A local macOS reconstruction study — public APIs only, nothing leaves your MacWhat’s real vs reconstructed →
New Capture Text — on-device OCR, now in the menu bar

Your Mac’s sound,
alive in the SoundBuddy icon menu bar.

SoundBuddy reads the devices already paired with your Mac — AirPods, headsets, the Mac itself — shows their battery at a glance, and connects them in one click. A native companion that lives in the menu bar and never leaves your Mac.

Download for MacSee what it does

macOS 14+ · Apple silicon · ad-hoc signed for local use · no account, no cloud

Built entirely on public macOS frameworks — no private APIs, no reading other apps’ data

IOBluetoothCore AudioIOKitAVFoundationVisionScreenCaptureKit
How it works

In the menu bar in under a minute.

Step 1

Install SoundBuddy

Download, drag it into Applications, and launch. A small waveform appears in your menu bar.

Step 2

It reads your devices

SoundBuddy enumerates the devices already paired with your Mac and polls battery read-only, every 15 seconds — even with the window closed.

Step 3

Glance & connect

See battery at a glance, open the dashboard for history, and connect or disconnect any device in one click.

02 — Dashboard & history

Watch the battery, not just the number.

The dashboard features your active device with a breathing glyph, live status, and a battery ring. SoundBuddy saves readings while it runs, so you can look back over the last 12 hours, 24 hours, or yesterday.

  • Persistent per-device battery history, 12h / 24h / Yesterday
  • Only observed readings — gaps stay gaps, nothing invented
  • Saved to SoundBuddy's own folder — never another app's data
AirPods Pro
Connected
Headset · case 91%
82%

Simulated dashboard with illustrative history.

03 — Action HUD

A floating HUD that knows when to leave.

Connect a device and a floating heads-up display slides in with authored spring curves — the same motion language as the system. It pauses its idle timer while you point at it, dismisses cleanly, and respects Reduce Motion.

  • Authored transforms & spring curves, interaction-aware idle close
  • Small / large sizes and placement options
  • Full Reduce Motion fallback
04 — Capture Text

Grab any text on screen. On your Mac, nowhere else.

Press ⇧⌘2, drag a region, and SoundBuddy runs Apple’s on-device Vision OCR to pull out the text — editable, then one keystroke to copy. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is saved automatically.

  • Native region select — drag, arrow-key nudge, Shift to resize
  • On-device Vision OCR, image import / paste / drop
  • ⇧⌘C to copy — with an optional confirmation sound
Release notes — v3.0
• Menu-bar battery for every paired device
• 12h / 24h / Yesterday history ranges
• Capture Text with on-device OCR
12h / 24h / Yesterday history ranges
Copied to clipboard

Simulated capture. The sample walkthrough works without screen-recording permission.

Privacy by construction

Everything stays on your Mac.

Not a policy choice — a structural one. SoundBuddy only uses public macOS APIs, defaults to read-only, and has no network code at all.

No cloud, no account

There is no network layer. Nothing is uploaded, synced, or phoned home — because there is nowhere for it to go.

Read-only by default

Monitoring is read-only. Connecting, selecting audio input, or locking input happens only from your gesture.

Never records audio

No microphone audio is ever captured. Capture Text OCR runs entirely on-device via Apple's Vision framework.

Its own domain only

Settings and history write to SoundBuddy's own folder. It never reads or mutates another app's preferences or databases.

Honest numbers

Previews are labelled previews. Disabled controls stay disabled. Sample values are never shown as live hardware.

Public APIs only

IOBluetooth, Core Audio, IOKit, AVFoundation, Vision, ScreenCaptureKit — nothing private, nothing undocumented.

Radical honesty

What’s real, and what’s reconstructed.

SoundBuddy is a native reconstruction study modeled on a shipping Mac utility, then given its own identity. A green build proves nothing about hardware, so here is the honest line between what genuinely runs and what is a preview.

Real & working

  • Paired-device enumeration and Mac battery
  • Bluetooth connect / disconnect on your action
  • Core Audio input selection & opt-in input lock
  • Read-only monitoring + persistent battery history
  • Floating Action HUD and Capture Text OCR

Preview or not implemented

  • Proximity / ear-detection events
  • Now Playing & Magic Handoff integration
  • Firmware notifications, Lock Screen widgets
  • Animation previews use sample values, clearly marked

Questions, answered honestly.

Does it work with my AirPods and other devices?
SoundBuddy enumerates whatever is already paired with your Mac through IOBluetooth: AirPods, other headsets, and the Mac itself. Battery is shown where the device or its driver exposes it.
Does anything leave my Mac?
No. There is no network code. Device monitoring, battery history, and Capture Text OCR all run locally. Settings and history are written only to SoundBuddy's own application-support folder.
Will it interfere with the app it's modeled on?
No. SoundBuddy ships under its own bundle identifier and writes only to its own domain. It never replaces, reads, or mutates another utility's preferences, licenses, or databases.
What are the “simulated” labels about?
The product views on this page are rebuilt in the browser so you can play with them — a web page genuinely can't read your Bluetooth devices, and shouldn't. In the app, every figure is your real hardware.
What do I need to run it?
macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. The current build is ad-hoc signed for local use and is not notarized for wider distribution — it's a reconstruction study, not a shipping product.

Your Mac’s sound, one glance away.

Native, private, and alive in the menu bar. Download SoundBuddy and see your devices the moment you look up.

Download for Mac