PowerMate
When the Griffin PowerMate, a glowing, steel, knob...thing, hit the streets the past year, heads were scratching. What is it? What does it do? $45 for that?
Designed by Japanese jewelry designer Takahiko Suzuki, the innocuous little do-hickey was marketed as a volume knob. Who would buy a stupid volume knob for that amount of money? And for that matter, what in the hell was I thinking when I picked one up?
Volume control is nice, but the "power" part of its name comes in scripting key commands. In other words, like a multibutton mouse, you can attach key commands to execute virtually any function you want. Not only system wide commands, but specific commands assigned to your applications.
For example - in the Finder, you can scroll left and right to raise and lower your volume. But if you open Flash, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, or some other timeline based application, you can use the PowerMate to "scrub" frames forward and backward with a twist of the knob - a welcome utility for anyone who has worked with extremely long animations.
But because the device is fully scriptable, you also can script the glowing light to do whatever you want - blink when you receive an instant message or email, or even set its illumination to match your CPU load (bright when you're pushing it, low when you're not). The point isn't how practical these alternate applications of the product are, but the fact that the architecture is open enough to allow uses like these.
And then, of course, there's quite possibly the most useful application of all - Tron.
For Mac users, or those with 2 USB ports on their keyboard, the PowerMate sits perfectly on your left side (or right for you lefties) as an alternate controller to your point and click mouse. From a UI standpoint, the wheel action makes much more sense for scrolling long documents, web pages, or long breadths of information than repeatedly clicking a down / right arrow over, and over, and over. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it your workflow really takes off.
The PowerMate is so useful to Flash developers it makes me wonder why they didn't exhibit at Flashforward, or why I've never seen a Flash developer site even mention it. I guess there's a first time for everything.
Oh, and if anyone is looking for a little Tron action, bring it on.
Comments
I got one at Macworld Expo in January but sold it not too long after. At the time, the drivers were only beta, so maybe it's since changed, but my biggest issue with it was scrubbing in Final Cut Pro. It wasn't "true" scrubbing. Basically, the PowerMate was programmed to perform the keystroke of the left arrow or the right arrow, depending on the direction you turned. The problem was, if I turned the knob for a while and let go, it would still scrub. I'm assuming it was counting the time the knob was turned and calculating how many keystrokes that would be. Maybe it's changed with newer versions of the driver.
Another complaint was you can assign actions for turning left, turning right, click, click+turn left, and click+turn right. It was almost impossible for me to get it to recognize a click+turn. It would always execute the click command and then the turn command. Again, maybe this has been fixed with newer versions of the driver.
It did look really cool, though.
Posted by: frank at August 21, 2002 12:54 PM
I had issues with that too, but adjusting the sensitivity in the control panel helped. I've heard that it depends on your processor speed, and that you have to "tweak" the sensitivity slider to get it just right.
Posted by: Todd at August 21, 2002 1:20 PM
Ah,I see, another MacMAME enthusiast ;)
I prefer GLTron myself...
Posted by: AJ Kandy at August 21, 2002 1:35 PM
Sounds a bit like a scriptable wheel-mouse..
Posted by: tomas at August 21, 2002 3:18 PM
t,
i've wanted one of those ever since i first laid eyes on them. sooo cool looking. want to use it for navi os x. scrolling through itunes lists, the dock?
neato.
-mathew
Posted by: mathew at August 21, 2002 5:39 PM
A great device, I agree. One thing to beware of is that WinXP driver support is terrible at this point... it's not programmable at all.
Posted by: Ben Chun at August 22, 2002 5:34 AM
Interesting that you said that, Ben... I'm using the PowerMate (and have been for a few weeks) in WinXP with no troubles. So is my roommate.
I got one after a friend told me about seeing it at MacWorld. I was upgrading my PC, and figured that if was already spending $400+, I could handle the extra 45 to have the PM.
The speaker volume control I have is terrible... it's midway down the speaker cable, which meant it was always falling off the back of my desk. The PM now sits shining to the left of my keyboard, and is used for volume, Winamp control, Premiere jogging, and much more.
Posted by: Garrett Murray at August 23, 2002 1:49 PM
I just happened to have ordered one today... Can't remember how I found out about it but it sounds amazing... only thing I wondered is if the CPU monitor works for XP? I only see Mac software to enable that feature...
Posted by: Ben Wood at August 28, 2002 9:07 PM
I got mine a few months ago, and used it for a little while before it died. I thought it was a problem with the software, but it turned out that the unit itself went bad. Griffin replaced it really easily and fast. That was a great experience.
For me the best thing, other than using it for volume and scrubbing in FCP and flash, is using it for photoshop...
I have mine set up so that when i turn it right and left it increases/decreases the brush size, and when it is pushed and rotated, it zooms in and out.This is really nice when you are retouching a photo, because you have both hands working at once, and it becomes really seamless and easy. There are probably millions of uses for them. I love it.
Posted by: Andrew Waters at August 29, 2002 1:00 PM
Any hints as to how to setup the powermate to scrub a Flash MX timeline? I have yet to find a site that details the steps... :(
Posted by: Brian at November 18, 2002 3:41 PM
Any hints as to how to setup the powermate to scrub a Flash MX timeline? I have yet to find a site that details the steps... :(
Posted by: Brian at November 18, 2002 3:41 PM
Anyone who can help get it set up for XP I would appreciate it. I have tried both the 1.41 and 1.51 drivers and neither works!!
Posted by: James at December 9, 2002 4:38 PM
