule types:

Time: set the configured brightness and contrast at a specific time of day
Sunrise: set the configured brightness and contrast at sunrise
Noon: set the configured brightness and contrast when the sun is at its highest point in the sky
Sunset: set the configured brightness and contrast at sunset

For sunrise, sunset and noon there's a configurable offset, so you can do things like:

set brightness to 70%, 30 minutes before sunrise
set brightness to 30%, 1 hour and 30 minutes after sunset

Transitions

Clock Mode supports the following transitions:

None: apply the brightness and contrast instantly on the defined time
30 minutes: start transitioning slowly to the defined brightness and contrast 30 minutes before the schedule time
Full: transition brightness and contrast slowly from previous schedule until the next schedule

Screenshot of the Lunar window showing Clock Mode

Screenshot of the Lunar window showing the Schedule Transition setting

Let the sun guide the brightness

Location Mode

In Location Mode, Lunar will automatically adapt your monitors based on the sun position in the sky.

Location Mode shines in environments with lots of natural light, where the ambient light in the room correlates with the sun elevation.

If you're using a Mac Mini or a MacBook with the lid closed, Location Mode can be a good alternative.

If you still need the monitors to adapt to the light around you, Sensor Mode would be a better choice.

Macbook M1/M2 Dual Monitor Setup

The M1 and M2 MacBooks can work with more than one monitor with the help of a DisplayLink adapter and a Raspberry Pi. (not needed for M1 Pro/Max)

DisplayLink

Even though the M1/M2 MacBook has two Thunderbolt ports, only one of those can be connected to a monitor.

To work around this limitation, DisplayLink adapters can collect video data from the Mac through a simple USB connection and then send it to multiple monitors.

Adapters for dual monitor setup

These are cheaper but they need a separate USB-C hub or adapter as they only have an USB-A connector.

StarTech:
Plugable:
- Amazon.com

Adapters for multi-monitor setup

These are more expensive but with a single USB-C connection you get multi-monitor support, a ton of USB ports, card readers, ethernet and 65W-100W charging.

Dell D6000
Kensington SD4900P
- Amazon.com
Kensington SD4780P
- Amazon.de
Kensington SD4750P
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk
WAVLINK

After connecting a DisplayLink adapter to your MacBook, install the required software and your monitors should appear in System Preferences -> Displays and in Lunar.

Screenshot of the DDC server installer screen

The DisplayLink software on macOS doesn't support passing through DDC or Gamma changes to the monitors, so we have to get inventive.

Brightness and Volume Control

Lunar can control DisplayLink monitors with the help of a network connected Raspberry Pi.

The way Lunar does this is by having a Pi board connected to a separate HDMI port of your monitor and Lunar relaying the DDC commands through a custom server running on the Pi.

Minimum requirements

An unused HDMI port on your DisplayLink monitor
Raspberry Pi Zero W (cheapest Pi with Wi-Fi)
Micro SD card with Raspberry Pi OS
Mini HDMI to HDMI cable
Micro USB cable and a 5V power adapter with a minimum of 1A output (this is usually present in most houses)

Setting up the Pi is as simple as clicking on Install DDC Server on Raspberry Pi and waiting for Lunar to install and configure the server.

Fallback when DDC fails

Screenshot showing the red Gamma Control tag under a monitor name

Screenshot showing the blue Network Control tag under a monitor name

Lunar can work around the lack of DDC support of some devices using two separate and very different methods.

Gamma Tables

The works out of the box method.

Lunar can approximate a decrease in brightness by changing the software gamma tables to make the colors look darker.

This doesn't change the hardware brightness as DDC does, so you have to manually set the monitor's brightness and contrast (using the monitor physical buttons) to the highest possible values that look good for your monitor.

This also means that monitor volume and input can't be controlled.

Network Control

The why do I have to do this? method...

If your monitor simply refuses to accept commands from your Mac and you want your DDC controls back, Lunar can use a Raspberry Pi with network access for this.

The way this works is by having the Pi connected to a separate HDMI port of your monitor and Lunar relaying the DDC commands through a custom server running on the Pi.

Minimum requirements

A monitor with an unused HDMI port
Raspberry Pi Zero W (cheapest Pi with Wi-Fi)
Micro SD card with Raspberry Pi OS
Mini HDMI to HDMI cable
Micro USB cable and a 5V power adapter with a minimum of 1A output (this is usually present in most houses)

Works with Apple Silicon

Lunar can use DDC to control monitors on all Apple Silicon Macs!

Hardware Controls

Lunar can use the Apple Silicon GPU to communicate with monitors through the I²C protocol and do the following:

Change the hardware brightness and contrast
- these are the same values that you can change through the monitor buttons
Adjust the volume
Switch the input
Power off the monitor

Powerful Automations

Make Lunar do things your way using macOS Shortcuts

Shortcuts

Create your own complex presets, arrange monitors in organized layouts, and automate every aspect of your monitors.

Shortcuts can even be used to fix macOS issues like swapped screen positions and rotations.

Designing with reference modes like P3-D65 also gets easier as Shortcuts can switch to any mode and add hotkeys to the actions.

Check out the Shortcuts page to find some useful pre-made shortcuts that you can add with a click.

Command-Line Integration

Lunar CLI

More details about each Pro feature here

Control and automate your monitors from the command-line.

/Applications/Lunar.app/Contents/MacOS/Lunar install-cli

lunar get and lunar set: Quickly set/get monitor values if you have a single external monitor
lunar displays: Control and query each display separately
lunar lux: Check the ambient light around you
lunar ddc: Send arbitrary DDC commands
lunar gamma: Control the Gamma tables per monitor
lunar listen: Get a stream of brightness change events
lunar lid: Check if the lid of the Macbook is open or closed

Lunar Pro

Feature	Free version	Lunar Pro
DDC Controls
Sub-zero dimming
Fallback when DDC fails
Brightness keys support
Volume keys support
Command-line integration
Input switching
Multi-monitor support
App Presets
XDR Brightness
FaceLight
BlackOut
Sync Mode
Location Mode
Sensor Mode
Clock Mode
Manual Mode	100 adjustments per day	Unlimited adjustments
Shortcuts	100 action calls per day	Unlimited actions
Pricing	Free	$23