AirPoise

A tiny Mac menu-bar app. Wear AirPods, sit better, and run shortcuts with your head.

Download AirPoise 1.0.0 — open the DMG and drag the app onto Applications.

AirPoise reads the motion sensors already inside AirPods (the same ones Spatial Audio uses). It does two jobs:

1. Posture — reminds you when your chin drifts forward or your head tilts.
2. Head shortcuts — nod, shake, glance, or tilt to play/pause, switch desktops, run a Mac shortcut, open a link, and more.

No camera. No account. No internet. It lives in the menu bar, not the Dock.

This is the Mac app. It is not the sitting cushion sold at airpoise.com.

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Quick start

1. Install from the DMG (or build from source below).
2. Put on AirPods Pro / 3 / 4 / Max or Beats Fit Pro, and set them as the Mac’s sound output.
3. Allow Motion & Fitness when asked.
4. Sit the way you want to sit, look at the screen, and Calibrate upright.
5. Click the menu-bar icon for the live readout. Right-click for Pause / Calibrate / Settings / Quit.

If macOS blocks the app: right-click AirPoise → Open.

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How to control it (shortcuts and more)

Everything is in Settings (right-click the menu-bar icon → Settings).

Actions — pick what each head move does

Open Settings → Actions. Tap a gesture, then choose what it should do.

You can bind a gesture to…	Examples
Keyboard shortcut	Record ⌘⇥, media keys, anything you type
Apple Shortcuts app	Run a Shortcut by name
Open a link or an app	URL, or pick an .app
Media / volume / brightness	Play-pause, next, mute, brighter
Mac system stuff	Mission Control, Spaces, screenshot, lock, Spotlight, sleep
Notification, speak, or paste text	A ping, a spoken line, clipboard paste
Shell or AppleScript	Only if you write that command yourself
Nothing	Leave it unassigned

Out of the box

Head move	What it does
Double nod	Play / Pause
Look left / look right	Switch Space (desktop)
Hold left tilt	Mission Control
Double shake	A small ping notification
Everything else	Off until you assign it

Turn a gesture off by setting its action to Do nothing, or disable Head-gesture shortcuts under Settings → Gestures.

Custom keyboard shortcuts need Accessibility (Settings → General → Grant). Play/pause and volume usually do not.

Gestures — how sensitive the moves feel

Settings → Gestures

• Master on/off for all head shortcuts
• Sensitivity — easier or harder to trigger
• Cooldown — wait between triggers so you don’t double-fire
• Hold duration — how long to hold a tilt
• A list of all 16 moves with a short how-to for each: nod, double nod, shake, look left/right/up/down, tilt, hold-tilt, lean, roll

A shortcut fires when you move and come back. Sitting still in a slouch is not a nod.

Posture — how strict the coach is

Settings → Posture

• Turn the coach on or off
• How many degrees of forward lean count as good vs “nudge me”
• How long you must stay there before a reminder
• Overlay card, notification, sound, or spoken cue
• Ignore you while walking

Calibrate again any time from the menu bar if your chair or desk changes.

General

Launch at login, menu-bar style, Motion & Accessibility status, and invert an axis if a direction feels backwards on your buds.

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What you need

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• AirPods with head tracking: Pro, 3, 4, Max, or Beats Fit Pro, worn and selected as Mac audio output
• Original AirPods / AirPods 2 will not work (no motion sensor). The menu bar will say “No head-tracking buds”

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Honest limits

• It sees head pose, not your whole spine. A level head on a rounded back still reads “good”.
• About 25 samples a second. Fine for sitting and discrete gestures, not a VR headset.
• Intel Macs on Sonoma may run. Apple Silicon is what we test.

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Privacy

Nothing is uploaded. No analytics. Settings stay in ~/Library/Application Support/AirPoise/. See SECURITY.md.

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Download

AirPoise-1.0.0.dmg — drag onto Applications.

Build from source

Always run the .app, not the raw swift build binary. macOS needs NSMotionUsageDescription in the app bundle.

./scripts/build-app.sh
open dist/AirPoise.app

./scripts/make-dmg.sh          # disk image
swift test --package-path .    # tests

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How the sensors work (for developers)

Apple already fuses the AirPods accelerometer + gyro for Spatial Audio. AirPoise does not invent a second compass. It reads CMDeviceMotion (~25 Hz).

Headphone frame: x = right ear, y = nose, z = crown. Relative pose is ref⁻¹ · q. Gyro: turn = ωz, nod = ωx, ear tilt = ωy. Invert any axis in Settings → General if firmware feels backwards.

Field	Used for
attitude	Gestures (yaw / pitch / roll vs calibrate)
gravity	Posture (chin-forward and side tilt). Survives taking the buds out
rotationRate	Flick energy, hold-still, walk rejection
userAcceleration	Ignore tracking while you walk
sensorLocation	Which bud is the motion source

Smoothing is a 1€ filter. A watchdog re-subscribes after idle/wake. Ear detection connect/disconnects as you put buds in or take them out.

Path	What
Sources/AirPoiseCore	Math, pose, gestures, posture, settings. No AppKit
Sources/AirPoise	Menu bar, first-launch window, overlays, Settings
Tests/AirPoiseTests	Unit tests
scripts/build-app.sh	Build the .app

Uninstall

Quit AirPoise, delete the app, and optionally:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/AirPoise

Turn off Login Items if you enabled launch-at-login.

License

MIT © 2026 Jaskirat Singh

Onboarding fonts: Bangers and Archivo Black (SIL OFL), in Resources/Fonts/.