FlexiKnobs – Wireless Mice with Knob Controllers

Recently presented at TEI (conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction at MIT MediaLab), these Flexiknobs look lovely. Meant for audio/visual editing, they function like a standard mouse, only with a rotary knob in place of a scroll wheel.

FlexiKnobs: Bridging the Gap Between Mouse Interaction and Hardware Controllers
“Parameters in audio or video editing applications can mostly be controlled by a variety of hardware devices such as MIDI controllers. However, these controllers usually feature only a limited number of physical knobs arranged in a fixed layout. The hundreds of parameters offered by typical editing software across dozens of windows with distinct arrangements of on-screen controls are hard to map to such a fixed physical interface. To improve this, we have built a set of wireless mice enhanced with rotary knob controllers, trying to integrate the flexibility and transparency of mouse interaction with the benefits of physical controllers. Custom driver software enables the simultaneous use of multiple knobs with a large variety of unmodified standard software.”

by Kristian Gohlke, Michael Hlatky, Sebastian Heise, and Joern Loviscach