Note that this is the result of some quick work and scripting. I'm sure that things can be improved here, but it works in the current state and that was good enough for now.
Follow the steps below to add a sink switcher widget to your awesomeWM configuration.
I use zsh, but it is not a prerequisite.
Script is written for my use case, where I have three (usable) audio devices: a lapdesk with a built-in speaker, the default output of the laptop and a headset (separate from the laptop, i.e. not wired). I also have a HDMI output which I want to ignore while looping through the sinks.
Icons are free and downloaded from https://www.iconarchive.com/show/100-flat-icons-by-graphicloads.html
Put the icons to your /usr/share/icons/custom directory. Or any other path, but then modify the strings in audio-sink-button.lua.
Put the audio-sink-button.lua file to your .config/awesome/widgets directory and import it in your rc.lua as
local audiosinkbutton = require("widgets/audio-sink-button")Add audiosinkbutton to your wibox.
Finally, put the contents of sink-switch.zsh to your .zshrc file.
Restart awesomeWM and check that it works.
Optional:
I also have a shortcut defined in .xbindkeysrc. You can use the command
awesome-client 'require("widgets/audio-sink-button"):emit_signal("button::press", {button = 1})'to trigger a button press event (therefore switch the audio sink and update the button icon).