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Clarity · free
Clarity, the free live monitor.
Clarity is free. It is not a trial and it never asks you to upgrade. It shows live readings from the sensors your machine exposes and keeps the last hour in memory. Control adds history that survives restarts.
By design
What's deliberate.
- History lives in memory. Clarity keeps a rolling hour of history in memory. Close the app and that history is gone: none of it is written to disk. Only your preferences and a cached last snapshot persist, so the dashboard paints instantly next launch.
- Read-only fans. Live RPM for every fan that reports a real tachometer: desktop headers through the motherboard sensor chip, ASUS laptops through the vendor firmware interface. Other laptops expose no tachometer at all, and Clarity says so rather than showing a blank. Monitoring only; fan control arrives in a later release.
- Every gap has a reason. Every absent value carries its reason, on the free tier too.
Features
What's inside.
Live telemetry
CPU usage and per-core load, memory and page file, per-drive storage, network throughput, GPU identity and usage, plus a sortable process list you can end or reprioritise. Package power and CPU die temperature read through Aikonic’s own signed driver; what it does not cover reads as unavailable.
Sensor sources
Every value names the sensor and provider behind it. A reading taken from a fallback sensor is marked with a ~ and says why, so a die temperature and a board zone are never presented as the same thing. Crashes, unexpected shutdowns and hardware errors show on a card, read from the records Windows itself keeps.
Tools that measure
Storage SMART health, battery wear on laptops, a display dead-pixel test, and CPU boost-residency and memory-at-spec checks read from real hardware.
System specs
An accurate inventory (VRAM, media and bus types, CPU code-name) plus a read-only view of startup apps.
Interface
Light and dark themes, Mini Mode, command palette (Ctrl+K), keyboard shortcuts, quiet error states with a technical-detail drawer.
Verification
A built-in system verification smoke-test with an exportable JSON report, so you can confirm your install reads what it claims.
Principles
Measurement integrity.
Every value on a Clarity screen was read from a sensor. Where a value cannot be read, Clarity renders the gap with the reason instead of an estimate. The full argument, and the accuracy bar behind it, live on the principles page.
CPU package temp, before our driver
Unavailable
Before Aikonic 1.1 this value read as unavailable, because the kernel driver path most tools rely on is blocked on modern Windows. Aikonic now ships its own signed driver that reads the die directly. Why the temperature went missing.
verdict: unavailable · reason: kernel driver blocked by OS policy
Questions
Things people usually ask.
What does Clarity do?
Clarity reads the sensors your machine exposes and shows them in real time: CPU and GPU load, live clock speeds, memory, storage, network and fan speeds on one calm screen. Package power and CPU die temperature read through Aikonic’s own signed, Microsoft-attested driver, which ships with the app; readings the driver does not cover are shown as unavailable rather than estimated. It is free, with no account and no telemetry.
What's the difference between Clarity and Control?
Clarity is the free real-time monitor: live readings plus the last 5 minutes and hour of history, fresh each session. Control is a one-time purchase that adds persistent local history (24H, 7D, 30D), process activity, and peaks and averages that survive restarts. Control is not on sale yet: Clarity is out now, and Control arrives once its checkout opens later this year.
Why not just use the tool that came with my motherboard?
You can. Most vendor tools work. They just tend to bring installers, accounts and update services along for the ride. Clarity does the monitoring well and stops there.
Does it phone home?
Not with your data. Two connections, both narrow. The licence check runs automatically: a first-launch activation and a roughly daily heartbeat, carrying a non-reversible install fingerprint derived on your device and nothing else. The update check asks aikonic.app for a small version file, carrying only the app's own version number; it runs at startup, about every six hours while the app stays open, and when you press Check for updates. Aikonic never downloads or installs an update on its own: it shows a banner, and when you choose to update it fetches the signed installer, verifies the signature against a key built into the app, and installs it. Neither connection carries telemetry, analytics, an account, or anything about you or how you use the app.
Why might my CPU temperature show as unavailable?
On Windows 11 24H2 and later, the kernel driver path most monitoring tools historically used is blocked by operating-system policy, which is why so many tools show temperature as unavailable, or guess. Since Aikonic 1.1, our own signed, Microsoft-attested driver reads CPU die temperature directly. Anything that still cannot be read on your particular hardware shows as unavailable, with the reason.
Which hardware is supported?
Most Intel and AMD CPUs from the last decade, NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, and motherboard sensors readable through standard interfaces. V1 prioritises Intel systems first, AMD second, and depth over breadth.
Will there be a Linux or macOS version?
Not at launch. Windows sensor APIs are the bulk of the work; porting elsewhere would mean rewriting that layer. Maybe later.
Download
Download Clarity.
Free, no account, no telemetry. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Signed installer, published checksum.