glyph-cli

Control 137 LEDs directly from your terminal. No SDK. No app sandbox. Pure sysfs.

v1.0.0 · Nothing Phone (4a) Pro · Magisk Module · Shell + Web

What is this

GlyphCLI is a Magisk module that gives you raw, unrestricted control over the 137-LED matrix on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro. It bypasses the Ketchum SDK entirely, writing directly to the AW20144 sysfs interface. Includes 30+ commands, a web control panel, a background daemon, audio visualizer, games, and text rendering on a 13x13 circular grid.

Hardware

Component	Details
LED Controller	AW20144 (LITEON)
Bus	I2C-0, address `0x0020`
Chip ID	`0x74`, Hardware T0
Physical LEDs	137 (circular mask of 13x13 grid)
Brightness	12-bit PWM per LED (0-4095), 8-bit global (0-255)
Red Indicator	Separate PMIC LED at `/sys/class/leds/red`
sysfs Path	`/sys/class/leds/matrix-leds/`
Target Device	Nothing Phone (4a) Pro — A069P / FroggerPro

The 13x13 logical grid has 169 cells, but only 137 are physically wired. The circular mask cuts the corners:

Row  0:  5 LEDs   cols 4-8       ·  ·  ·  ·  o  o  o  o  o  ·  ·  ·  ·
Row  1:  9 LEDs   cols 2-10      ·  ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·  ·
Row  2: 11 LEDs   cols 1-11      ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·
Row  3: 11 LEDs   cols 1-11      ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·
Row  4: 13 LEDs   cols 0-12      o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
Row  5: 13 LEDs   cols 0-12      o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
Row  6: 13 LEDs   cols 0-12      o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
Row  7: 13 LEDs   cols 0-12      o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
Row  8: 13 LEDs   cols 0-12      o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o
Row  9: 11 LEDs   cols 1-11      ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·
Row 10: 11 LEDs   cols 1-11      ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·
Row 11:  9 LEDs   cols 2-10      ·  ·  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  o  ·  ·
Row 12:  5 LEDs   cols 4-8       ·  ·  ·  ·  o  o  o  o  o  ·  ·  ·  ·
                                 5 + 9 + 11 + 11 + 13×5 + 11 + 11 + 9 + 5 = 137

Physical LED indices run sequentially left-to-right, top-to-bottom: row 0 is indices 0-4, row 1 is 5-13, and so on through row 12 at 132-136. See the full coordinate map in glyph-svg/nothing-glyph-map.json.

Install

Flash through Magisk Manager:

GlyphCLI-v1.0.0.zip

Or via adb:

adb push GlyphCLI-v1.0.0.zip /data/local/tmp/
adb shell su -c magisk --install-module /data/local/tmp/GlyphCLI-v1.0.0.zip

No reboot required. All commands require root (su).

Commands

Basic Control

Command	Description
`glyph on` `[brightness]`	Turn on all LEDs (global 0-255, default 255)
`glyph off`	Turn off everything
`glyph brightness` `[0-255]`	Get or set global brightness

LED Control

Command	Description
`glyph set` `<idx> <0-4095>`	Set single LED by physical index (0-136)
`glyph fill` `[brightness]`	Fill all 137 LEDs at one brightness
`glyph level` `<n> [bright]`	Light the first N LEDs
`glyph range` `<start> <end> [bright]`	Light a contiguous range
`glyph frame` `<values\|@file>`	Write raw 137-value frame

Red Indicator LED

Command	Description
`glyph red on` `[0-255]`	Solid red LED
`glyph red blink` `[bright] [on_ms off_ms]`	Hardware-timed blink via kernel timer trigger
`glyph red off`	Red LED off

The red indicator LED is on a separate PMIC controller, independent of the 137-LED Glyph matrix.

Text & Display

Command	Description
`glyph print` `<text> [speed] [bright]`	Scrolling marquee across the grid
`glyph number` `<num> [brightness]`	Display a centered number
`glyph clock` `[brightness]`	Live digital clock (HH:MM)
`glyph clock --analog`	Analog clock with hour markers and hands
`glyph countdown` `<secs> [bright]`	Countdown timer with blink at zero

Uses a 5x7 bitmap font rendered onto rows 3-9 of the grid.

Patterns

Command	Description
`glyph alternate` `[step] [bright]`	Every Nth LED
`glyph gradient` `[max]`	Smooth brightness ramp 0 to max
`glyph progress` `<0-100> [bright]`	Progress bar (percentage of 137 LEDs)

Animations

All animations run until Ctrl+C.

Command	Description
`glyph breathe` `[speed] [max] [min]`	Breathing pulse (global brightness ramp)
`glyph wave` `[speed] [wavelength]`	Traveling sine wave
`glyph sweep` `[speed] [brightness]`	Fill and unfill sweep
`glyph snake` `[speed] [length]`	Moving lit segment with gradient tail
`glyph sparkle` `[speed] [density%]`	Random sparkle
`glyph strobe` `[speed] [brightness]`	Rapid flash
`glyph rain` `[speed] [density]`	Matrix-style digital rain
`glyph fireworks` `[speed]`	Expanding ring bursts
`glyph heartbeat` `[speed]`	Pulsing heart shape

Games

Command	Description
`glyph gameoflife` `[speed]`	Conway's Game of Life with wraparound and auto-reseed
`glyph pong` `[speed]`	Auto-playing Pong with AI paddles
`glyph dice` `[brightness]`	Animated dice roll (1-6)

Reactive

Command	Description
`glyph battery`	Display battery percentage as lit LEDs
`glyph cpu` `[interval_ms]`	Live CPU load meter
`glyph notify`	Flash pattern on incoming notifications (logcat)
`glyph visualizer` `[speed]`	Audio-reactive 13-column EQ with peak dots
`glyph dashboard` `[interval_ms]`	Three concentric rings: battery, CPU, network

Morse & Signals

Command	Description
`glyph morse` `<text> [bright] [unit_ms]`	Transmit text as Morse code (dits and dahs via global brightness)

Daemon

Command	Description
`glyph daemon start` `[--mode]`	Run an animation in the background
`glyph daemon stop`	Kill the background process
`glyph daemon status`	Check if daemon is running

Modes: --viz, --monitor, --rain, --breathe, --snake, --gameoflife, --pong, --fireworks, --sparkle

Web Panel

Command	Description
`glyph server start`	Launch HTTP server on port 8080
`glyph server stop`	Stop the server
`glyph server status`	Show server status and URL

Access the web panel at http://<phone-ip>:8080 from any browser on the same network.

Utility

Command	Description
`glyph map`	Interactive LED mapper (type index, see it light up)
`glyph record` `<file> [interval]`	Record live frames to a file
`glyph play` `<file> [speed] [loop]`	Play back recorded frames
`glyph pipe`	Read 137-value frames from stdin
`glyph status`	Device and hardware info
`glyph reg`	Dump AW20144 register contents

Showcase Gallery

_Fill	_Gradient	_Wave	_Breathe
_Snake	_Rain	_Fireworks	_Heartbeat
_Rings	_Spiral	_Equalizer	_Alternate
_{Print — HI}	_{Number — 42}	_{Clock — Digital}	_{Clock — Analog}
_{Game of Life}	_Pong	_{Dice — 5}	_{Morse — SOS}
_{Battery — 75%}	_{CPU — 60%}	_{Progress — 60%}	_{Nothing Logo}

The Circular Grid

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro uses a 13x13 logical grid, but only 137 of the 169 positions have physical LEDs. The remaining 32 cells at the four corners are dead — they fall outside the circular PCB mask.

Each LED is addressed by a physical index (0-136) that runs sequentially through the grid, skipping dead cells. The kernel driver in leds_aw20144 handles the 169-to-137 mapping internally when the Nothing SDK sends a full 13x13 array. GlyphCLI bypasses this and writes the 137 physical values directly.

The full coordinate map with pixel positions, row/column assignments, and physical indices is available in glyph-svg/nothing-glyph-map.json.

How It Works

The Glyph LED matrix is driven by an AW20144 LED controller from LITEON, connected via I2C at bus 0, address 0x0020. The kernel module leds_aw20144 exposes the following sysfs interface at /sys/class/leds/matrix-leds/:

File	Purpose
`frame_brightness`	Write 137 space-separated values (0-4095), one per physical LED
`brightness`	Global brightness (0-255)
`single_brightness`	Set one LED: write `"index value"`
`operating_mode`	Power on (`1`) / off (`0`)
`effect`	Firmware effects (e.g. `aw20144_all_rgb_on.bin`)
`imax`	Maximum current control (0-15)

Architecture

Nothing SDK Path:
  App  -->  GlyphMatrixManager  -->  IGlyphService (AIDL)  -->  NtGlyphServiceImpl  -->  sysfs
                                      com.nothing.ketchum

GlyphCLI Path:
  Shell  --------->  sysfs (direct, no middleware)

Nothing's SDK (com.nothing.ketchum) sends a 13x13 (169-element) brightness array through the IGlyphService AIDL interface. The service writes to the AW20144 kernel driver, which maps the 169 logical pixels to 137 physical LEDs. GlyphCLI skips all of that and writes the 137 values directly via sysfs.

Web Control Panel

Start the web server:

su -c glyph server start

The server binds to 0.0.0.0:8080 using toybox nc and serves a self-contained HTML panel. Access it from any browser on the same network at http://<phone-ip>:8080.

REST API

Method	Endpoint	Body	Description
GET	`/api/status`	—	Returns JSON with mode, brightness, frame, battery, CPU, RAM, temp, daemon status
POST	`/api/cmd`	`{"cmd":"...", "args":"..."}`	Execute any glyph command
POST	`/api/pixel`	`{"led": N, "brightness": V}`	Set a single LED
POST	`/api/frame`	`{"frame": [v0, v1, ...v136]}`	Write a full 137-value frame

The web panel provides a visual 13x13 grid where you can tap individual LEDs, launch animations, view system stats, and control the daemon — all from your browser.

Reverse Engineering Notes

The AW20144 LED controller was discovered by probing a rooted Nothing Phone (4a) Pro:

The aw882xx entries in logcat are the audio smart PA (speaker amplifier), not LEDs
The aw86927 is the haptic motor driver
The actual LED driver is aw20144 at I2C-0 address 0x0020
Chip ID reads as 0x74, hardware version T0, manufacturer LITEON
Decompiled GlyphNotification.apk and traced through the com.nothing.ketchum SDK
Device model A069P maps to SDK codename 25111p (internal name: FroggerPro)
The SDK uses 12-bit brightness values (0-4095) per pixel
frame_num 137 in dmesg confirmed the physical LED count
The 13x13 to 137 mapping is handled in the kernel driver, not in userspace
The red indicator LED is on a separate PMIC controller at /sys/class/leds/red with hardware timer blink support

Contributing

Adding new patterns: Write a new cmd_<name> function in system/bin/glyph. Use fb_clear, fb_set_led, fb_set_pixel, and fb_flush to manipulate the framebuffer. For animations, add a trap 'cmd_off; exit 0' INT TERM and loop with _sleep_ms.

SVG testing on desktop: The glyph-svg/nothing-glyph-blank.svg template can be used to preview patterns without a phone. Each <rect> has data-index, data-row, and data-col attributes for programmatic control. Run python3 generate_readme_assets.py to regenerate all showcase SVGs after making changes.

Web panel: Edit system/etc/glyph-web/panel.html for the web interface. It is a single self-contained HTML file with inline CSS and JavaScript.

License

MIT

_{Built by Mahdi Salmanzade — reverse-engineered from bare metal}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 1 Commit
META-INF/com/google/android		META-INF/com/google/android
docs/showcase		docs/showcase
glyph-svg		glyph-svg
system		system
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
customize.sh		customize.sh
generate_readme_assets.py		generate_readme_assets.py
module.prop		module.prop

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Repository files navigation

glyph-cli

What is this

Hardware

Install

Commands

Basic Control

LED Control

Red Indicator LED

Text & Display

Patterns

Animations

Games

Reactive

Morse & Signals

Daemon

Web Panel

Utility

Showcase Gallery

The Circular Grid

How It Works

Architecture

Web Control Panel

REST API

Reverse Engineering Notes

Contributing

License

About

Uh oh!

Releases 1

Packages

Uh oh!

Contributors

Uh oh!

Languages

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

glyph-cli

What is this

Hardware

Install

Commands

Basic Control

LED Control

Red Indicator LED

Text & Display

Patterns

Animations

Games

Reactive

Morse & Signals

Daemon

Web Panel

Utility

Showcase Gallery

The Circular Grid

How It Works

Architecture

Web Control Panel

REST API

Reverse Engineering Notes

Contributing

License

About

Resources

License

Uh oh!

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases 1

Packages 0

Uh oh!

Contributors

Uh oh!

Languages

Packages