Intel NUC M15 Light Bar Control for Linux

Control the front RGB light bar on Intel NUC M15 and compatible Uniwill-based laptops under Linux.

This project documents the reverse engineered WMI interface used by Intel NUC Software Studio and provides tools to control light bar states directly from Linux. No Windows software, Wine or proprietary services required.

Features:

• Reverse engineered WMI protocol
• Documented LED state mapping
• Python command line utility
• Kernel helper module
• Linux-first implementation

intel-nuc-m15-lightbar-linux

Linux control for the front RGB light bar found on Intel NUC M15 / related Uniwill-based laptop platforms.

Current status:

• working Linux-side control path found
• no Windows runtime dependency required
• multiple visual states confirmed on real hardware

What works

Current working stack:

• kernel helper module: kernel/intel_lightbar_wmi.c
• userland helpers in tools/
• raw WMI transport through GUID F3517D45-0E66-41EF-8472-FCB7C98AE932
• lightbar method family 0x0603 (AlexaLedControl in newer Intel NSS packages)

Basic usage:

sudo python tools/lightbar_ctl.py talking
sudo python tools/lightbar_ctl.py off
sudo python tools/lightbar_ctl.py --list-states

Repository layout

• kernel/
  • minimal Linux WMI helper module used for method invocation
• tools/
  • lightbar_ctl.py: high-level CLI
  • raw_f351_call.py: raw method caller
  • run_f351_packet.py: packet runner
  • wmi_call.py: low-level debugfs caller
• docs/
  • state-map.md: visually confirmed state behavior
  • reverse-notes.md: condensed reverse summary
  • ru-setup.md: Russian setup and deployment guide

Build the kernel helper

Requirements:

• matching kernel headers
• make

Build:

cd kernel
make

Load:

sudo insmod intel_lightbar_wmi.ko

The helper exposes debugfs entries under:

/sys/kernel/debug/intel_lightbar_wmi/

Visual state map

See docs/state-map.md.

Highlights from current testing:

• talking: purple/cyan smooth cyclic blend
• thinking: cyan expands from center across a purple base
• notification_incoming: one soft yellow flash
• notification_unheard: slow yellow pulse
• bluetooth_connect: three quick blue flashes
• error: three red pulses

Reverse status

This repo does not require vendor binaries at runtime. Vendor binaries were used only as reverse sources to recover method names, state ids, and transport semantics.

See docs/reverse-notes.md.

Russian guide

See docs/ru-setup.md.

Safety / assumptions

This code is hardware-specific. It targets the currently tested Intel/Uniwill laptop revision and may not behave the same on earlier HID-based light bar implementations.

Next work

• package installation and DKMS-friendly module build
• hook lightbar states to Linux desktop/system events
• determine whether active_direction can be driven meaningfully from Linux context