OpenWave

Elgato Wave controls, native to Linux.
Built with Python, GTK4, and libadwaita.

Supported devices · Install · Usage · How it works

OpenWave is an open-source, reverse-engineered alternative to Elgato Wave Link for controlling Wave XLR, XLR Dock, and Wave:3 hardware on Linux. Adjust your microphone and headphones from a native desktop app, with changes kept in sync with your device and audio system.

Features

• Microphone controls — Adjust gain and mute, with 48 V phantom power on supported XLR devices.
• Headphone controls — Set volume, enable low impedance mode on supported devices, or adjust the Wave:3 monitor mix.
• Hardware and system sync — Polling at 10 Hz tracks physical buttons and knobs. Mute and headphone volume sync bidirectionally with PipeWire/ALSA.
• Audio capture fix — Starts capture before playback, keeps it pinned while running, and releases it after the audio graph shuts down to address the firmware race during warm reboots.
• System tray — Keep OpenWave running in the background and mute directly from the tray menu.
• Guided setup — Configure USB permissions and the audio service from the app, with support for systemd and runit.

Supported devices

Device	USB ID	Available controls
Wave XLR	0fd9:007d	Gain, mute, 48 V phantom power, headphone volume, low impedance mode
XLR Dock (00a6 variant)	0fd9:00a6	Gain, mute, 48 V phantom power, headphone volume, low impedance mode
Wave:3	0fd9:0070	Gain, mute, headphone volume, monitor mix

Controls are enabled by the device profile. Phantom power and low impedance mode are available on the supported XLR models; monitor mix is available on Wave:3.

Installation

Quick install

With curl, git, and make available, run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rikkichy/openwave/main/install.sh | sh

The installer detects Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, or Void and installs the dependencies and application. The default installation prefix is /usr/local.

Install from a checkout

git clone https://github.com/rikkichy/openwave.git
cd openwave
./install.sh

For a packaging-style layout under /usr, use this instead of the last command:

PREFIX=/usr ./install.sh

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• GTK4 and libadwaita
• PipeWire and PulseAudio client tools (pw-*, pactl)
• ALSA utilities (aplay, amixer)
• libusb 1.0

Usage

Launch an installed copy:

openwave

Or run from a checkout with the dependencies installed:

python3 -m wavexlr

On first launch, OpenWave prompts you to set up USB permissions and the audio service. USB permission changes use polkit. Reconnect the device when prompted after setup.

Run in the background

Start hidden in the system tray:

openwave --hide

From a checkout, use python3 -m wavexlr --hide.

Start at login

For the default /usr/local installation:

mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
cp /usr/local/share/openwave/openwave-autostart.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

For a PREFIX=/usr or PKGBUILD installation, use /usr/share/openwave/openwave-autostart.desktop as the source instead.

The installer also adds an OpenWave app launcher entry under $PREFIX/share/applications.

Audio service and init systems

OpenWave detects the service backend at runtime:

Init system	Setup and behavior
systemd	Installs and enables the user unit at ~/.config/systemd/user/openwave.service. Service installation and status checks do not require root.
runit	Uses polkit to install /etc/sv/wavexlr-audio and enable it in /var/service. The daemon runs as your user through chpst.
Other / not detected	Automatic audio-service management is unsupported.

On runit, the GUI checks service status with sv check. If the supervise FIFO is inaccessible to the current user, as on stock Void, it falls back to scanning /proc for the daemon.

Uninstall

For a full cleanup, first use Uninstall capture fix in the app to remove the audio service, audio configuration, and USB permissions. Then remove the application files from a checkout:

sudo make -C /path/to/openwave uninstall PREFIX=/usr/local

Use the same PREFIX you installed with. If you enabled startup at login, also remove the autostart entry:

rm -f ~/.config/autostart/openwave-autostart.desktop

How it works

Wave devices use USB Class control transfers on endpoint 0 for configuration. On Linux, snd-usb-audio normally blocks these transfers because wIndex=0x3300 routes through interface 0, which belongs to the audio driver.

OpenWave uses wIndex=0x3303. The firmware checks only the 0x33 prefix, while the kernel sees the unclaimed interface 3 and allows the transfer. This lets OpenWave control the device without detaching its audio driver.

USB protocol and configuration layout

All supported models use bRequest=0x85 to read and bRequest=0x05 to write configuration. The Wave XLR and 0fd9:00a6 XLR Dock share a 34-byte configuration block; Wave:3 uses a 16-byte block.

Offsets below are in bytes:

Field	Wave XLR / XLR Dock	Wave:3
Gain (uint16, Q8.8 dB)	0	0
Mute	4	4
48 V phantom power	6	—
Headphone volume (int16, Q8.8)	9	7
Monitor mix (uint16, Q8.8 percent)	—	10
Knob / dial mode	14	12
Low impedance mode	33	—

For Wave:3, dial mode values are 1 = gain, 2 = headphones, and 3 = mix. Per-model constants and capabilities live in wavexlr/profiles.py.

Device probing

The wavexlr.probe CLI provides dump, watch, and poke commands to verify a device against its profile and help map new fields.

Quit OpenWave, including its tray process, before probing: the device services vendor transfers from only one process at a time.

python3 -m wavexlr.probe --help

Architecture

Module	Responsibility
device.py	USB backend using raw libusb through ctypes and wIndex=0x3303
profiles.py	Per-model protocol constants and capabilities
probe.py	Protocol verification CLI: dump, watch, poke
app.py	GTK4/libadwaita interface with 10 Hz polling
tray.py	StatusNotifierItem tray icon over D-Bus
audio.py	PipeWire capture keepalive for the firmware race condition
daemon.py	Audio-service entry point
service.py	systemd and runit service management
setup.py	First-run USB permissions and audio setup

Credits

The USB protocol was reverse-engineered from the macOS Wave Link application using Frida. Inspired by GoXLR-on-Linux/goxlr-utility.

License

OpenWave is licensed under the MIT License.