An unofficial, open-source desktop app for Sony headphones — Noise Cancelling, Ambient Sound, EQ, DSEE and battery, without the phone.
Features · Download · How it works · Contributing · Credits
Three looks, one app: Refined Dark · Native Glass (follows light/dark) · Sony Signature — pick one under ⋯ → Appearance.
Why
Sony locks headphone settings behind their mobile-only Sound Connect app. If you live on a laptop,
you're stuck. SonyBridge talks to the headphones directly over Bluetooth RFCOMM using Sony's
reverse-engineered binary protocol — no phone required.
The original SonyHeadphonesClient only spoke Sony's
first-generation protocol, so newer headsets (WH-CH720N, XM4/XM5, WF-series, LinkBuds…) just timed
out on connect. SonyBridge adds full second-generation ("v2") protocol support, a native SwiftUI app
on macOS, and a matching modern UI on Windows/Linux.
✨ Features
- 🎚️ Ambient Sound Control — Noise Cancelling · Ambient Sound (0–20 levels) · Off
- 🗣️ Focus on Voice passthrough
- 🎛️ Equalizer — presets and a full Manual mode with 5 bands + Clear Bass (10 bands on the WH-1000XM6), with a live curve preview
- ✨ DSEE — Sony's audio upscaling for compressed sources
- 🔋 Battery level — live percentage, including per-earbud + case for TWS models
- 🎧 Codec & firmware readout
- 🧩 Capability-gated extras — Auto Power-Off · Speak-to-Chat · Adaptive Volume (only shown when your device supports them)
- 🖼️ Device hero image — your headphones' official Sony product render
- 🔄 Live button sync — changes made on the headset reflect in the app
- 🔌 Auto-connect to your already-paired Sony headset
- 🍫 Menu-bar quick controls — click the menu-bar icon for mode, ambient level, Focus on Voice, EQ preset, battery and playback pinning without opening the window (right-click for the menu)
- ↔️ Resizable window — a tall single column by default; widen it past 720pt for a two-column layout
- 📱 Multipoint — see which devices are connected, switch playback between them, pin playback to this Mac, and turn "Connect to 2 devices" on or off
- 🧬 Dual-protocol — auto-detects and speaks either protocol generation
- 🌑 Modern UI — three themes on macOS (Refined Dark, Native Glass, Sony Signature), shaped after Sony's own app; Dear ImGui on Windows/Linux
| Refined Dark | Native Glass (light) | Native Glass (dark) | Sony Signature |
|---|
| | | |
Wide window (two columns)
| Menu-bar panel: Refined Dark | Native Glass | Sony Signature |
|---|
| | |
WH-1000XM6 ten-band equalizer
Rendered from the app's own views; the device list shows placeholder names.
📥 Download
brew install --cask amitrajput-dev/tap/sonybridge
or Download .app
Download Beta
Build from source
💡 After launching, connect your headphones in your OS Bluetooth settings first, then open SonyBridge and hit Connect. Keep audio playing — Sony headsets drop the control link when idle to save power.
The app is ad-hoc signed (not notarized — no paid Apple Developer account). The Homebrew cask clears the
quarantine flag for you. For a direct download, allow it once:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SonyBridge.app
…or right-click the app → Open → Open. Homebrew also asks you to trust the third-party tap the
first time (brew trust AmitRajput-Dev/tap).
🎧 Supported headphones
| Status | Devices |
|---|
| ✅ Verified | WH-CH720N, Sony ULT WEAR (WH-ULT900N) |
| 🟢 Expected (v2, over-ear — NC/Ambient/battery/EQ) | WH-1000XM5, WH-1000XM6, WH-XB910N, WH-CH520 |
| 🟡 v2 earbuds (controls work; battery format differs) | WF-1000XM4, WF-1000XM5, WF-C700N, LinkBuds S |
| 🔵 Legacy (v1 protocol — NC/Ambient only) | WH-1000XM4, WH-1000XM3, WH-1000XM2, WH-XB900N, MDR-XB950BT |
Only the WH-CH720N is fully hardware-verified. Others share the same protocol family, so the basics
should work — per-model quirks are untested. Reports and PRs for other devices are very welcome.
🚀 Build from source
Requires Xcode 14+.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/AmitRajput-Dev/SonyBridge.git
open SonyBridge/Client/macos/SonyHeadphonesClient.xcodeproj
Then ⌘R.
Windows (CMake + MSVC, from a Developer Command Prompt):
cd Client && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && cmake --build . --config Release
Linux (sudo apt install libbluetooth-dev libglfw3-dev libdbus-1-dev):
cd Client && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && cmake --build .
Keep the built binary next to its resources/ folder (device hero images load from resources/devices/).
🔬 How it works
Sony headphones expose a vendor RFCOMM/SPP service. Commands are framed as:
<START 0x3e> ESCAPE( <TYPE> <SEQ> <4-byte BE length> <PAYLOAD> <checksum> ) <END 0x3c>
Two protocol generations exist, distinguished by their SDP service UUID:
- v1 —
96CC203E-… — WH-1000XM3 and older
- v2 —
956C7B26-… — WH-CH720N, Sony ULT WEAR, XM4/XM5, WF-series, LinkBuds…
SonyBridge tries v1 first, falls back to v2, and remembers which succeeded. The v2 path adds the mandatory
init handshake and per-frame host-ACK the newer devices require, plus battery, EQ and DSEE inquiry commands.
Protocol byte layouts were cross-referenced against
GadgetBridge's Sony implementation.
🤝 Contributing
Contributions are very welcome — especially device reports and testing on real hardware.
- 🐛 Found a bug / have a device to report? Open an issue with your model and what happened.
- 🧪 Want to test? Grab a release and tell us how it behaves on your headset (a screenshot helps a lot).
- 🔧 Code? Fork, branch, and open a PR against
main. CI builds macOS, Windows and Linux on every PR.
🙏 Credits
SonyBridge builds directly on the work of:
- SonyHeadphonesClient by Plutoberth, Mr-M33533K5 & contributors — the original cross-platform client and protocol foundation
- semvis123 — the original macOS port
- GadgetBridge — reverse-engineered v2 protocol reference
Community contributors & testers:
- @CrisProCrack — WH-1000XM4 (v1) connect fix
- @Sebsdnl — Linux/Wayland crash fix & ULT WEAR support
- u/More_Way_6784, @joelslaby — WH-1000XM4 hardware testing
❤️ Support
If SonyBridge is useful to you, consider supporting it — it keeps the reverse-engineering going:
Starring the repo helps too. ⭐
⚠️ Disclaimer
This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Sony. It talks to your headphones
using a reverse-engineered protocol, for interoperability. Use at your own risk.
📄 License
MIT — original copyright retained; see Credits.
