Omnimux

Wake a Sleeping Laptop with a Raspberry Pi Pico W

Modern laptops cut power to their internal Wi-Fi hardware during sleep, making standard Wake-on-LAN (WoWLAN) unreliable or impossible. A $6 Raspberry Pi Pico W solves this by staying alive on your Wi-Fi and sending an instant USB keyboard wake signal.

How It Works

When you tell Omnimux to connect to your sleeping machine, the app fires an HTTP request to the Pico W. The Pico W emulates a standard USB HID keyboard and sends two Left-Shift keypresses across the USB cable. To the host OS and BIOS, this is a hardware ACPI wake event: the screen turns on, networking restarts, and SSH answers.

Installation Guide (3 Minutes)

1Flash the Pico W

1. Unplug your Raspberry Pi Pico W from your computer.
2. Press and hold down the white BOOTSEL button on the board.
3. While holding the button, plug the Pico W into a USB port on your computer, then release the button.
4. A drive named RPI-RP2 will appear in your file manager.
5. Drag and drop omnimux-pico-wake.uf2 onto the RPI-RP2 drive.
6. The drive will disappear and the onboard LED will blink. The wake server is now running!

2Configure Wi-Fi

You can configure Wi-Fi wirelessly from your phone, or by editing a text file on your PC:

Method A: Wireless Setup via Phone (Hotspot)

1. Plug the Pico W into any powered USB port.
2. On your phone or laptop, open Wi-Fi settings and connect to: Omnimux-Wake-Setup (open, no password).
3. A setup page opens automatically (or go to http://192.168.4.1 in your browser).
4. Select your home 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network, enter the password, and tap Save & Connect.
5. The Pico reboots and connects to your home network.

Method B: Direct text file (CIRCUITPY)

1. Plug the Pico W into your computer normally (without holding BOOTSEL).
2. Open the CIRCUITPY drive.
3. Open settings.toml in Notepad and enter your network name and password:

   CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID = "YourHomeWiFi"
   CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD = "YourWiFiPassword"

4. Save the file (Ctrl+S). The Pico W restarts and connects to your Wi-Fi within two seconds.

3Configure Laptop USB Wake & BIOS

To ensure your laptop wakes up when the key is pressed:

On Windows:

• Open Device Manager (press Win + X → Device Manager).
• Expand Keyboards → right-click HID Keyboard Device → Properties.
• Under the Power Management tab, check "Allow this device to wake the computer".
• Plug the Pico W into an Always-On USB port (often marked with a battery or lightning bolt icon) so power is maintained during sleep.

On Linux:

• Check enabled wake sources: cat /proc/acpi/wakeup | grep -E "USB|XHC".
• If disabled, enable with: echo XHC | sudo tee /proc/acpi/wakeup.

In BIOS / UEFI:

• Look for USB Wake Support or Wake on USB and set to Enabled.
• Look for Always-On USB or USB Power in Sleep / Standby and set to Enabled.

Using in the Omnimux App

1. Open Omnimux on your phone or desktop.
2. Edit the machine you want to wake.
3. Scroll to Wake with a Pico W and enter the Pico's IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.45) or pico-wake.local.
4. Tap Find it to verify communication (it queries /api/status without waking).
5. Save the host.

Once configured, a manual Wake up button appears in the machine's menu and the sessions screen. You can also turn on Press the key automatically when unreachable if you want Omnimux to wake the machine automatically whenever a connection fails.

Keep-Alive (Hardware Mouse Jiggler)

In addition to waking sleeping machines, Omnimux Pico Wake includes a hardware Keep-Alive mode to prevent PCs and laptops from entering sleep or locking when you step away (AFK):

• 1-Pixel Micro-Nudge: Emulates a USB mouse and moves the cursor by 1 pixel every 60 seconds (or custom interval).
• Undetectable & Harmless: Because the cursor returns immediately to its exact spot, it resets operating system idle timers without moving windows or disturbing open work.
• Bypasses Group Policies: Operates at the physical USB hardware level, so it prevents auto-lock even on locked-down corporate laptops where installing software is prohibited.
• Remote Control: Toggle it on/off on demand from the Omnimux mobile/desktop app, the Pico web dashboard, or via HTTP API.

Web Dashboard & API Reference

The Pico W serves a built-in web dashboard at http://pico-wake.local/ (or its IP) with live device status, uptime, Keep-Alive controls, and an instant "WAKE LAPTOP NOW" button.