At last year’s Computex tech show, Wooting announced that it was developing a knob for its popular analogue gaming keyboard, the 80 HE. This year, that knob is almost ready to go.
It’s called the Lekker Knob large. It replaces the block of four navigation keys above the arrow keys on the 80 HE. It’s a good spot for a volume wheel, but speaking to Wooting’s lead software engineer, Simon Whyte, there’s much more it can offer than that.
In Wooting’s software, the Wootility, there are four main ways to programme the knob. Relative, which fires an action based on which way you turn the dial; Absolute, which sets the dial to a fixed value at each point in the rotation; Zoned, which subdivides the knob into smaller slices, each with its own action when the centre button is pressed; and Analog, which will increase the input strength the further you turn.
It’s designed in such a way that the software can tell which position it’s in at any given time, ie, it’s analogue, which offers a wider range of functionality than a traditional dial.
Furthermore, there are programmable layers in the Wootility. Turn the knob and it does whatever is programmed to the main layer. Press, say, Ctrl and turn the knob, it will do something different if you’ve programmed it as such. Or go one step further, press Ctrl, Alt, and turn the knob to access yet another layer.
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Whyte tells me they’re even playing around with the idea of using the knob as a steering wheel input in a racing game—though he’s quick to point out that this is currently just an experiment.
There’s surprisingly a lot to it. More than I had initially expected. It is becoming much more of a full media control dial than a standard volume wheel. Whyte explains that Wooting has been working on it for three years.
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Demanding keys in an ortholinear fashion, eg, in a straight line, it’s intended for the 80 HE alone, as it can only sit in the position above the arrow keys. Though Wooting is working on a smaller single key-sized knob that can be used on its other keyboards, but this was under lock and key at the show as it still has a ways to go.
As for the Lekker Knob, Wooting currently expects it to be ready by the end of this year, but I’m told that’s a rough estimate.
Wooting is also rolling out some updates to the Wootility in the summer that will let users remap keys with preset hotkeys, like Alt + F4, if you’re a masochist. Wooting’s partnerships manager Max Janssen tells me the team play a game of Alt + F4 roulette with the new knob, with various emojis assigned to all but one zone, which is set to Alt + F4. Anyways, this update is going to be available to all users.
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