motion-cues

Animated peripheral dots that reduce motion/transport sickness while using a laptop in a vehicle — a Linux port of Apple's Vehicle Motion Cues (iOS 18 / macOS 15).

The overlay is fully click-through and focus-free: you see the dots at the screen edges and can keep working normally underneath.

How it works

Motion sickness occurs when the vestibular system (inner ear) detects vehicle motion but the eyes, focused on a static screen, do not. The dots appear in the peripheral visual field (~80 px from each edge) and drift to match vehicle motion, providing the optic-flow signal the peripheral visual system expects and collapsing the sensory conflict.

Dot direction mirrors Apple's convention:

Installation

pip install motion-cues

Requires Python ≥ 3.9, Linux + X11, and PyQt6 (pulled in automatically). Does not require a compositor.

Usage

motion-cues

Or run directly:

python -m motion_cues

A blue dot appears in the system tray. Right-click it to inject simulated motion impulses (useful when stationary) or to quit. Press Ctrl-C in the terminal to quit as well.

Requirements

• Linux with X11 (Wayland support is not yet implemented)
• libX11 and libXext system libraries (present on any X11 system)
• PyQt6 ≥ 6.0 (or PyQt5 ≥ 5.15 as fallback)

Technical notes

The overlay window uses X11 ShapeBounding (setMask) to cut the window to only the dot pixels, so there is no opaque background anywhere — no compositor required. Mouse events are discarded via X11 ShapeInput (empty region), so clicks always fall through to the desktop.

License

MIT