Gameboy Zero RetroPie status overlays

This repository contains a script to display lovely slightly-transparent overlays on top of your RetroPie games and emulationstation menus

What can it do?

• display battery level (Requires ADS1x15)
• display WiFi state (connected/disconnected/disabled)
• display Bluetooth state (connected/disconnected/disabled)
• display under-voltage state
• display warning if frequency-capped
• display warning if throttling
• adjust icons' position to current display resolution
• gracefully shut down the Pi after 60s from when voltage goes below 3.2V
• show a big imminent shutdown warning when the counter starts ticking

What do I need to get it running?

• See installation instructions below for setup steps
• pngview from AndrewFromMelbourne
• material-design-icons from Google
• Adafruit ADS1015 with Vbat on A0 (or alternative)
• a symbolic link to overlay_icons/ic_battery_alert_red_white_36dp.png under material_design_icons_master/device/drawable-mdpi/
• an entry in crontab to start this on boot
• check and adjust paths in the script header if required
• some battery readings calibration - check logs
• some patience

But what does it look like?

Like that:

Bluetooth, wifi connected, battery discharging

Bluetooth, wifi disconnected, battery discharging

Bluetooth, wifi disabled, battery charging

CPU throttled due to high temperature

Under-Voltage, Freq-capped due to high temperature, battery critical, shutdown imminent warning - shutting down in 60s

In-game

Installation Instructions

SSH into your device or access the terminal using F4. We're assuming you already have Internet access configured

1. Install pngview by AndrewFromMelbourne

mkdir ~/src && cd ~/src
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AndrewFromMelbourne/raspidmx.git
cd raspidmx/
make -j4
sudo cp pngview/pngview /usr/local/bin/

2. Download Material Design Icons by Google

cd ~/src
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/google/material-design-icons.git material-design-icons-master

3. Download the script and install dependencies:

mkdir ~/scripts && cd ~/scripts
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/d-rez/gbz_overlay.git
ln -s ~/scripts/gbz_overlay/overlay_icons/ic_battery_alert_red_white_36dp.png ~/src/material-design-icons-master/device/drawable-mdpi/ic_battery_alert_red_white_36dp.png
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev python3-smbus python3-pip
sudo pip3 install adafruit-ads1x15

Test the script:

python3 ~/scripts/gbz_overlay/overlay.py &

You should now see overlay icons

4. Set up script autostart

Note: Do not use rc.local, it's deprecated

sudo crontab -e

Then at the bottom of the file, add the line:

@reboot python3 /home/pi/scripts/gbz_overlay/overlay.py

You can use this one-liner instead if you prefer:

(crontab -l ; echo "@reboot python3 /home/pi/scripts/gbz_overlay/overlay.py") | crontab -

5. Reboot