Working with Asus Aura SDK(Asus ROG Strix G15 keyboard RGB Lighting Library)

There are 2 prereqs for this to work.

1. Aura SDK
2. Python PyWin32 plugin

Aura SDK, it turns out, was bundled with the Armoury Crate and associated programs that were installed from the factory.

The PyWin32 Readme cautioned to not use pip, hence I used the binary installer instead. Like most PCs nowadays, my laptop architecture is amd64. I used scoop to install python 3.10.8. The installer we need is pywin32-304.win-amd64-py3.10.exe . The installation was easy and seamless.

From hereon, you have full access to your keyboard Lights. The sky is the limit on what you can do with 192 lights.

A simple Python code that sets all the keys to Red is

import win32com.client
auraSdk = win32com.client.Dispatch("aura.sdk.1")
auraSdk.SwitchMode()
devices = auraSdk.Enumerate(0)   # 0 means ALL
for dev in devices:                      # Use enumeration
    for i in range(dev.Lights.Count):    # Use index
        dev.Lights(i).color = 0x0000FF00 # 0x00BBGGRR , i.e. RGB with Red on LSB
    dev.Apply()

One particular trick that can be used to introspect the COMObjects here is using dir() builtin of Python. For example, to enumerate all the methods/fields of an object, we can use

>>> dir(keyboard)
['AddRef', 'Apply', 'GetIDsOfNames', 'GetTypeInfo', 'GetTypeInfoCount', 'Height', 'Invoke', 'Key', 'Keys', 'Lights', 'Name', 'QueryInterface', 'Release', 'Type', 'Width', '_ApplyTypes_', '_FlagAsMethod', '_LazyAddAttr_', '_NewEnum', '_Release_', '_UpdateWithITypeInfo_', '__AttrToID__', '__LazyMap__', '__bool__', '__call__', '__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattr__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__init_subclass__', '__int__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__module__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '__weakref__', '_builtMethods_', '_dir_ole_', '_enum_', '_find_dispatch_type_', '_get_good_object_', '_get_good_single_object_', '_lazydata_', '_make_method_', '_mapCachedItems_', '_oleobj_', '_olerepr_', '_print_details_', '_proc_', '_unicode_to_string_', '_username_', '_wrap_dispatch_']
>>> 

To remove all the internal methods, we can use this nifty list comprehension. This way, even if the documentation site goes down, we still have a way to figure out what variables exist.

>>> [x for x in dir(keyboard) if x[0] != '_']
['AddRef', 'Apply', 'GetIDsOfNames', 'GetTypeInfo', 'GetTypeInfoCount', 'Height', 'Invoke', 'Key', 'Keys', 'Lights', 'Name', 'QueryInterface', 'Release', 'Type', 'Width']
>>>

Here is the mapping of key names to hex. I am pretty sure this is not accurate, but here it is in case the documentation website goes down.

References

• Asus Guide at https://www.asus.com/microsite/aurareadydevportal/tutorial_python.html