How to check when the computer is idle in NodeJS?

Question

I want to run a process in the background in NodeJS, that wait until the computer not in use for 10 minutes. I mean the user do not touch the keyboard or the mouse.

In other words: I want to listen to keyboard and mouse events in any window, and notify my app when it is happend.

For this mission, I able to use plain node, or nw.js or electron.

I think that I must to use a C++, native module and DLL's. But I hope there is a better and simple solution.

Do you have?

so kinda like a keylogger, only not actually recording the keys? — Kevin B, Aug 01 '16 at 20:58
hmm... dunno how good of an idea it would be to click on anything related to keyloggers — Kevin B, Aug 01 '16 at 20:59
Find this: http://stackoverflow.com/a/33693917/1229624. But searching for easier solution — Aminadav Glickshtein, Aug 01 '16 at 21:10
I found this API `screen.getCursorScreenPoint()` in Electron, to monitor mouse movement. Just need now to monitor key press — Aminadav Glickshtein, Aug 01 '16 at 21:22
wouldn't that only work within an electron window, or while it's active? (dunno, never actually used electron) — Kevin B, Aug 01 '16 at 21:38
Electron do not must have window. Electron can work in the background — Aminadav Glickshtein, Aug 01 '16 at 21:41
You could try pings of disconnected or inactive, it would be appropriate. — Leroy Thompson, Aug 01 '16 at 22:54
@Aminadav: i want the same functionality. did you implement this feature ? — Umair Ahmed, Aug 25 '16 at 14:33
No. I didn't implement it. If I do it I will use "wmic" to get the CPU usage, and search for peek up and down — Aminadav Glickshtein, Aug 25 '16 at 20:33

bithavoc · Answer 1 · 2019-12-31T14:38:27.467

2

You can try https://github.com/bithavoc/node-desktop-idle which works on macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. I built it for Electron but it works in Node.js in general.

edited Dec 31 '19 at 14:38

answered Nov 28 '17 at 22:31

bithavoc

1,539
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 02 '16 at 04:51

1

There's a Node module for that: https://github.com/paulcbetts/node-system-idle-time

answered Aug 02 '16 at 04:51

Vadim Macagon

14,463
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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 14 '20 at 08:04

I reached here somehow googling for the same thing in electron and if you too proceed, this is how I figured it out from Electron Power monitor API's

const {powerMonitor} = require('electron'); 
const idle = powerMonitor.getSystemIdleTime() // it returns in seconds when I am writing this
console.log('Current System Idle Time - ', idle);

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

I was able to get the user's idle time on OSX using ioreg from this previous answer.

var child_process = require('child_process');

function idleTime(callback) {
    var command = `ioreg -c IOHIDSystem | awk '/HIDIdleTime/ {print $NF/1000000000; exit}'`;
    child_process.exec(command, function(err, stdout, stderr) {
        return err ? callback(err) : callback(null, stdout.trim());
    });
}

setInterval(function() {
    idleTime(function(err, duration) {
        console.log(`idle for ${Math.round(duration)} seconds`)
    })
}, 1000);

How to check when the computer is idle in NodeJS?

4 Answers4