obsbot4linux

Unofficial, open source, for Linux

Control your OBSBOT Tiny 2 Lite on Linux.

Switch AI tracking, move the gimbal, zoom, save presets and adjust picture, sound and sleep, from the terminal or from your desktop bar. Video calls and other apps keep streaming while you change settings.

Install Supported cameras

Tested with the OBSBOT Tiny 2 Lite. Not affiliated with OBSBOT.

  • Command-line tool and service

    obsbot4linux changes every setting from the terminal, with JSON output for scripts. A small background service keeps the camera's state and shares it with every app that asks. Works on any Linux desktop.

  • Desktop widget OBSBOT Control

    A bar widget, desktop widget and Control Center tile for the Dux (DankMaterialShell) desktop shell, with a live preview. It uses obsbot4linux underneath. About the widget

The OBSBOT Control widget's popout in a dark theme: the header shows Tiny 2 Lite, Awake, Normal Tracking; on the left a preview area with a Start preview button and framing controls with arrows and a zoom slider; on the right the Tracking tab with tracking mode buttons, the speed choice and a Follow new targets switch.
The widget's popout with the preview off. Screenshot by the maintainer.

What you can do

Everything below works from the command line; the widget offers the everyday settings with buttons and sliders.

  • Tracking modes

    Static, normal tracking, upper body, close-up, headless, lower body, hand and group. Choose the tracking speed, which hand to follow, and the area hand tracking works in.

  • Framing and zoom

    Zoom from 1× to 4×, at once or smoothly. Set the field of view and how the automatic framing follows you: shot size, zoom speed, offset and which part of the body stays in frame.

  • Gimbal and presets

    Point the camera with pan and tilt, optionally at a set speed. Save, rename, recall and delete the three presets stored in the camera, plus named views. Choose the pose and tracking mode the camera starts with.

  • Zone tracking

    Limit tracking to an area, set the position the camera returns to when you leave it, and decide whether it then follows the next person.

  • Picture and exposure

    HDR, automatic exposure for the whole picture or for faces, or manual shutter time and gain. Brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness and backlight compensation, mirror and invert.

  • Audio

    Microphone volume, noise reduction, pickup distance, automatic gain, and whether the microphone stays on while the camera sleeps.

  • Sleep and device

    Sleep and wake, an automatic sleep timer and the picture shown while asleep. Status LED brightness and blinking, gesture control and its zoom ratio, and a factory reset.

  • On-air indicator

    See whether an app is streaming from the camera and, where it can tell, which one: a browser, OBS or ffmpeg. The widget shows a red dot in the bar.

  • Made for scripts

    Every command prints JSON with --json. obsbot4linux watch streams every state change as JSON lines, and obsbot4linux detect tells whether a supported camera is plugged in.

No account and no cloud: the tools talk to the camera and to apps on your own computer, nothing else.

Supported cameras

One model is supported today. A model is listed here only once someone has tested it on a real camera.

Camera Status Notes
Tiny 2 Lite Tested Firmware 6.2.8.1
Other models Not supported The tool does not recognise them. Testers welcome, see below.

Tell us which camera you have

If you own another OBSBOT model and can help test it, open an issue with the model name and the camera's line from lsusb. Please do not paste logs or the full output of obsbot4linux status --json into a public issue: the device path can contain your camera's serial number.

Install

Packages for x86_64 and ARM64 are attached to every release, together with SHA256SUMS. The latest release is 0.13.2 from 2026-10-31. Set VER once, then use the lines for your system: 

VER=0.13.2
DL=https://github.com/hellwand/obsbot4linux/releases/download/v$VER

Debian, Ubuntu

curl -LO $DL/obsbot4linux_${VER}_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./obsbot4linux_${VER}_amd64.deb

On ARM64 the file is obsbot4linux_${VER}_arm64.deb.

Fedora, openSUSE

curl -LO $DL/obsbot4linux-$VER-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install ./obsbot4linux-$VER-1.x86_64.rpm

On openSUSE use sudo zypper install. On ARM64 the file is obsbot4linux-$VER-1.aarch64.rpm.

Arch Linux, Arch Linux ARM

curl -LO $DL/obsbot4linux-$VER-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
sudo pacman -U obsbot4linux-$VER-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

On ARM64 the file is obsbot4linux-$VER-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.zst.

Other distributions

curl -LO $DL/obsbot4linux-$VER-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
tar -xzf obsbot4linux-$VER-x86_64-linux.tar.gz

The tarball (aarch64 for ARM64) holds the binary and the systemd user units. Put the binary on your PATH and copy systemd/* to ~/.config/systemd/user/. If the binary is not in /usr/bin, point the service at it as the README shows.

Then, once: switch on the background service

systemctl --user enable --now obsbot4linux.socket

The packages install the program and the user units but do not enable anything. The socket starts the service when the first app connects. Try it with obsbot4linux status.

There is no package repository yet: to update, install the package of the next release. To build from source you need Rust 1.88 or newer; see the README.

The desktop widget: OBSBOT Control

A plugin for the Dux (DankMaterialShell) desktop shell. It shows only the controls your camera supports, and changes made from the terminal show up in the widget at once.

What it adds

  • A bar icon: click to open the controls, right-click to sleep or wake, middle-click to switch tracking, scroll to zoom. A red dot shows when an app is streaming.
  • A popout with a live preview, framing arrows and tabs for tracking, picture and device settings. You can rearrange its cards.
  • A desktop widget with the preview, tracking modes, zoom, presets and sleep.
  • A Control Center tile for sleep, wake and tracking mode.

What it needs

  • Dux (DankMaterialShell) 2.0 or newer.
  • obsbot4linux 0.7.3 or newer, before 1.0, on your PATH. The widget checks this when you enable it.
  • qt6-multimedia for the live preview. Without it every other control still works.

Install the widget

Install OBSBOT Control from the DMS plugin browser, or by hand: 

git clone https://github.com/hellwand/obsbot4linux-dux.git \
    ~/.config/dms/plugins/obsbot4linuxDux
dms ipc call plugins enable obsbot4linuxDux

Then add the obsbot4linuxDux widget to a bar in the DMS settings. Update it with dms plugins update obsbot4linuxDux, then dms restart.