Overhead
Free and open source
Your MacBook has a hole. Sony has no Mac app.
Overhead fills both. Your music lives in the notch, your headphones live in the menu bar.
- macOS 13 and later
- MIT licence
- No account, no telemetry
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Two halves
One app, and you may only want half of it.
The notch player
Any MacBook with a notch. No Bluetooth, no headphones, no account: at first launch you pick Notch mode and the app never asks for anything else.
- Spotify
- Apple Music
- Now Playing
The headphones menu
The Mac app Sony never shipped. Sound modes, equalizer, battery and every switch the phone app has, in the menu bar.
- Noise cancelling
- Equalizer
- Battery
The notch
Hover it. It opens.
Artwork, title, artist, and a progress bar you can drag. Previous, play, next, volume.
Change track and the artwork flips over. The glow behind it takes the colour of the cover.
Go back, and it flips the other way. Closed, the ring around the artwork follows the song.
Works with Spotify and Apple Music. No account, no login.
Deezer, YouTube Music and video in your browser work too, through macOS Now Playing. On a Mac without a notch, the player shows up as a black pill at the top of the screen.
The trackpad
Your fingers already know.
Two fingers to the right for the next track, to the left for the previous one.
Scroll over the notch to set the volume. The bar shows up while you do.
A light tap answers every action, and every ten percent of volume.
Each gesture can be turned off, reversed, or made stronger in Options.
Your Sony headphones
Sony never made a Mac app. So here it is.
Noise Cancelling, straight from the notch. No phone, no menu to open.
Ambient Sound, with the level you want and Focus on Voice for the announcements.
Off, when you just want the music. The menu bar icon follows the button on the headphones.
It connects on its own when the headphones join the Mac, reconnects if the link drops, and can launch at login. The menu bar icon dims while nothing is connected.
Overhead is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony.
The menu bar
Everything the phone app does. And what it hides.
Your own curve, not Sony's. Pick a preset, or build the equalizer you want.
DSEE, Speak-to-Chat, Adaptive Volume. The switches are where you work, not in your pocket.
Auto power-off, firmware, codec, Bluetooth address. The things the phone app never shows you.
Battery for each earbud and the case, in the menu bar. No phone involved.
Compatibility
Which headphones it talks to.
| Tested | WH-1000XM6 · WH-CH720N · ULT WEAR (WH-ULT900N) |
|---|---|
| Should work | WH-1000XM5 · WH-XB910N · WH-CH520 |
| Earbuds, battery may not report | WF-1000XM4 · WF-1000XM5 · WF-C700N · LinkBuds S |
| Older models, sound modes only | WH-1000XM4 · WH-1000XM3 · WH-1000XM2 · WH-XB900N · MDR-XB950BT |
If yours is not on the tested line, try it and open an issue with what you see. That list only grows with reports.
In the details
The small things you keep.
Trackpad gestures
Swipe with two fingers to skip, scroll to set the volume. Each gesture can be reversed or turned off.
A glow from the cover
The light behind the player takes the colour of the artwork. Its size is yours to set, and it can be turned off.
A ring that follows
Closed, the artwork is circled by the song's progress. When the music stops, the ring shows the battery.
Battery you can see
Per earbud and per case on true wireless models. Orange when low, red when almost empty, green while charging.
More than Spotify
Apple Music natively, and Deezer, YouTube Music or browser video through macOS Now Playing.
There when you log in
Launch at login, auto-connect when the headphones join the Mac, and auto-reconnect if the link drops.
Under the hood
How it talks to the headphones.
Sony headphones expose a Bluetooth serial service and accept small binary frames. Overhead sends the same ones the phone app does.
<0x3e> escaped( type, sequence, 4-byte length, payload, checksum ) <0x3c>
Models up to the WH-1000XM4 speak a first version of the protocol, newer ones a second. Overhead detects which at connection. The byte layouts were checked against the Gadgetbridge project.
For the notch, Spotify and Music post a system notification on every playback change, and the app asks for the details with AppleScript. Nothing is polled while the notch is closed.
Read the sourceInstall
One line, and it lives in your menu bar.
▍macOS 13 or later. Apple Silicon and Intel. English and French.
The app is not notarized yet. Through Homebrew the cask clears the quarantine flag for you; with the zip, macOS asks you to confirm once in System Settings.
Download the zipOpen source
Free, MIT, no account, no telemetry.
Overhead is a side project. If it earns a place in your menu bar, you can pay for the coffee.
Before you ask.
- Does it work without Sony headphones?
- Yes. The notch player needs no Bluetooth at all. Pick Notch mode at first launch and the app never asks for it.
- Is it safe for my headphones?
- It opens the same Bluetooth serial channel the phone app uses, and sends the same frames. Nothing is flashed. Every setting it changes is one you can change from the phone.
- Why does macOS warn me on the first launch?
- The app is not notarized yet: an Apple developer account costs 99 dollars a year. Through Homebrew the cask clears the quarantine flag for you.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony. It speaks a reverse-engineered protocol, so use it at your own risk.