If you happen to have a gaming headset from the latest SteelSeries Nova 5X or Nova 7 series, the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel will begin properly supporting those headsets.

The 2026 refresh of the SteelSeries Nova 5X/7 gaming headsets brought some changes and new device IDs that are needed for proper handling. SteelSeries doesn't contribute directly to the Linux kernel but is another case of customers / open-source developers picking up the slack. The HID-SteelSeries driver in the Linux kernel is used for [1]communicating wireless status, battery reporting, and similar functionality .

Last year open-source developer Sriman Achanta brought [2]driver support to 25+ SteelSeries headsets while a patch queued up ahead of Linux 7.3 is bringing support for this year's refresh of the Nova 5X and Nova 7 headsets. Achanta explained in [3]the patch :

"The Arctis Nova 5X, Nova 7 Gen2, and Nova 7 2026 refresh headsets answer status polls, but also send unsolicited battery and connection updates on a second HID interface (interface 5). Use that interface through async_interface so the driver does not have to poll. Add request and parse helpers for the Nova status format (0xb0/0xb7/0xb9/0xbb opcodes).

The original (pre-Gen2) Arctis Nova 7 family answers the same status opcodes on the same interfaces, but reports battery capacity as a discrete 0-4 level instead of a raw percentage. Add a second parse function that maps that level through steelseries_map_capacity(), and a separate device_info so the two capacity encodings cannot get mixed up.

Add the fourteen USB product IDs that share these protocols:

0x2253 Arctis Nova 5X

0x2202 Arctis Nova 7

0x2206 Arctis Nova 7X

0x22a4 Arctis Nova 7X (alternate PID)

0x223a Arctis Nova 7 Diablo

0x227a Arctis Nova 7 World of Warcraft Edition

0x22a1 Arctis Nova 7 2026

0x22a7 Arctis Nova 7P 2026

0x22a5 Arctis Nova 7X 2026

0x22a9 Arctis Nova 7 Diablo 2026

0x227e Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2

0x2258 Arctis Nova 7X Gen 2

0x229e Arctis Nova 7X Gen 2 (alternate PID)

0x22ad Arctis Nova 7X Gen 2 (alternate PID)"

That patch is now in the HID subsystem's "for-next" Git branch and thus expected to be submitted for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.6-HID-Work

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/SteelSeries-Artis-Linux-Driver

[3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hid/hid.git/commit/?h=for-next&id=83e70ced0d16eaa22425f93e63af2bb87ffaf4eb