sony-tracker (Linux)

A small, no-nonsense Linux port of NicholasSlattery's sony-head-tracker — it reads the motion sensor already sitting inside compatible Sony headphones and turns it into head-tracking data for OpenTrack, racing sims, flight sims, or your own scripts.

No webcam, no extra hardware, no custom kernel driver. Just the gyro/orientation sensor your headphones already have, read over Bluetooth HID.

Unofficial project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony. This is a hobby port, use at your own risk.

Why this exists

The original project is a great piece of work, but it's Windows-only (built around HidD_*/HidP_*, the Windows Sensor API, and a native GUI). This is a from-scratch Linux rewrite in plain C that talks to the same HID protocol directly through hidraw, keeping things about as small and dependency-free as the original.

What it does

• Auto-detects any paired Sony headset that speaks the Android Head Tracker HID protocol
• Lets you pick a specific device (or several) if more than one is found
• Streams orientation as UDP doubles for OpenTrack, on a configurable port
• Can drive multiple headsets at once, each on its own port

What it doesn't do (yet)

• No GUI — this is a CLI tool
• No gyroscope/accelerometer output. The HID descriptor advertises these fields, but on the WH-1000XM5 (the only unit this has been tested against so far) the firmware never actually populates them — every sample comes back zeroed regardless of how much you shake the headset. Orientation (rotation vector → yaw/pitch/roll) works fine and is all OpenTrack actually needs, so this hasn't been a blocker, but if your headset does report real gyro data, open an issue and it can be wired back in properly.

Compatibility

Only tested against the Sony WH-1000XM5 so far. The underlying protocol is the same one the Windows original documents, so other Sony models on their head-tracking list (WF-1000XM5/XM6, WH-1000XM6, LinkBuds family, ULT WEAR, etc.) should work too, but haven't been verified here. If you try one, a quick issue with what worked (or didn't) would be genuinely useful for anyone else who finds this.

Build

git clone https://github.com/kdani3/SonyTrackerLinux
cd SonyTrackerLinux
make

Install (optional)

sudo make install
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

This installs the binary to /usr/local/bin/sony-tracker and adds a udev rule so you don't need sudo every time you run it. Add yourself to the plugdev group if you're not already in it (It doesn't currently work in Arch or Arch based distros):

sudo usermod -aG plugdev $USER
# log out and back in for this to take effect

If you use an Arch based disto, i have commited the release to the AUR

yay -S sony-tracker

or

paru -S sony-tracker

or use whichever AUR helper you are accustomed to,
but you get the picture

Pairing your headphones

Standard Bluetooth pairing, nothing special:

bluetoothctl
# power on
# scan on
# pair <MAC>
# trust <MAC>
# connect <MAC>

Usage

sony-tracker                              # auto-detect; picks the one device found,
                                           # or prompts if more than one shows up
sony-tracker -d /dev/hidraw3              # use a specific device directly
sony-tracker -d /dev/hidraw3 /dev/hidraw4 # use several specific devices at once
sony-tracker --all                        # stream every detected headset simultaneously
sony-tracker --port 5000                  # change the base UDP port (default 4242)
sony-tracker --verbose                    # print live yaw/pitch/roll to the terminal
sony-tracker --help                       # see all options

When streaming multiple devices, each one gets sequential ports starting from --port (e.g. 4242, 4243, 4244, ...) — point separate OpenTrack instances or listeners at each.

If the headphones are paired and you get

no head-tracker device found (headset paired and connected?)

try with sudo
I never said i was good enough.

Connecting to OpenTrack

1. Install OpenTrack (sudo apt install opentrack, or grab an AppImage from their releases page).
2. In OpenTrack, set Input to UDP over network, click the wrench icon, and set the port to match what sony-tracker is sending to (4242 by default).
3. Press Start in OpenTrack.
4. Run sony-tracker.
5. Turn your head — OpenTrack's live pose display should follow along.

If nothing moves, run sony-tracker --verbose to confirm the tracker itself is producing sane yaw/pitch/roll values first — that isolates whether the problem is on the sensor side or the OpenTrack/UDP side.

A word on security

UDP output is loopback-only (127.0.0.1) by default and has no authentication, same as the original Windows project. Don't forward this port to a network you don't trust.

How it finds your headphones

It scans /dev/hidraw* for a device whose HID report descriptor declares the Sensor page / Custom (0x20/0xE1) usage, then confirms it by checking for the #AndroidHeadTracker# marker string in its feature report — the same marker the original Windows project checks for. If your headset shows up as hidraw but isn't detected, it may not (yet) implement this exact protocol; a hid-recorder dump of its report descriptor is the fastest way to check.

Building blocks, if you're curious

• hidraw.h — thin wrapper around Linux's hidraw ioctls (open, read reports, read/set feature reports, scan for matching devices)
• quat.h — the orientation math: rotation-vector → quaternion, quaternion → yaw/pitch/roll, recentering
• main.c — argument parsing, device selection, the per-device read/decode/send loop (threaded when running multiple headsets), UDP output

Nothing here is exotic — it's a report descriptor, some bit unpacking, a bit of quaternion math, and a UDP socket. If you've ever wanted to see how a Bluetooth sensor actually gets from raw bytes to "the number OpenTrack wants," the source is short enough to read in one sitting.

License

MIT, same as the original project. See LICENSE.

Credit

All protocol reverse-engineering and the original design are NicholasSlattery's work on the Windows original — this is just a Linux-shaped rewrite of the same idea.

Believe in youself