Installing the Joulescope UI#
The Joulescope User Interface (UI) is the quickest and easiest way to use your Joulescope. It works with all Joulescope instruments.
Supported platforms#
The Joulescope software supports these 64-bit operating systems:
Operating system |
Supported versions |
|---|---|
Microsoft® Windows® |
Windows 11 |
Apple® macOS® |
macOS 26 and 27, Intel and Apple Silicon. The Joulescope UI requires macOS 14 or newer. |
Linux® |
Ubuntu® 26.04 LTS. Other distributions may work, but are not officially supported. |
To install the Joulescope software with pip, or to use the Python packages
such as joulescope_driver and joulescope, you need 64-bit Python 3.12 or
newer.
The Joulescope software is available to download at
Click on the download link for your operating system and platform architecture. We recommend installing the Joulescope software on the native operating system, not under a virtual machine, due to Joulescope’s demanding USB communication requirements.
Check that your computer runs one of the supported platforms, then see the section below for your operating system.
Microsoft® Windows#
Click on the installer executable. Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next. Accept the default installation location or change it as needed, then click Next. Select Next and Install. Finally, click Finish to complete the setup and launch the Joulescope UI.
Apple® macOS#
On macOS, download the dmg file which supports both x86_64 (Intel) and arm64 (Apple Silicon) platforms. Open the dmg file and then drag joulescope.app to the Applications folder. Once the installation completes, you can eject the dmg file.
The macOS distribution is currently signed and notarized, but it is not distributed through the Apple Store. macOS should display that the application has been checked by Apple, but that it was downloaded from the web. It should install and run if you accept this warning.
If you receive a security warning, control-click the Joulescope application in Finder, then select open to bypass these security warnings. You will need to repeat the control-click, open process several times (usually twice) until macOS finally allows the Joulescope software to launch. After going through this process to grant permission once, subsequent runs will start normally.
Ubuntu Linux#
Unpack the tar.gz file to the location of your choice. Then run the joulescope_launcher binary in the extracted directory. You may need to install additional dependencies.
sudo apt install libudev-dev libxcb-cursor0
Many Linux systems, including Ubuntu, use “udev” to manage devices and grant permissions. You will need to install a udev rule that grants Joulescope hardware access to your account. Download and follow the instructions in this file:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jetperch/joulescope_driver/main/99-joulescope.rules
If you receive the error
Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found,
then you need to install additional Qt6 dependencies. You can identify the
missing dependencies by running export QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1 before starting
the Joulescope UI. Then install the missing dependencies with your package
manager.
Python (all platforms)#
Install a supported version of Python for your platform. Then create a virtual environment, which keeps the Joulescope UI and its dependencies separate from your other Python software:
python -m venv ~/venv/joulescope
Activate the virtual environment. On Windows:
~\joulescope\Scripts\activate
On macOS and Linux:
source ~/venv/joulescope/bin/activate
Then install the Joulescope UI:
python -m pip install -U --upgrade-strategy=eager joulescope_ui
Whenever you want to run the Joulescope UI, activate the virtual environment, then type:
python -m joulescope_ui
To update the Joulescope UI, activate the virtual environment and repeat the install command.
Once installed, continue with First steps.