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gl-e5800-dashboard

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Custom touch dashboard for the GL.iNet GL-E5800's built-in screen (replaces the stock UI)

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# GL-E5800 Touch Dashboard

A custom, fully interactive replacement for the stock `gl_screen` UI on the
GL.iNet GL-E5800's built-in 240x320 touchscreen. Swipe between six panels,
tap into any of them for detail or control, and manage the router without
ever opening the web UI.

![Home](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_clock.png)

No image assets, no external UI framework — every icon, chart, and widget
is drawn at runtime with Pillow directly onto the framebuffer (`/dev/fb0`,
RGB565). Pure Python, one file.

## Panels

| Home | Active SIM | Monitor |
|---|---|---|
| ![Home](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_clock.png) | ![SIM](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_sim.png) | ![Monitor](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_monitor.png) |

| Weather | Currency | OpenClash |
|---|---|---|
| ![Weather](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_weather.png) | ![Currency](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_fx.png) | ![OpenClash](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_openclash.png) |

**Home** — two small clocks (independently pickable cities/timezones,
digital by default, switchable to analog from More), today's date, and
three tiles: **Repeater**, **More**, and **Messages** (below the other
two), so you never need the stock GL.iNet home page.

| Digital (default) | Analog |
|---|---|
| ![Digital clock](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_clock.png) | ![Analog clock](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_clock_analog.png) |

**Messages** (from the Home tile) — the router's built-in SMS receiver
(`smsd`/smstools3, already running against the modem) writes each
message to a plain-text spool file; this reads them (read-only, never
moves or deletes a file, so it can't interfere with any other consumer
of that spool) into a scrollable inbox list — sender + preview snippet
per row, tap for the full message. Renders in the device's bundled CJK
font so Chinese messages display correctly rather than as boxes — this
needed a real fix, not just a font swap: `smstools3` writes non-ASCII
message bodies as **raw UTF-16BE bytes** (`Alphabet: UCS2` in the file's
header), not UTF-8 text, confirmed against a real received message.

| Messages | Message detail |
|---|---|
| ![Messages](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_sms.png) | ![Message detail](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_sms_detail.png) |

*(Numbers and message content above are synthetic/demo data.)*

**Active SIM** — country flag, full number, and three same-sized toggles:
**Net** (network registration/attach — SMS and calls work even without a
cellular data session), **Data** (the actual cellular data session), and
**Roam** (data roaming permission for this SIM). A SIM1 / eSIM switch
(SIM2 was removed: it and eSIM share the same physical slot on this
hardware and behaved identically, so it wasn't a real third option), a
data-usage bar against a cap you set (now a scrollable list, 500MB up to
1000GB), and a **WireGuard** button.

The Data toggle shows optimistic feedback (flips immediately on tap) and
only re-confirms after 2s and snaps back if it didn't take **when a
repeater/ethernet WAN is already active** — this router's own multi-WAN
manager can silently revert a manual cellular connect in that case. With
no competing WAN, the tap is trusted outright and left to connect in the
background, since there's nothing to revert it.

**WireGuard** — lists every peer config already added on the router
(GL.iNet stores each as its own `wireguard.peer_NNNN` UCI section) with a
toggle to bring it up or down. Turning one on points the router's single
`wgclient` network interface at that peer's config and brings it up
(`ifup`); turning it off tears it down (`ifdown`) — the same mechanism
the router's own firmware uses (confirmed by reading the actual netifd
proto script and hotplug handlers, not guessed), so no separate/parallel
VPN config path is created.

![WireGuard](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_wireguard.png)

*(Peer name above is synthetic/demo data.)*

Every panel's colored header also shows, phone-status-bar style: cellular
signal bars + radio tech (4G/5G) when the modem has signal, and the
active WAN connection type (Repeater/Ethernet/4G/5G) — each shown
independently, hidden entirely when not applicable, refreshed
periodically.

**Monitor** — bandwidth (down/up Mbps on whichever interface currently holds
the default route, so it keeps tracking the right link through a WAN
failover), CPU%, RAM used/total, SoC temperature, and uptime. Read-only,
refreshes every 2 seconds.

**Weather** — 3-day forecast (hand-drawn icons: sun/cloud/rain/snow/fog/storm)
for a city you pick from an alphabetically-sorted, scrollable list of 40+
cities, plus a manual **Update Now** button. Tap any of the three days
(today/tomorrow/day after — all three, so it never feels like only "today"
is interactive) for a detail screen: feels-like temperature, UV index
(with category), wind speed, and air quality (US AQI + category, via
Open-Meteo's separate air-quality API) — showing "No data yet" instead of
a wrong or blank value wherever a field genuinely isn't available.

![Weather day detail](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_weather_detail.png)

**Currency** — two rows, each `1 {from} = {rate} {to}`, with `from` and
`to` independently pickable from a 10-currency list (not fixed to any one
target currency), plus a real historical line chart per row (week/month/
year, pulled from [Frankfurter](https://frankfurter.dev), ECB reference
rates).

**OpenClash** — on/off, Global/Rule mode, current node (flag + guessed
country from the node name, including common Chinese keywords like 香港/
日本/新加坡) with a tap-to-switch, scrollable node list, session traffic,
and an **Update Subscription** button (runs the same script LuCI's own
subscription page does — re-fetches every configured subscription,
reloads if changed) — all read from Mihomo's local REST API. Node names
render in the device's bundled CJK font, so Chinese subscription/node
names (common with 机场-style providers) display correctly instead of
boxes. Gracefully shows "not installed" instead of breaking if OpenClash
isn't on the device.

![Node list](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_oc_nodes.png)

*(Node names above are synthetic/demo data — not a real subscription.)*

| Repeater | More | On-screen keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| ![Repeater](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_repeater.png) | ![More](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_more.png) | ![Keyboard](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/main/screenshots/panel_keyboard.png) |

**Repeater** (from the Home tile) — scans and lists nearby WiFi as a real
scrollable list, connects to open networks directly or opens the
on-screen keyboard for a password. Uses the same `ubus` `repeater` object
the stock GL.iNet UI uses. Reconnecting to a previously-connected network
doesn't ask for the password again — `remember: true` on connect already
persists credentials to `/etc/config/repeater`; the UI checks there first
before falling back to the keyboard. Connecting shows a spinner ("Connecting…
SSID") that polls the real connection state in the background and clears
itself once actually associated (or after a 20s timeout), instead of the
screen just sitting there with no feedback while the handshake happens.

**More** (from the Home tile) — a 2.4GHz toggle and a 5GHz/6GHz three-way
switch (5G / Off / 6G — this hardware shares one antenna path between the
5G and 6G radios, so only one can be active). If the repeater is
connected, whichever band conflicts with its upstream AP's band is grayed
out and untappable, with a "Matches repeater band" note, instead of
letting you pick a combination that can't work. Also: an Analog/Digital
clock-style switch, a **Return to Stock UI** button (switches back
immediately, no confirm dialog — same effect as the power-button hold
gesture, just more discoverable/reliable), and confirm-gated **Reboot**
and **Shutdown** buttons side by side.

**On-screen keyboard** — built because this screen has no physical or
pop-up keyboard. Two layers (letters/symbols), persistent caps toggle.

## Interaction

- **Swipe** left/right between the 6 main panels — real finger-tracking with
  an eased iOS-style snap/cancel animation, not a hard cut.
- **Tap** into a panel for detail screens (pick a city, pick a currency, set
  a data cap, configure OpenClash's node, etc). Tap the header or swipe
  right to go back.
- **Hold the power button ~1-2.5s** to switch between this dashboard and the
  stock GL.iNet screen at any time (round-trip tested at ~0.3-1.5s). Or use
  **More → Return to Stock UI** for the same switch without touching the
  power button at all.
- **Quick-tap the power button** to sleep/wake the screen — real backlight
  control, not a fake black frame. Classified by press *duration* on
  release (tap vs. hold), not by counting presses — an earlier tap-counting
  design (single tap = sleep, triple tap = switch UI) turned out to be
  fragile against contact bounce, where one physical tap could register as
  two raw press/release edges; duration-based detection sidesteps that
  since each press/release pair is handled the instant it completes.
  Holding past ~2.5s is left alone entirely and falls through to the
  hardware's own long-press-to-poweroff path.

## Requirements

Built and tested specifically on a **GL.iNet GL-E5800**, OpenWrt 23.05.4,
GL firmware 4.8.x. It depends on hardware/paths specific to this model:

- 240x320 RGB565 framebuffer at `/dev/fb0`
- Capacitive touchscreen at `/dev/input/event0` (Multitouch protocol B)
- Power key at `/dev/input/event1` (`KEY_POWER`)
- Backlight control at `/sys/class/backlight/soc:backlight/brightness`
- GL.iNet's `repeater` and `cellular.*` ubus objects

It will very likely **not** work unmodified on other GL.iNet models — the
touch/framebuffer/backlight paths would need re-verifying (see
[Adapting to another model](#adapting-to-another-model) below). It should be
safe to try, though: the install keeps the stock `gl_screen` UI installed
and switchable back at any time (see [Uninstalling](#uninstalling)).

## Installation

### Option A: install via LuCI (no SSH needed to get the files on)

Grab the `.ipk` from [Releases](https://github.com/robavionix/gl-e5800-dashboard/releases/latest) and, in LuCI, go to
**System → Software → Upload Package...**, pick the file, install. It's a
real opkg package — installs the same files to the same paths as the
manual steps below, pulls in `python3`/`python3-numpy`/`libtiff6`/all 5
`zoneinfo-*` packages as normal opkg dependencies, and enables the
power-button watcher. It deliberately does **not** switch the physical
screen over by itself; that stays a manual step (see step 5 below or the
Interaction section) so installing the package never surprises you with a
live UI swap. Note this doesn't add a menu entry inside LuCI itself — the
dashboard runs on the physical touchscreen, not as a web page; LuCI here
is just the install mechanism.

Prefer the CLI? `opkg install gl-e5800-dashboard_*.ipk` over SSH does the
same thing. See [packages/](packages/) if you want to rebuild the `.ipk`
yourself (also documents a couple of real opkg gotchas found while
building it — worth a read if you're packaging anything else for this
device).

### Option B: manual install over SSH

**Fast path:** clone this repo on a machine that can SSH to the router, then
`./install.sh [router-ip]` (default `192.168.8.1`). It does everything in
steps 1-3 below. Read on for what it's actually doing, or to do it by hand.

SSH into the router as root, then:

```sh
# 1. Dependencies (from GL.iNet's own opkg feed)
opkg update
opkg install python3 python3-numpy
# All 5 zoneinfo packages -- the Clock city picker includes cities from
# every region (e.g. Auckland, Toronto), and this firmware splits its
# timezone database into separate per-region opkg packages. Installing
# only zoneinfo-europe/asia will crash-loop the dashboard the moment
# someone picks a city outside those two regions.
opkg install zoneinfo-europe zoneinfo-asia zoneinfo-america zoneinfo-australia-nz zoneinfo-pacific
# python3-pillow conflicts with a file gl-sdk4-screen-large already owns
# (a bundled libfreetype) -- --nodeps works because that file is already
# on disk, just owned by the other package.
opkg install --nodeps python3-pillow
opkg install libtiff6

# 2. Copy the files (from your machine, adjust the path to wherever you
#    cloned this repo)
scp -O src/*.py src/*.sh root@192.168.8.1:/root/dashboard/
scp -O init.d/* root@192.168.8.1:/etc/init.d/

# 3. On the router: permissions + services
ssh root@192.168.8.1
chmod +x /root/dashboard/*.py /root/dashboard/*.sh /etc/init.d/citydash /etc/init.d/homebutton
/etc/init.d/homebutton enable
/etc/init.d/homebutton start

# 4. Preview before committing to it (renders to PNGs, doesn't touch the
#    live screen)
python3 /root/dashboard/dashboard.py --preview /root/dashboard/preview
# pull /root/dashboard/preview/*.png back and eyeball them

# 5. Go live
/root/dashboard/toggle.sh on
```

`toggle.sh on` disables the stock `gl_screen` service and enables/starts
`citydash` — the choice persists across reboots (mutually exclusive
enable flags), and there's a 3-strikes crash guard in `run.sh` that
automatically restores the stock UI if the Python process dies repeatedly,
so a bug can't permanently blank the screen.

### Uninstalling

Installed via the `.ipk` (Option A): `opkg remove gl-e5800-dashboard`, or
the same from LuCI's Software page — this switches the screen back to
stock automatically first if the dashboard was live, then removes
everything including the runtime-generated config/cache files.

Installed manually (Option B):

```sh
/root/dashboard/toggle.sh off
/etc/init.d/homebutton stop
/etc/init.d/homebutton disable
rm -rf /root/dashboard /etc/init.d/citydash /etc/init.d/homebutton
```

## Configuration

There's no settings UI for these — edit directly:

- **Cities offered for Clock/Weather pickers**: `CITIES` / `WEATHER_CITIES`
  lists near the top of `dashboard.py` (need an IANA timezone name and, for
  weather, lat/lon — no geocoding, no free-text search, since there's no
  keyboard for it outside the WiFi-password flow). Make sure the matching
  `zoneinfo-*` opkg package is installed for any region you add cities from.
- **Currencies offered**: `CURRENCIES` list.
- **Data cap presets**: `DATA_CAP_PRESETS`.
- **Monitor's tracked interface**: auto-detected (`get_wan_iface()` follows
  whichever interface holds the lowest-metric default route) rather than a
  fixed name, so it keeps working across a repeater-WiFi/cellular failover
  without editing anything.
- User's actual picks (which city/currency/cap) persist at
  `/root/dashboard/config.json`, separate from the source.

## Known limitations

- **smstools3 writes non-ASCII SMS bodies as raw UTF-16BE bytes, not
  UTF-8 text.** The spool file's header is always plain ASCII, but when
  `Alphabet: UCS2` is set the body after the blank line is raw
  big-endian UTF-16, confirmed against a real received Chinese message
  (an initial UTF-8-decode-everything approach produced mojibake).
  `_parse_sms_file()` decodes based on that header field rather than
  assuming one encoding for the whole file.
- **WireGuard peers and the actual network interface are separate
  layers.** GL.iNet stores each added peer as its own
  `wireguard.peer_NNNN` UCI section (keys, endpoint, allowed_ips), but
  that's just configuration -- nothing carries traffic until a
  `network.wgclient` interface (`proto=wgclient`, `config=<peer
  section>`) exists and is `ifup`'d. Confirmed by reading
  `/lib/netifd/proto/wgclient.sh` and the wireguard hotplug scripts
  rather than guessing at an undocumented RPC.
- **Open-Meteo's air-quality API has no daily-aggregate parameter** (a
  `daily=us_aqi_max` request errors out — confirmed live) — only hourly
  data is available, so `fetch_air_quality()` aggregates the daily max
  itself by grouping the hourly series by date.
- **Cached weather JSON needs a schema check, not just an age check.**
  Adding new fields (feels-like, UV, wind) to `fetch_weather()` without
  checking the *shape* of an existing cache file meant a cache written
  before that change would silently serve stale data missing the new
  keys for up to its full 2h TTL. The cache-freshness check now also
  requires the new fields to be present, so old-format entries refetch
  once and self-heal rather than looking like a real "no data" case.
- **`/sbin/wifi reload` takes ~8-10s and serializes on its own file lock**
  (`/data/vendor/wifi/wifilock`) — firing one per toggle tap let calls pile
  up faster than they drained during testing, leaving a backlog where the
  UCI config and the actual broadcasting radio state fell out of sync.
  `request_wifi_reload()` coalesces any reload requested while one is
  already in flight into a single trailing reload rather than stacking a
  new subprocess per request. The 2.4GHz toggle and the 5G/Off/6G switch in
  More both go through this helper — any new control that touches
  `wireless.*` should too.
- **5GHz and 6GHz share one antenna path** on this hardware, so the 5G/6G
  control in More is a three-way switch (5G / Off / 6G), never both at
  once — and gets a segment grayed out whenever it would conflict with
  the repeater's own upstream band (`get_wifi56_conflict_idx`).
- **SIM2 vs eSIM**: this hardware shares one physical slot (slot 2) between
  a physical nano-SIM and the eSIM profile. There's no confirmed-safe
  documented `ubus` call to distinguish "activate eSIM profile" from
  "activate physical SIM2" specifically — both buttons currently just
  reorder modem slot priority to prefer slot 2. If you rely on eSIM
  specifically, verify this does what you expect before trusting it.
- **OpenClash node country** is guessed by keyword-matching the node's
  display name (`UK`, `Japan`, `HK`, ...) — accuracy depends entirely on
  your subscription's naming convention. No live GeoIP lookup.
- **Repeater scan is slow** (~5-8s on this hardware, `ubus call repeater
  scan '{"cached":true}'` is not actually fast despite the flag name) — it
  runs in a background thread so the UI doesn't freeze, but the network
  list takes a few seconds to populate after opening the Repeater screen.
- Fonts on this firmware (`/etc/gl_screen/language/ttf/`) render `‹ › ✓`
  fine but silently box unsupported Unicode (confirmed failures: `⇧ ⌫ 🔒`).
  Anything beyond plain ASCII + those three marks is drawn as a small PIL
  icon rather than assumed to render as text — see `_icon_lock`,
  `_icon_wifi_signal`, `draw_analog_clock` for the pattern if you add UI.
- **Monitor's bandwidth reading only reflects traffic that actually passes
  through this router.** A client connected directly to some *other*
  router's WiFi (bypassing this one entirely) will correctly show as 0 —
  there's no way to see traffic that never touches this device.
- `thermal_zone0` on this SoC (`sdr0`) is an unpowered sensor that always
  reports a `-273000` millidegree sentinel — `get_temp_c()` scans
  `/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type` for a known-good sensor name
  instead of assuming zone 0 is real. If you're porting this to another
  board, don't assume zone numbering means anything either — check `type`.

## Adapting to another model

The parts of this code that are GL-E5800-specific are isolated at the top
of `dashboard.py` and in `button_watch.py`:

- `W, H` and the RGB565 packing in `to_rgb565_bytes` — check your model's
  actual framebuffer size/format (`cat /sys/class/graphics/fb0/virtual_size`,
  `.../bits_per_pixel`).
- `TOUCH_DEV` and the multitouch event codes in `_touch_reader` — capture
  raw events while touching the screen to confirm your model reports the
  same protocol (see the calibration approach described in this repo's
  companion write-up, or just `cat /dev/input/eventN | xxd` while tapping).
- `BACKLIGHT_PATH` in `dashboard.py` and `screen_sleep.sh` — check
  `/sys/class/backlight/*/brightness` exists on your model.
- `DEV = "/dev/input/event1"` / `KEY_POWER` in `button_watch.py` — confirm
  which event node your model's power key reports on.

If your GL.iNet model doesn't have a `repeater` or `cellular.*` ubus object,
the Repeater tile and Active SIM panel will need adjusting or removing.

## License

MIT — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).

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