Pixel Buds

Google Pixel Buds in the Noctalia bar. On the Pixel Buds Pro you get battery for each bud and the case, noise control (Off / Transparency / Noise Cancellation), the 5-band EQ, and the in-ear detection, Conversation Detection and multipoint switches. Other Pixel Buds show their battery level.

Everything goes through pbpctrl by qzed, which speaks the buds' own control protocol (Maestro) over Bluetooth.

Screenshots

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	finoo125/pixel-buds
Entries	Bar widget: pixel-buds; panel: panel; service: service

Supported models

Model	Status	Features
Pixel Buds Pro	Tested	Everything listed above
Pixel Buds Pro 2	Experimental, untested	Everything above, plus the Adaptive noise mode
Other Pixel Buds (A-Series, 2a, …)	Experimental, untested	Battery only, from BlueZ

Buds that advertise the Maestro service get full controls. Buds that do not fall back to the single combined battery percentage BlueZ reports, since no Linux tool can control them yet. If you own a Pro 2 or another model, please open an issue saying what works and what does not.

Requirements

• bluetoothctl (part of BlueZ), used to find the buds and check whether they are connected.
• pbpctrl, for the Pixel Buds Pro and Pro 2. It is not bundled; install it yourself:

  • Arch Linux: the pbpctrl AUR package.

  • Everything else, with cargo:

    cargo install pbpctrl --git https://github.com/qzed/pbpctrl/
    

    The build needs D-Bus headers, pkg-config and the protobuf compiler, including its bundled .proto files:

    • Fedora: sudo dnf install cargo dbus-devel protobuf-compiler protobuf-devel
    • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install cargo libdbus-1-dev pkg-config protobuf-compiler

    On Fedora, leaving out protobuf-devel fails the build with google/protobuf/empty.proto: File not found.

    cargo installs to ~/.cargo/bin. The plugin looks there automatically when pbpctrl is not on PATH.

Pair and connect the buds through your normal Bluetooth settings first.

Battery-only models need BlueZ to report earbud battery, which is still experimental. Set this in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf and restart Bluetooth (sudo systemctl restart bluetooth):

[General]
Experimental = true

Usage

Add the Pixel Buds widget to a bar in Settings → Bar. It stays hidden until the buds connect. It shows the battery of the emptier bud that is out of the case, coloured when it is low or charging; the tooltip lists both buds, the case and the current noise mode.

• Left-click opens the panel.
• Right-click cycles the noise mode (Off → Transparency → Noise Cancellation, plus Adaptive on the Pro 2).

Open the panel directly:

noctalia msg panel-toggle finoo125/pixel-buds:panel

The current noise mode can only be read while at least one bud is out of the case. The case battery is reported while at least one bud sits in it, because the case has no Bluetooth radio of its own.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
pbpctrl_path	file	empty	Path to pbpctrl. Empty searches PATH, then ~/.cargo/bin/pbpctrl.
device	string	empty	Bluetooth address of the buds to use, e.g. AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF. Empty uses the first paired Pixel Buds.
poll_interval	int	5	Seconds between status checks (minimum 2). Settings and EQ are re-read every sixth check and whenever the panel opens.
hide_when_disconnected	bool	true	Widget setting. Hide the icon while the buds are not connected.
show_percentage	bool	true	Widget setting. Show the battery percentage next to the icon.

IPC

noctalia msg plugin finoo125/pixel-buds:service all <event>

Event	Effect
cycle-anc	Switch to the next noise mode.
anc-off, anc-aware, anc-active	Switch to Off, Transparency or Noise Cancellation.
refresh	Re-read battery, noise mode and settings now.

For example, a Hyprland keybind:

bind = SUPER, N, exec, noctalia msg plugin finoo125/pixel-buds:service all cycle-anc

Notes

• Processes spawned: bluetoothctl info <address> on every check (preceded by bluetoothctl devices until the buds are found), and pbpctrl -d <address> show runtime|get …|set … while Maestro buds are connected. They run one at a time, because the buds accept a single control connection. Nothing is spawned for pbpctrl while the buds are disconnected, so polling never wakes them up.
• No network access and no files written. Settings changes go straight to the buds and persist there, just like changes made in the Pixel Buds app.
• pbpctrl sometimes logs br-connection-aborted-by-remote and retries. That is normal and only delays that one check by about a second.
• Debug: run the same commands by hand, e.g. pbpctrl show runtime and bluetoothctl info <address>.

Credits

• pbpctrl by qzed (MIT / Apache-2.0), which does all the Bluetooth work.
• Architecture adapted from harveywuk/airpods (MIT).