Feature tour · 11 of 16
Microphone
The device's microphone, where the Mac cannot hear
Screen, camera and microphone, from one tablet, at the same time. The Mac extends its desktop onto it, any application can pick its camera, and any application can pick its microphone. Over the cable, or over WiFi from a room away. The microphone is the direction that was missing: with it on, a tablet the Mac has been writing to is also a device the Mac can hear.
In the input list, under the device's name
It appears wherever an application asks which microphone to use, named after the device with "(Decky Mic)" after it. The same tablet is already in the output list under the same name, so both directions read as one device.
Nothing extra to install
The audio driver that gives each screen its own output carries the inputs as well. One driver, both directions, and no second thing to set up for the microphone.
It listens only while something is listening
The device is asked to capture when an application on the Mac opens the input, and asked to stop when the last one closes it. The privacy indicator on the tablet therefore means somebody is genuinely listening, not that a cable is attached.
Two switches, and the device holds one
The device decides whether it offers a microphone at all, and it is off there until somebody turns it on. The Mac decides separately whether it accepts one. No tablet starts advertising itself as a live microphone because a default said so.
Its own level, per device
A tablet propped across a table is further from a voice than a headset is, so every device carries its own input level. A meter and a Listen switch sit beside it, which is how you set that level without opening a call to test it.
Two clocks, and no drift between them
A tablet and a Mac never run at exactly the same rate, which is how sound that starts in step ends up ahead or behind. Decky measures the difference and resamples as it goes, so nothing has to be spliced back and nothing clicks.