When using a laptop or any other type of PC, we find that there is a series of information about its state that is essential for its use and maintenance. What if we told you that with a Mini display installed, would we have direct access to it? Why don’t manufacturers include it in their various equipment?
Computers today integrate a large number of measurement sensors which provide information at any time on the state of the equipment. These chips write the results to specific memory addresses in RAM which the operating system and certain applications can then access. The problem arises when a large part of these applications are intrusive in our daily environment and give us the information on the main screen. One solution would be to present this information, but in a different way.
A Mini-Display on a laptop?
We must clarify that the concept is not the same as what Apple once did with the Touch Bar and we are not talking about including a full touch color screen with which to interact with the PC. In the concept we are talking about, we would not be talking about an input and output device, but only an output device and it would not be used as an extension of an application. On the contrary, it would take up very little space on the computer, its best position being just above the laptop keyboard, but below the screen. In reality it would be a monochrome display with very low power consumption like the one in the following image:
Which would give us real-time information about the status of the PC, i.e. things like:
- How much battery the laptop has left, in addition, it can inform us of its status with the PC off or in sleep mode.
- If we connect a device with a battery to the PC, it can inform us of its state of charge.
- If we have active Wi-Fi or not and which network has been connected. The same can be applied with Bluetooth.
- The clock speed at which certain hardware components operate.
- The volume level of headphones or speakers at any time.
- The temperature at which the laptop is.
- If we are running a game, it can give us the real-time FPS rate information.
And who says laptop, also says desktop PC. The important thing is to be able to monitor the computer at all times and not depend on third-party applications. It is something that has its degree of usefulness, it is not intrusive in the daily use of applications and the PC. Since there is nothing more boring than an interface placed on top of another and we wouldn’t need to have more resource-consuming applications open.
Something of little value to the vast majority of users
Although for the more enthusiastic, having a screen showing the status of the PC at all times is a good idea, especially for those of us who like to tinker with our computer. Additionally, applications that typically provide such information typically use low system resources to operate and are of limited interest to the majority of the public. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not something that’s useful.
