Terms of Use.

Last updated: 13 August 2026.

The short version

Serval changes settings on your headphones — the same settings your headphones already expose to the manufacturer's own app. It never touches firmware, it never handles your audio, and every model listed as supported was tested on real hardware before it shipped.

Beyond that, Serval is provided as-is, and the sections below say what that means in practice. Using Serval means these terms apply to you.

What Serval does

Serval is a macOS menu-bar app for headphone settings. It opens a Bluetooth serial connection to your headphones and sends the same kind of vendor setting commands the manufacturer's companion app sends — noise cancelling, equaliser, ambient sound, touch sensors, auto power off, and whichever other settings the model exposes. It reads the current state back, so the menu bar shows what the headphones actually think.

Settings you change in Serval are written to the headphones themselves. They stay there after you quit Serval, exactly as they would if you had changed them in the manufacturer's app.

What Serval doesn't do

• No audio. Playback, volume, device switching, and audio routing stay with macOS. Serval isn't in the audio path.
• No firmware. Serval doesn't install, modify, or roll back firmware. That stays with the manufacturer's app.
• No account or cloud features. Find-my-headphones, spatial audio setup, and anything tied to a manufacturer account live in the manufacturer's app.
• No network access. Serval ships sandboxed without the network-client entitlement, so macOS prevents it from reaching the internet at all.

Keep the manufacturer's app around for firmware updates and for anything Serval doesn't cover. Serval is designed to sit alongside it, not to replace it.

Tested on real hardware

Every model listed as supported has been tested on a real unit of that model. Support is never claimed from a specification sheet.

Protocol support was worked out by observing traffic between the headphones and their own companion app, then confirming the behaviour on the hardware. That's careful work, but it isn't a manufacturer specification. Within a supported model, individual controls are enabled as the evidence for them holds up — so if Serval doesn't offer a particular control for your model, it generally means that control hasn't been proven on that model yet.

Firmware matters too. Manufacturers ship firmware revisions that can change how a setting behaves, and a control verified on one revision may not behave identically on another.

Buying and installing Serval

Serval is distributed through the Mac App Store. Apple handles purchases, billing, and refund requests under Apple's own terms, and the licence to use the app is the one Apple presents at download. These terms describe how Serval works and how you use it — they don't replace anything Apple sets out.

Your headphones, your call

You're responsible for your own hardware. That means choosing which settings you want, checking the manufacturer's documentation when you're not sure what a setting does, and using the manufacturer's app for anything Serval doesn't cover — firmware updates especially.

Serval changes settings; it doesn't supervise how you use your headphones. Judging whether a setting suits the moment — whether noise cancelling is a good idea while you're crossing a road, say — stays with you, the same as it would with any other way of changing the same setting.

Putting a setting back

Everything Serval writes is a setting your headphones already expose to their own app, so anything Serval changed can be changed back there, with no Serval involved. Every supported model also has a factory reset procedure in the manufacturer's documentation, which returns its settings to defaults.

If a setting ever ends up somewhere you didn't intend, one of those two will get you back.

Supported models can change

The supported list describes the current release, not a commitment about future ones. Models are added as they're tested. A model can also be dropped, or an individual control disabled, if a firmware or hardware revision changes its behaviour in a way that can't be verified.

Manufacturers can change how their devices behave in an update at any time and without telling me, and Serval may need an update of its own before a feature works again.

Serval is provided as-is

Serval is provided as-is and as-available, without warranty of any kind, express or implied — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Software that speaks a proprietary protocol to hardware it didn't manufacture can't guarantee identical behaviour across every unit, every firmware revision, and every future update, so it isn't guaranteed here.

Nothing in this section takes away rights you have as a consumer under the law where you live that can't be given up by agreement.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, I am not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, nor for lost data, lost use, lost profits, or damage to, malfunction of, or reduced functionality of your headphones or any other equipment, arising out of or connected with your use of Serval — whether or not that outcome was foreseeable.

Where liability can't be excluded, my total liability for any claim relating to Serval is limited to the amount you paid for Serval in the twelve months before the claim arose.

Nothing here excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that can't lawfully be excluded or limited.

Not affiliated with the manufacturers

Serval is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or a product of Sony, Bose, Nothing, or Apple. Sony, Bose, and Nothing have not reviewed, approved, or supported it. Apple reviews every app distributed through the Mac App Store, but that review is not an endorsement.

Sony, Bose, Nothing, and Apple, together with their product names, are trademarks of their respective owners. Any brand or model name used on this site or in the app identifies hardware Serval works with — nothing more.

Privacy

Serval doesn't collect anything, and it can't — macOS blocks it from making network requests. The Privacy page has the full account, including the limited information this website stores if you join a waitlist.

Changes to these terms

These terms can change — new supported models, new features, or simply clearer wording. The current version is always available at this URL, with the date it was last updated at the top. Using Serval after a change means the updated terms apply. If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable where you live, the rest still stands.

Contact

Questions about any of this? Email [email protected].