Adjusting active noise cancellation (ANC) on Nothing or CMF earbuds means taking out your phone, opening the official mobile app and twiddling a setting there.
EarA, a new open-source tool, aims to nix that palaver. It’s a GTK4 app (with a CLI for those who prefer the terminal), and lets you change settings on earbuds like the Nothing Ear (a) and CMF Buds 2, from your Linux desktop.
Noise control/ANC levels can be switched with a click. There are toggles to disable personalised ANC and in-ear detection and use low latency. Gesture behaviours (on supported devices) can be set as well.
The app, available as a Flatpak, AppImage and DEB, also shows battery levels for each bud and the charging case, works with Find My Earbuds and offers an 8-band equaliser, EQ presets and bass enhancement for fine-tuning the sound.
Despite being made with GTK4, EarA’s user-interface doesn’t look especially native, not based on the screenshots and the “live demo” webpage. Does it matter? Maybe not; it’s a utility you open as needed, then close again.
Budslink may be a better fit
EarA is not the only option available for Nothing/CMF devices.
I wrote about Budslink earlier this year. That’s available on Flathub, studiously update and supports Nothing and CMF earbuds, alongside audio devices from Apple, Samsung, Google, Redmi, OnePlus and others.
An app isn’t needed to pair earbuds with a Linux desktop and play audio through them. That all works over Bluetooth as standard.
But for advanced features, things like ANC controls, a low-latency mode, codec options and reliable battery readings for each bud, you will find that a companion app like EarA or Budslink is worthwhile.
Where to get EarA
You can see a full list of supported/tested devices on the project’s GitHub page. This should work with hardware in the ‘same protocol family’. Some settings do rely on hardware, so if in doubt, look up what your model is supposed to support.
That’s where you can download the latest release to try. There’s a DEB installer for Ubuntu as well as a standalone AppImage runtime, though the latter is only available for x86-64 devices.