OBSBOT4Linux

Unofficial Linux control app for OBSBOT cameras.

A clean, native Linux desktop control panel for OBSBOT PTZ webcams — pan / tilt / zoom, AI tracking, presets, image tuning and more, in a focused single-window "operator console." Currently supports the OBSBOT Tiny 3; built to grow to other OBSBOT models.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by OBSBOT. "OBSBOT" is a trademark of its owner; this is an independent, community-built control app.

Built with Qt 6 / QML, driving the OBSBOT SDK. Runs on KDE and GNOME (Wayland via XWayland, or X11). No vendor bloat, no telemetry — and deliberately honest: every control maps to a real SDK call, and anything the camera doesn't actually support is shown disabled with the reason rather than faked.

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What it does

There's no official OBSBOT control app for Linux. This fills that gap with a compact console that talks to the camera over USB through the OBSBOT SDK:

• Live status — product, serial, firmware, mode, run state, zoom, AI mode, video fps, and the selected preview resolution.
• PTZ control — a draggable joystick for continuous hold-to-move (with proper safety stops: stop on release / window-blur / SDK error / dead-man timeout) plus precise arrow nudges (one bounded step per tap). Configurable step (2° / 5° / 10°) and speed.
• Zoom & FOV — 1.0–2.0× zoom, and Wide / Medium / Narrow field of view.
• Wake / Sleep / Center, and optional sleep-on-exit.
• AI tracking — AI Track (the camera follows a person and keeps their face framed; the ring LED turns blue), Face autofocus, and Gesture control.
• Image tuning — Brightness / Contrast / Saturation / Sharpness (0–100) with one-click reset.
• Presets — three saved pan/tilt/zoom/FOV positions with save / recall / overwrite / clear, load-a-preset on startup or wake, and return-to-a-preset after AI is turned off.
• Embedded live preview — the camera's real video stream right in the app window, at a selectable resolution (1080p30 / 1080p60 / 720p60 / 4K30), with an external ffplay window kept as a fallback. No fake/placeholder video is ever shown.
• Activity log — every command and its real SDK return code, so you always know what the camera actually did.

Settings and presets persist to ~/.config/obsbot4linux/obsbot4linux.json.

Screenshots

Image & Exposure	AI Tracking	Presets

Honest by default

Where the camera / SDK genuinely supports a feature, it's wired to a real call and its result is logged. Where support is unverified or absent, the control is shown disabled with a clear reason instead of pretending to work. For example, on the Tiny 3 the SDK does not expose HDR, white balance, exposure, or advanced tracking parameters — so those are labeled as such, not faked. No placeholder video, no invented status values.

Quick start

Prebuilt AppImage (easiest — modern 64-bit Linux):

chmod +x OBSBOT4Linux-x86_64.AppImage
./OBSBOT4Linux-x86_64.AppImage

⚠️ Note on the AppImage & the OBSBOT SDK. For "download-and-run" convenience, the prebuilt AppImage is self-contained and bundles OBSBOT's proprietary libdev.so SDK so it works out of the box. That SDK is OBSBOT's property — it is not part of this project's source and is excluded from this repository; it is included only inside the convenience AppImage. If you are OBSBOT, or otherwise object to the SDK being distributed this way, please contact me at vampyren@protonmail.com and I will remove the bundled build promptly. Building from source (below) never redistributes the SDK — you supply it yourself.

Build from source (Arch / CachyOS example):

sudo pacman -S --needed cmake qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-multimedia qt6-wayland
# place the OBSBOT SDK under sdk/ (see docs/INSTALL.md), then:
./obsbot4linux      # configures, builds, and runs

No root, no global install, no sudo for the camera — USB discovery works unprivileged (you just need to be in the video group, which is normal).

👉 Full setup, the SDK requirement, dependencies and troubleshooting: docs/INSTALL.md. Architecture and design language: docs/DESIGN.md.

The OBSBOT SDK (important)

This app links OBSBOT's proprietary libdev SDK, which is not included in this repository (it's OBSBOT's, not ours to redistribute). You supply it yourself and place it under sdk/ — see docs/INSTALL.md. Everything in this repo is the control application; the camera SDK stays under OBSBOT's own license.

Status

v0.2.0 — works on real hardware (validated against a Tiny 3, firmware 6.6.9.1). Pre-1.0 while features are still being added. New in 0.2.0: embedded in-app live preview (Qt Multimedia; the external ffplay window remains as a fallback). Development notes live in docs/dev/; planned work is tracked on the project board.

Platform & compatibility

• Linux, x86-64, modern glibc.
• KDE Plasma and GNOME (and other desktops); runs under Wayland via XWayland, or natively on X11.
• Cameras: OBSBOT Tiny 3 today. The architecture is model-agnostic (the SDK exposes a shared Device API), so support for other OBSBOT models can be added as they're tested.
• The GTK proof-of-concept it grew from is kept under gui/ for reference.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — especially reports/testing on other OBSBOT models. Because the SDK isn't in the repo, you'll need to obtain it and place it under sdk/ first (see docs/INSTALL.md).

License

The application code is licensed under the European Union Public Licence v1.2 (EUPL-1.2) — see LICENSE. This covers this project's own code only; the OBSBOT SDK (linked at build/run time, not distributed here) remains under OBSBOT's own terms.