Griffin PowerMate Review
- Product:
- Griffin PowerMate
- What’s Good:
- Provides always accessible volume controls, Programmable, Works in both Windows and Linux, Solid feel, Looks good
- What’s Bad:
- It's a gadget, Light tactile trigger points like on mouse scroll wheels would be nice.
At university there were a few keyboards with a volume knob built in. My keyboard at work does not even have media keys, so when I found out you could buy third party knobs (haha, very funny), I decided to get one. There is a limited selection of this type of peripheral and perhaps the most well known is the Griffin PowerMate. Because Linux support was rumored to be be good and it has a simpler design than more complicated "3-D space navigators" I got a PowerMate from CDW.
Provided in the package are the device itself, a USB extension cable and Windows drivers. The device itself is fashioned from aluminum and connects via USB. The base of the knob is composed of a semi-transparent material. Embedded inside the base is a blue LED coupled with a variable resistor. This allows the semi-transparent base to glow with different levels of brightness. Possible knob actions include spinning, clicking and spinning while depressed. The construction of the device is quite solid.
Setup in Windows is simple; however, the default software is not extremely configurable. Using the software, it is possible to translate PowerMate scrolling and clicks into mouse or keyboard events. It is also possible to trigger a built-in action or to run a program. Unfortunately, the list of actions provided by the software is pretty small, and there is no ability to specify a command line for running programs.
In Linux, the Python program Gizmod allows complete programmatic control of the device (and other similar devices). Configuration is easy if you understand Python, but is far more complicated than the Windows software for beginners. One neat feature available in the Linux software is the ability to program the LED levels. Gizmod comes with default configurations to use the LED levels as a VU meter or CPU activity monitor in addition to giving feedback when you adjust the system volume. Since the user-level drivers are written in Python, the possible uses for the LEDs are endless. For example, you could configure the lights to go on whenever a sale is made on a particular website. Similarly, the actions to perform based on scrolling or clicking are limited only by what you can write in Python. It's also possible to configure the device on a per-application basis.
A couple of days after getting and installing my PowerMate I felt a bit of buyer's remorse. Over the past few weeks, that has gone away as I use the global volume control more and more. I'm now quite happy with my purchase, and find the PowerMate fits into my workflow quite naturally. The thing I like most about it is the ability to adjust the volume of games without having to interrupt the game itself.
In all, if your keyboard does not have media keys, you love gadgets and you know a little bit of Python, I highly recommend you get a Griffin PowerMate.
