Hushdeck

A native macOS menu-bar app for the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni. No SteelSeries GG, no Windows VM, no background services: just a small SwiftUI app that talks to the headset's GameHub (the dock) directly over USB.

SteelSeries GG doesn't support the Omni on macOS. Hushdeck fills that gap. It shows the battery in the menu bar and gives you the hub's on-device settings (equalizers, noise cancelling, sidetone, mic, OLED, Bluetooth) in a Mac-native window. Every setting it writes is stored on the hub itself, so it keeps working when you plug the dock into a console or another computer.

For other headsets Hushdeck falls back to HeadsetControl, so it also works as a battery and settings app for the many devices HeadsetControl supports.

Hushdeck is an independent project. It isn't affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by SteelSeries. "SteelSeries", "Arctis" and "GG" are trademarks of their owners. It sends only commands that were checked against a real hub, and it hard-blocks firmware and reset commands, but you use it at your own risk.

Features

Menu bar and popover

• Headset battery in the menu bar, plus the spare battery charging in the dock.
• Noise control: off, transparency, or noise cancelling with its level.
• Equalizer preset, sidetone and mic level.
• Live updates from the dock: the mute button, the ANC button, the volume dial and battery changes appear instantly.

The Hushdeck window

Tab	What's in it
Audio	10-band parametric equalizer for the 2.4 GHz link (frequency, filter type, gain, Q), 10-band Bluetooth equalizer, noise control, line-out / stream mix, volume limiter
Microphone	10-band mic equalizer with the hub's mic presets, mic level, sidetone, mute-light brightness, noise reduction
Headset & Hub	auto-off timer, OLED brightness, home screen and screensaver, Bluetooth behaviour
Profiles	save every setting as a profile, switch between profiles, and import or export them as .hushdeckprofile files
Device	firmware versions and serial number

Also

• Your own EQ presets, saved locally.
• Hushdeck remembers your settings and sends them again when the dock reconnects (for example after it lost power).
• Notifications for low battery, a fully charged headset and a charged spare battery.
• Opens at login. This is switched on the first time you launch Hushdeck from Applications; you can turn it off in Settings.
• English and German.

What's confirmed on real hardware

Every control was tested against a real Omni (hub firmware 1.28.0): written, read back and restored. That includes all three equalizers. The few things that haven't been seen on hardware yet carry an Unverified badge in the app:

• the spare battery reading, which hasn't been checked against a real battery swap;
• the ChatMix dial (by default the dock's dial is a volume knob; see the protocol notes);
• the Bluetooth link details;
• save-to-flash. Hushdeck doesn't use it. It re-applies your settings instead.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon.
• An Arctis Nova Pro Omni, with the GameHub connected by USB. Other headsets work through HeadsetControl, which the release includes.
• No drivers or extra permissions. The vendor HID interface needs no Input Monitoring permission.

Install

1. Download Hushdeck-x.y.z.zip from the latest release and unzip it.
2. Move Hushdeck.app to your Applications folder and open it.

Releases are signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so Hushdeck opens without security warnings. The first time it runs from Applications it turns on Open at login; you can switch that off in Settings. The zip includes HeadsetControl for non-Omni headsets, so nothing else needs to be installed.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/eYdr1en/Hushdeck.git
cd Hushdeck/app
scripts/build-app.sh            # → app/dist/Hushdeck.app (ad-hoc signed)
open dist/Hushdeck.app

You need Xcode 26 or later (Swift 6.2). To bundle HeadsetControl for non-Omni headsets, put a headsetcontrol build on your PATH (or set HEADSETCONTROL_BIN) first; the build script picks it up automatically.

How it works

Hushdeck (SwiftUI MenuBarExtra + window)
 ├─ OmniKit            native USB HID driver for the Omni GameHub (IOKit, no dependencies)
 └─ HeadsetControlKit  runs the HeadsetControl CLI for every other headset

OmniKit (app/Sources/OmniKit) is a small, typed driver for the GameHub (1038:2290, HID interface 3):

• OmniDevice (an actor) reads the hub's full state on connect: status, audio settings, the three EQs, OLED settings, firmware and serial. After that it follows the hub's own change events, with a status poll as a fallback. The UI gets an AsyncStream<OmniState>.
• OmniChannel serialises every USB transfer and keeps them at least 50 ms apart.
• Safety by construction. There is no "send raw bytes" API. Packets can only be built from typed, range-checked settings. Firmware-update, reset and factory-reset opcodes are blocked twice: when a packet is built, and again right before it leaves. Bootloader PIDs are never opened. A golden test checks all 256 opcodes against the Python probe's verdicts.
• SimulatedOmniTransport is a byte-accurate fake hub, so the whole app runs and is tested without hardware.

More detail is in app/Sources/OmniKit/README.md.

HeadsetControlKit runs headsetcontrol -o json as a separate process and shows only the controls the connected device reports. Hushdeck never links HeadsetControl's library (see Licence).

The protocol

protocol/protocol-notes.md documents the Omni's USB protocol: transport, every command and reply layout, the hub's events, the equalizer format and a list of commands that must never be sent. Each entry says whether it's confirmed on hardware. If you're adding Omni support to another tool (HeadsetControl, Linux, Windows), that's the file to read.

tools/probe.py is a careful command-line probe for the hub. It blocks the same commands as OmniKit, and writes are dry runs unless you pass --really:

cd tools && python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python probe.py read status      # battery, charging, link, ANC…
.venv/bin/python probe.py listen           # print hub events live

Development

cd app
make            # debug build
make test       # unit tests (no hardware needed)
make check      # warning-free build + tests + String Catalog check (what CI runs)
make app        # release build → dist/Hushdeck.app
make run        # run from source

Run without a headset:

HUSHDECK_SIMULATED_OMNI=1	Use the simulated Omni hub (battery drains, spare charges, mute toggles)
HUSHDECK_TEST_DEVICE=1	Use HeadsetControl's --test-device
HUSHDECK_TEST_PROFILE=N	Test-device profile: 1 errors/offline, 2 charging, 10 limited capabilities, …
-HushdeckSnapshot <dir>	Render the popover and every window tab to PNGs and quit. Combine with HUSHDECK_SIMULATED_OMNI=1 and -HushdeckSnapshotAppearance light|dark
-HushdeckWindowTab audio|microphone|hub|profiles|device|settings	Open the window on that tab at launch

Tests against a real hub are opt-in. They read or change settings and always restore the originals:

OMNIKIT_LIVE_READ=1 swift test	Read-only checks against a connected hub
OMNIKIT_LIVE_WRITE=1 swift test	Write, read back and restore every setting
OMNIKIT_LIVE_EQ=1 swift test	Upload a +2 dB change to each Custom EQ, read it back, restore

Translations

All user-facing text lives in one String Catalog, app/Sources/Hushdeck/Resources/Localizable.xcstrings, with English as the source language. After changing text, run scripts/sync-strings.sh and translate the new entries. To add a language, add it to the catalog in Xcode; no code changes are needed. Tests fail when a translation is missing, a placeholder doesn't match, or a string in the code isn't in the catalog.

Releasing

make release VERSION=x.y.z builds a zip, its SHA-256 and a filled-in Homebrew cask (packaging/homebrew/hushdeck.rb) in app/dist/.

Without credentials the app is ad-hoc signed. For a release that opens without Gatekeeper warnings, sign it with a Developer ID and notarise it:

xcrun notarytool store-credentials hushdeck-notary   # once: Apple ID, team ID, app-specific password
HUSHDECK_SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" \
HUSHDECK_NOTARY_PROFILE=hushdeck-notary \
make release VERSION=x.y.z

That signs every binary in the bundle with the hardened runtime, submits the app to Apple's notary service, staples the ticket and checks it with Gatekeeper before zipping. CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) builds and tests every push. For a v* tag it attaches those files to a draft GitHub release, together with the exact HeadsetControl commit it bundled.

Repository layout

app/        Swift package: OmniKit, HeadsetControlKit, the Hushdeck app, tests, build scripts
protocol/   The Omni's USB protocol
tools/      Python probe for the GameHub
packaging/  Homebrew cask template
.github/    CI and release workflow
docs/       Screenshots

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome, especially:

• Hardware reports. If you have an Omni on a different firmware version, run OMNIKIT_LIVE_READ=1 swift test and probe.py read firmware, and open an issue with the output.
• The unverified features: ChatMix, save-to-flash, the spare battery.
• Translations.

Before adding a new hub command, document it in protocol/protocol-notes.md and add it to probe.py's allowlist, so it has a reference encoding (see OmniKit's README).

Licence

Hushdeck is released under the MIT licence.

HeadsetControl is GPL-3.0. Hushdeck doesn't link its library or include any of its source; it runs the headsetcontrol program as a separate process. Release builds bundle that program together with its licence (and HIDAPI's), and Settings → About shows both. Anyone who redistributes such a bundle has to meet the GPL's source terms for the bundled binary; the release notes record the exact HeadsetControl commit for that reason.