ax206-usb-display-macos

Drives the small 3.5" "QDtech USB-Display" (USB id 1908:0102, sold as an AIDA64 secondary screen) from macOS over libusb — no Windows-only vendor software needed. Includes a clean driver, an image viewer, and a live system monitor dashboard.

The device is an AX206 digital-photo-frame clone (the "SmartCool" firmware variant). Its protocol was reverse-engineered from dreamlayers/dpf-ax and confirmed on real hardware. Pure-Python, works on Apple Silicon.

Panel: 480×320 landscape, RGB565, USB 1.1 (~1.4 full-screen fps).

dashboard.py output (rendered frame — pixel-identical to what the panel shows)

Files

• ax206.py — the driver (AX206Display: open, blit, fill, draw_image, recover, reopen)
• show_image.py — CLI to show an image / solid color / test pattern
• dashboard.py — live system-monitor dashboard (CPU/RAM rings, net, CPU history)

Setup

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install pyusb pillow numpy psutil
brew install libusb

Usage

.venv/bin/python show_image.py photo.jpg            # show an image (letterboxed)
.venv/bin/python show_image.py wall.png --fit stretch
.venv/bin/python show_image.py --color ff8800       # solid color
.venv/bin/python dashboard.py                        # live monitor (Ctrl-C to stop)

Protocol notes (important)

• Geometry is fixed 480×320 landscape. Pixels are RGB565 big-endian.
• Transport is USB Mass-Storage Bulk-Only: 31-byte CBW (USBC…) + data + 13-byte CSW (USBS…).
• BLIT (CDB op 0x12) is the ONLY command this firmware implements. Any other vendor command — SCSI INQUIRY, GETLCD, SETPROPERTY/brightness — times out and wedges the USB endpoint, requiring a physical unplug/replug to recover. The driver therefore only ever sends BLIT.
• The device is single-owner: only one program may hold it at a time.
• Occasional CSW glitches self-heal via recover() (MSC reset + clear_halt) / reopen().

Credits

Protocol knowledge and prior art from these projects (please support them):

• dreamlayers/dpf-ax — the AX206 DPF tools and firmware; the authoritative source for the CBW/BLIT command set.
• mathoudebine/turing-smart-screen-python — broad reference for this family of USB info-displays.
• The AIDA64 community forums, for identifying 1908:0102 as an AX206/SmartCool unit.

This is an independent, clean-room Python reimplementation for macOS.

License

GPL-3.0. See LICENSE.