Clawdmeter transforms Claude Code usage data into a compact desktop dashboard

The tokenmaxxing trend in Silicon Valley now has its own physical device. A new open source project converts your Claude Code usage statistics into a compact desktop dashboard, enabling AI power users to monitor their consumption at a glance.

Of course, you can track Claude Code usage directly in the terminal with commands or other external tools and apps, but watching a pixel-art Clawd sprite dance on a screen before displaying quick token usage info is far more enjoyable, isn't it?

The "Clawdmeter," as the gadget is called, serves both as a fun side project for AI enthusiasts and a timely reflection of how deeply Anthropic's Claude has embedded itself into the developer community, along with the rising interest in tokenmaxxing. This emerging "productivity" trend involves software engineers at various tech companies maximizing the number of AI tokens consumed during work as a way to gauge their AI adoption.

As one Reddit user joked upon first seeing the project: "At this point, Anthropic should just mail these to us for free."

Another suggested adding a button to increase capacity or top up more tokens using the card on file. (Ha, that could be dangerous!)

Someone made a small hardware device for the desk that monitors Claude token usage.

Calls it Clawdmeter. Kinda genius. pic.twitter.com/COD4EmmsTy

— Bearly AI (@bearlyai) May 12, 2026

The idea for the project comes from Reykjavik, Iceland-based software developer Hermann Haraldsson, who says he had always wanted to experiment with embedded devices but never found the time before.

"I'm not an embedded developer or anything like that," Haraldsson told TechCrunch in a call. But Claude was able to guide him through the project in just a few days, he said. "It's really democratized access to programming, so that anyone can now do what developers used to do. I think that's really positive, actually."

Most of the time he spent building the device was focused on design, ensuring the font, colors, and small animations were just right.

To build your own dashboard, you can use a small lithium-ion battery-powered display like the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.16, which pairs with your laptop over Bluetooth. When the device is turned on, the splash screen plays pixel-art Clawd animations that become more frantic as your usage rate increases. You can also press the middle button to cycle through different animation types if you prefer.

"I like it when I'm working, and I see it going crazy — it's like a little dopamine loop," notes Haraldsson.

The animation stays on the screen until you press the middle button, which then shows your session and weekly Claude utilization data in simple charts.

Press this button again to cycle to the Bluetooth screen, which displays the connection status and offers a reset feature. From there, you can tap the screen to return to the original splash screen animation.

Image Credits:Hermann Haraldsson

Meanwhile, two other side buttons send Space and Shift+Tab over Bluetooth for Claude Code's voice mode and mode-toggle shortcuts. The latter lets you switch between the default Normal mode, "Accept Edits" mode, Plan Mode, and Auto Mode.

Haraldsson says the device keeps up with your usage limits because it reads your Claude Code OAuth token to make an API call, then pulls the usage numbers directly from the response headers.

Since Clawdmeter is an open source project, anyone can fork it to add their own features, animations, screens, and more, based on their specific interests and needs.

Haraldsson says he was surprised to see that over 800 people have starred it on GitHub since its May 10 launch, and 50 have already forked the project for their own development. He suspects the device appeals to them because of its nostalgic feel.

"There's a kind of nostalgia for when you used to have a hardware device for everything — like a Walkman to play music, or an iPod," says Haraldsson. (Or, as one Redditor put it, the Clawdmeter is like a "hardware Tamagotchi for my context window.")

"I know it's not replacing anything — like, you could have this on your computer — but it's just fun," Haraldsson says.