---
title: Low Power Mode
---

# Low Power Mode

## What it is

**Settings → Performance → Low Power Mode** (`lowPowerMode`, default off). Trims
GPU-expensive visual effects so Omniscio stays smooth on weak computers, while keeping
a clean, attractive look. Takes effect immediately — no restart.

## Where to find it

**Settings → Performance → Low Power Mode**. It is off by default and takes effect the moment you switch it on — no restart, nothing to reload.

## How it behaves

### What it does

When on, Omniscio drops the heavy visuals and keeps the cheap, pretty ones:

- **Removed**: background blur (`backdrop-filter`), the floating Tasks-v2 glass
  blur, decorative hover shadows + hover-lift transforms, and the visual-theme
  **animated blurred background blobs** (Glassmorphism / Aurora). The blob's soft
  _gradient_ stays — it just becomes a still glow instead of a blurred, drifting
  one. (Those blobs use a plain `filter: blur(100px)` + an infinite drift
  animation and were the single biggest always-on GPU cost the mode used to miss.)
- **Stilled**: the swirling logo in the title bar, Quick Launch and the startup loading card
  shows the still logo instead (see the Animated logo page).
- **Slowed**: spin/pulse/bounce animations run at a calmer rate; transitions snap.
- **Lighter re-renders**: the idle relative-time clock ticks every 60s instead of
  30s, and streaming output is always coalesced (painted ~30fps, not per token).

Nothing functional is disabled — only the fancy effects. The mode is also applied
automatically as a crash-safe-mode when Omniscio falls back to software rendering
(`html.software-render`).

### Turning it on

Low Power Mode is turned on by the user — it is never silently auto-enabled:

- **The "Make Omniscio lighter" offer.** About 3 seconds after launch, Omniscio checks the
  machine once. On genuinely weak hardware (low RAM / few cores / GPU
  acceleration off) it shows a one-click **"Make Omniscio lighter on this computer"**
  toast that applies the **Lite mode** preset — which includes Low Power Mode plus
  a few other performance settings. (A below-recommended machine instead gets the
  persistent low-spec warning card, which owns that case so one machine never gets
  both.) See [lite-mode.md](lite-mode.md).
- **The Settings toggle.** Settings → Performance → Low Power Mode flips it
  directly, any time.

Either way, the moment `lowPowerMode` turns on you get the inbox notice below.

### The inbox notice

A persistent, dismissible inbox row ("Omniscio is running in Low Power Mode for this
computer") is raised the moment the mode turns on and cleared the moment it turns
off — for every path that flips `lowPowerMode` (the Lite-mode offer, the Lite-mode
toggle, or the Low Power Mode toggle). It carries a **Restore full effects** button
(alongside the universal "Start session") that deep-links to the setting. It's never
re-raised on a later launch (no nagging): if you dismiss it while staying in the
mode, it stays gone.

## For agents

### Where it lives

- **When it's offered/enabled** is owned elsewhere: the weak-hardware "Make Omniscio
  lighter" offer + `LITE_MODE_BUNDLE` (`src/shared/lite-mode.ts`,
  `maybePromptLowPower` in `src/main/services/system-health/hardware-detector.ts`) and the
  low-spec warning card. This page/contract owns what happens _once `lowPowerMode`
  is on_.
- The notice: `src/main/services/system-health/low-power-mode-alert.ts` (raise/clear/reconcile),
  raised/cleared by the `lowPowerMode` transition in
  `src/main/services/settings-apply.ts`; shared identity in
  `src/shared/alert-features/low-power-alert.ts`; startup clear-if-off in `src/main/index.ts`.
- The effect kills: the `html.low-power` / `html.software-render` block in
  `src/renderer/src/styles/globals.css`; `useLiveTick.ts`; `useSessionSync.ts`.
- Invariants + tests: **[low-power-mode-contract.md](../../.claude/memory/contracts/low-power-mode-contract.md)**.

Related: [lite-mode.md](lite-mode.md) (the offer + preset), [motion-polish.md](motion-polish.md)
(the opt-in flourishes, auto-quieted under low power), [smooth-load.md](smooth-load.md),
[inbox-alerts.md](inbox-alerts.md).

## Related

The broader bundle of performance settings for a less powerful machine is [Lite mode](lite-mode.md), and the wider picture of what to do when the app feels slow is under the app's Performance settings.