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akarsner
246
May 9, 2019
This thing is a fucking piece of crap. Don’t buy it. Seriously. You can program only certain functionality into it, the GUI software for creating maps and flashing the device is outdated and poorly translated, you have to go digging deep in comments on past threads and drops just to figure out where to get it, and at the end of the day after all of that struggle, might not work at all if plugged into the wrong USB port type. Just save your money and get yourself a much, much more reliable kit directly from Adafruit rather than this gimmicky POS.
Eviternity
68
May 10, 2019
akarsnerThank you for your psa
akarsner
246
May 10, 2019
Eviternitynp. have bought so many things on this site only to discover the reason why the same item is seen being dropped here over and over and over again. Generally a good sign the vendor is trying to liquidate the stock, aka avoid at all costs when it comes to electronics.
hummmus
0
May 11, 2019
akarsnerHey, are you referring to the keybow? do you own it, if so how is it holding up for you? Would you recommend anything else as a macropad? Thanks for your help!
(Edited)
akarsner
246
May 12, 2019
hummmusThe Keybow is a build kit made by Pimoroni and is definitely a fantastic kit with a lot of cool features and a regularly updated open source firmware GitHub project page. Pimoroni can be a little expensive since they’re in the UK and I’m in California, but they include pretty decent quality components on their kits from Adafruit, who is a US based electronics component manufacturer and ingenuity leader in the maker IoT space. Either of those companies are the ones imho that you should look in to. I own the Pimoroni kit and it was super easy to get it together and functioning. In my OP above, however, I‘m actually talking about the item featured in this drop, the XD002 2-button macropod. It’s junk. I even updated my official review from 5 to 1 star and would have awarded 0 if i could. It misses the mark on so many levels that for only having 2 buttons, it’s amazing that this thing has seen the light of day as a product to be sold. To be fair, the creator has gone on to make improved models but never circled back to continue support for this product... to be honest that right there pretty much says it all. You will find that both Pimoroni and Adafruit regularly keep all of their documentation and source for their kits and products very well maintained.
akarsner
246
May 12, 2019
akarsner@hummmus I eventually replaced the Keybow with a 15-button Elgato SteamDeck (now owned by Corsair) which is an incredibly powerful, beautiful, and very very useful little desktop device. If you are just looking for a super easy to use prebuilt macropad with a ton of functionality and quality, check this bad boy out. It has grown tremendously in its capabilities since I purchased it only a little over a year ago and can do pretty much everything you can think of, plus an open source API to build your own plugins too! If you don’t mind spending a bit more to get a really premium macro pad, then go for the 15-button StreamDeck and I promise you you will not regret it. They also have a more budget friendly 6 button version, but the reduced form factor really diminishes the wow factor and so I recommend to go for the bigger version to get the most out of it.
hummmus
0
May 12, 2019
akarsnerThanks for your thorough advice! I was looking in Pimoroni's forums and I realized that other people are very happy with the Keybow as well, and to top that - the fact that it's actually running on a RPi is really awesome. I ordered mine and can't wait to get it and customize the shit out of it! The stream deck is really expansive for me at the moment but it looks really nice, maybe in the future. Thanks again!!! :)
akarsner
246
May 12, 2019
hummmusYou’re very welcome. :) The KeyBow is pretty rich in its feature set and flexibility. I’m pretty sure you will be quite pleased with the end result. Congrats on the buy, and of course please be sure to share what you’ve done with your customized Keybow in the mech keys community here on Drop once you’ve reached a good stopping point with your build. Cheers!
(Edited)
NateSeal
7
Jul 23, 2019
akarsneris 70 bucks expensive for a macropad? not sure why so much
akarsner
246
Jul 24, 2019
NateSealStreamers make heavy use of them for event-based overlays for their streams, kinda like in-video popup graphics and stuff. Tons of people like myself use them to create orchestrated macros for automating work that they would normally repeat on a frequent daily basis as part of their jobs. For the automation part alone, $70 is a steal tbh.
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