Lift

A minimal native macOS menu-bar controller for a Linak-based standing desk (IKEA Idasen and friends). Two presets, two hotkeys, the height in the menu.

The product principle: hotkey → desk moves. Sit and Stand are the whole job; everything else (nudging, saving the current height as a preset) is there so you never open the app's settings on purpose.

How it works

Lift connects over Bluetooth LE to the first Linak desk it finds and remembers it. The menu bar item shows the current height and posture; ⌃⌥↓ sits, ⌃⌥↑ stands (rebindable). "Save Current as Sit/Stand Height" turns wherever the desk is right now into the preset.

Moving writes the target to the desk's reference-input characteristic until the height reading is within 3 mm, then sends stop. Nudge Up/Down pulse the control characteristic for 400 ms. Stop is ⌘. in the menu.

lift://sit, lift://stand, lift://toggle and lift://settings do the same from Shortcuts, Raycast, or a keyboard macro.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Bluetooth permission (asked on first launch)
• A desk with a Linak DPG Bluetooth controller: IKEA Idasen, or any desk that advertises the 99FA0001-… control service

Install

No notarized release yet. Build it yourself:

./scripts/build-app.sh      # → /Applications/Lift.app, signed, icon regenerated

Needs xcodegen and the sibling ../housekit package, which supplies the menu bar plate, the app icon, the settings window chrome, the shortcut recorder and launch-at-login — the pieces Lift shares with Tessellate, Cargo and Clip. To work in Xcode instead: xcodegen generate && open Lift.xcodeproj.

Signing uses the stable Apple Development identity from project.yml; set your own DEVELOPMENT_TEAM first. The Bluetooth grant is keyed to the signature.

Configuration

Settings lives in the menu bar item (⌘,): Desk (connection, presets in cm, hotkeys) · General (launch at login, menu bar icon, Bluetooth status) · About.

Architecture

AppKit throughout, no dependencies beyond HouseKit.

Desk/DeskController	CoreBluetooth central: discovery, reconnect on sleep/wake, height notifications, move-to loop, nudge, stop
Models/LiftSettings	Presets, hotkeys, remembered desk; UserDefaults
Settings/DeskPage	Lift's page in the HouseKit settings window, next to the shared General and About pages
App/LiftApp	NSStatusItem and its menu — height header, Sit/Stand with shortcuts, nudge, save-as, then the house tail

Protocol details come from the open idasen and linak-controller projects.

Limitations

• One desk. Forget it in Settings to pair another.
• No collision detection beyond the desk's own; Stop is a menu click or ⌘. away.
• Height range is hard-coded to the Idasen's 62–127 cm.