wavekat

Installing WaveKat Voice

Get WaveKat Voice from the Mac App Store, from the Microsoft Store, from the Snap Store, from Flathub, or as a direct download from wavekat.com — then follow the steps for your platform below. Once it’s installed, Getting started walks you through your first account and your first call.

macOS

WaveKat Voice runs on Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 or later). Intel Macs aren’t supported at the moment.

The simplest way in is the Mac App Store. It’s free, Apple installs it for you, and updates arrive the way they do for everything else you got from the App Store. Click Get, then open WaveKat Voice from Applications.

If you’d rather have the file, download the .dmg instead:

  1. Download the .dmg.
  2. Open it and drag WaveKat Voice into your Applications folder.
  3. Launch it from Applications.

It’s the same app either way, signed and notarized with Apple, so it opens without any security warning. The first time you test your microphone or place a call, macOS asks for microphone access — click Allow. (If you clicked Don’t Allow by mistake, see Troubleshooting.)

Linux

There are four ways in, and every one of them covers both x64 (Intel and AMD) and arm64 (Raspberry Pi, Ampere and other ARM machines). On Ubuntu the Snap Store is the shortest path, and on Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Arch and the Steam Deck it’s Flathub; the .deb is the one to pick on Debian, or any time you’d rather install a file you downloaded yourself.

Snap Store

WaveKat Voice is in the Snap Store, which is what Ubuntu’s App Center lists. Search for WaveKat Voice there and click Install, or from a terminal:

sudo snap install wavekat-voice

One name covers every machine — you don’t pick x64 or arm64, snapd hands your computer the right build — and updates arrive on their own in the background. snapd comes with Ubuntu and installs on most other distributions.

One extra step after installing: give it the microphone. A snap runs sandboxed, and the microphone is the one thing it isn’t handed automatically yet. In App Center, open WaveKat Voice and turn on its microphone permission; or from a terminal:

sudo snap connect wavekat-voice:audio-record

Skip it and everything still looks fine — the app opens, calls connect — but the person on the other end hears silence.

Flathub

Flathub is the app store your desktop already searches — it’s what GNOME Software and KDE Discover look in. Search for WaveKat Voice there and click Install, or from a terminal:

flatpak install flathub com.wavekat.Voice

One name covers every machine, updates arrive on their own in the background, and there’s no separate microphone step — it can hear you from the first call.

Two things work a little differently than in the other installs, because the app runs sandboxed:

  • Phone number links need you to point your system at WaveKat Voice: turn on Settings → General → Phone links, then open your system’s default-applications settings and pick WaveKat Voice for calls.
  • The command-line tool runs through Flatpak. Settings → Automation shows the exact command, ready to copy.

Debian / Ubuntu package

The .deb is the native install, and the one to use on Debian: double-click it in your software installer, or from a terminal:

sudo apt install ./"WaveKat Voice-<version>.deb"

You get a real entry in your app launcher, and updates install themselves — your system asks for your password when an update is ready to apply.

AppImage

The AppImage is a single file you can run from anywhere:

  1. Download it and make it executable: chmod +x "WaveKat Voice-<version>.AppImage".
  2. Run it.

Two things to know:

  • It needs FUSE to launch. On Ubuntu 24.04: sudo apt install libfuse2t64. On older releases: sudo apt install libfuse2.
  • Keep it somewhere you can write to (your home folder is fine, a read-only system location is not) so it can update itself.

One Linux quirk worth knowing up front: closing the window keeps WaveKat Voice running in the background so you can still receive calls. To quit completely, use the tray icon — see Troubleshooting for details.

Windows

Windows is a supported platform, and a younger one than macOS and Linux: it is built and published on every release, but it has had less time in front of real users, so expect the occasional rough edge.

The simplest way in is the Microsoft Store. Microsoft signs the package, so there’s no security warning on first launch, and the one listing covers every Windows PC we support — Intel, AMD and ARM alike — so the Store hands your machine the right build and keeps it updated. Click Get and it installs itself.

If you’d rather have the file, two direct builds ship. Pick x64 for a PC with an Intel or AMD processor, and arm64 for a Windows-on-ARM machine such as a Snapdragon-powered Surface. If you’re not sure which you have, open Settings → System → About and read the “System type” line. The x64 build also runs on an ARM machine, just less efficiently.

The direct installers aren’t code-signed yet, so SmartScreen shows a “Windows protected your PC / unknown publisher” warning. If you choose to proceed, click More info → Run anyway. The Microsoft Store package doesn’t show this warning, because Microsoft signs it.

Keeping the app up to date

WaveKat Voice keeps itself up to date — there’s nothing to re-download by hand. How that happens depends on where you installed it from, and Settings → About tells you which one you have.

Installed from the Mac App Store, the Microsoft Store, the Snap Store or Flathub, the store handles updates, exactly as it does for everything else you installed from it. The app doesn’t check on its own and has no Check for updates button — that job belongs to the store.

Installed from a direct download, the app looks after itself:

  • It checks for new versions in the background (shortly after launch, and every few hours after that).
  • When an update has downloaded, a quiet “Update ready — Restart now” notice appears. Restart when it suits you — an update never interrupts a call.
  • If you ignore the notice, the update applies the next time you quit the app normally.
  • You can also check manually any time: Settings → About → Check for updates.

Next steps

With the app installed, head to Getting started — adding your first SIP account takes about a minute.

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