This project benefited greatly from the work, testing and research of several community contributors — especially: @ZoeBattleSand, @0x189D7997, and @JakeBrxwn. Their reverse-engineering, testing, tooling and discussion (see https://github.com/0x7375646F/Linuwu-Sense/pull/65) made much of this possible.

Small tools to control Acer laptop RGB zones and a daemon that persists/apply states.

Caution

The code here was based on the work of others but it was written with the help of AI too

Build

Build the daemon only:

make acer-rgbd

Build the CLI (used for manual commands and test targets):

make acer-rgb-cli

Or build everything with:

make build

Install

Install the daemon, helper script and systemd units:

sudo make install

The install target will:

Copy acer-rgbd to /usr/local/bin/acer-rgbd and acer-rgb to /usr/local/bin/acer-rgb.
Install systemd unit and socket under /etc/systemd/system/ and enable/start the service.
Create /var/lib/acer-rgbd/state.txt with an initial "all green" state so the daemon applies green on first start.

If you need to undo the install:

sudo make uninstall

GUI Tray Applet

A system tray applet is included for easy RGB control without using the command line.

Dependencies

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1

Running

python3 acer-rgb-tray.py

The applet appears in your system tray. Click it to access:

Color presets (Red, Green, Blue, White, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Orange)
Custom... - Opens a full color picker dialog
Effect submenu - Static, Breathing, Neon, Wave, Ripple, Zoom, Snake, Disco, Shifting

Autostart

To start the applet automatically on login:

cp acer-rgb-tray.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

Make sure the daemon is running before the applet starts:

sudo systemctl enable acer-rgbd.service

Usage

Send commands to the daemon using the acer-rgb helper (it talks to the daemon socket):

acer-rgb SET dev=keyboard hidraw=/dev/hidraw2 effect=static bright=100 r=0 g=255 b=0 zone=all
acer-rgb GET

You can also use the CLI binary for direct HID control (for testing):

sudo ./acer-rgb-cli /dev/hidraw2 keyboard static --brightness 100 --rgb 0 255 0 --zone all

State file

The daemon persists three lines (keyboard, lid, button) in /var/lib/acer-rgbd/state.txt. Editing that file (as root) changes the values the daemon will reapply on start.

Logs & troubleshooting

View the daemon logs with:

journalctl -u acer-rgbd.service -f

If you modify the state file and want the daemon to reapply immediately, restart it:

sudo systemctl restart acer-rgbd.service

Notes

The installer writes an initial all-green state (keyboard/lid/button) to /var/lib/acer-rgbd/state.txt so newly installed systems show green LEDs by default.
Running the daemon requires root privileges (or appropriate udev rules) to access the HID device.
The GUI applet communicates with the daemon via socket (/run/acer-rgbd.sock) and runs as a regular user.