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Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

theknob.co

11–20 of 93 posts

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#11
post #10
post #7

As an aside: this is the first time I’ve seen scrolling the page implemented with history. This feels like an anti-pattern; I had to hit back 4 times to return to HN.

I couldn't get Firefox Preview on mobile to get back to HN.

Ditto. Had to close the tab completely.

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#12

Really neat little project! I would have loved to paid more attention but easily the most unusable website I've used in a while. Like seriously, it's awful if you scroll up an down a couple times because you're pushing URL changes. Then because everything animates it starts chugging a long, doing weird shit, like not going back. It's a single page it doesn't need to change the fucking URL or even worse animate those…

Well, maybe on other browsers... on Safari, on a wide screen, I still had to maximize the window to see all the text. At a "mere" 1200px wide, half the text was under the knob.

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#13
I have... somewhere... a stainless steel knob, designed to control the volume, that was wonderful to feel and turn. Alas, the driver was incredibly flaky, and just wouldn't work consistently. I ought to dig it up and see if I can reverse engineer it.

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#16
So it's a PowerMate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_PowerMate) except made from concrete?

(Huh, apparently Griffin stopped making them in 2018, so I guess there's room for a replacement. I covet one every time I remember they exist but I never quite covet one enough to actually want to spend the money getting one...)

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#18

Really neat little project! I would have loved to paid more attention but easily the most unusable website I've used in a while. Like seriously, it's awful if you scroll up an down a couple times because you're pushing URL changes. Then because everything animates it starts chugging a long, doing weird shit, like not going back. It's a single page it doesn't need to change the fucking URL or even worse animate those…

Not sure what pisses me off more. That, or the music autoplaying.

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#19

So it's a PowerMate ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_PowerMate ) except made from concrete? (Huh, apparently Griffin stopped making them in 2018, so I guess there's room for a replacement. I covet one every time I remember they exist but I never quite covet one enough to actually want to spend the money getting one...)

I have an older PowerMate (USB, not Bluetooth) that I used about 15 years ago in my first carputer. It's really good for that, better than relying on just a touchscreen. The carputer is long gone, but that Griffin PowerMate is sitting on my desk in front of me right now. Still wonder if I can find another clever use for it.

Re: Show HN: TheKnob – sound volume control knob made of concrete and RGB lights

#20
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure yet. We have several manually assembled samples now, but it isn't easy to produce a lot of them without a proper production line... If you're interested in getting one of these samples you can email at brainhublab@gmail.com, we'll try to figure out how to send one to you.

If you made your own board pcb and ordered them populated with everything but the rgb ring and switches, I bet you could get the soldering time down to 2 minutes or so per device, especially if you made custom jigs to hold everything in place. I could see a price point of $100 totally reasonable for this, especially if the user can easily swap knobs. Bulk manufacture of the concrete knobs should be easy, as long as y…

In all fairness, it looks like user DIY Perks on YouTube already did the work to make the prototype. I’m not sure what’s different about this version; I’m sure it could even be superior. But let’s put credit where it’s due.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5vhShdVjo

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