Thursday, October 11th 2018
Cooler Master Debuts ControlPad via Kickstarter
Cooler Master, a global leader in designing and manufacturing innovative gaming peripherals and computer components, today announces the debut of ControlPad, the world's first PC keypad with analog Aimpad technology, designed for gamers, content creators, musicians, and more. "Designed as a passion project from the ground up, ControlPad aims to change the way we interact with our most used programs and applications on a more intuitive scale," says Bryant Nguyen, Peripheral General Manager.
ControlPad harbors 24 mechanical keys available in Cherry MX Red or Gateron Red switch types. It is fully programmable through easy to use software, has a removable wrist rest for ultimate comfort, two precision scroll wheels, fully RGB backlit, and finished in a sleek brushed aluminum. ControlPad is equipped with Aimpad technology that provides mechanical keyboards the precision control most commonly found in devices such as aviation joysticks, steering wheels, and gaming controllers, enabling analog control in digital inputs.
ControlPad for Gaming
Enabling analog control in digital inputs, Aimpad allows users to control speed, yaw, adjust pitch, creep, and roll. During driving games Aimpad can be utilized to make smooth turns on the fly or ease into gentle curves by simply changing the distance of the keypress.
ControlPad for Creative Professionals
ControlPad can be used to make production and editing applications more intuitive and useful on-the-fly. Apply presets, switch tools, adjust brush opacity, thickness, or size during brush strokes with pressure sensitive inputs on ControlPad.
Cooler Master implemented macro presets and control schemes for several notable video games and popular applications for consumer and professional use. This includes actions, hotkeys, and shortcuts for the entire Adobe Suite, including PhotoShop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and more. Additionally, Cooler Master will offer special keycap sets to match said presets.
ControlPad is available for backing on Kickstarter on October 11, 2018.
ControlPad harbors 24 mechanical keys available in Cherry MX Red or Gateron Red switch types. It is fully programmable through easy to use software, has a removable wrist rest for ultimate comfort, two precision scroll wheels, fully RGB backlit, and finished in a sleek brushed aluminum. ControlPad is equipped with Aimpad technology that provides mechanical keyboards the precision control most commonly found in devices such as aviation joysticks, steering wheels, and gaming controllers, enabling analog control in digital inputs.
Enabling analog control in digital inputs, Aimpad allows users to control speed, yaw, adjust pitch, creep, and roll. During driving games Aimpad can be utilized to make smooth turns on the fly or ease into gentle curves by simply changing the distance of the keypress.
ControlPad for Creative Professionals
ControlPad can be used to make production and editing applications more intuitive and useful on-the-fly. Apply presets, switch tools, adjust brush opacity, thickness, or size during brush strokes with pressure sensitive inputs on ControlPad.
Cooler Master implemented macro presets and control schemes for several notable video games and popular applications for consumer and professional use. This includes actions, hotkeys, and shortcuts for the entire Adobe Suite, including PhotoShop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and more. Additionally, Cooler Master will offer special keycap sets to match said presets.
ControlPad is available for backing on Kickstarter on October 11, 2018.
18 Comments on Cooler Master Debuts ControlPad via Kickstarter
Someone might also sue them over the product name store.genovation.com/index.php/programmables.html
-from their kickstarter page :
"Our community has been the most valuable part of our company, giving us insightful feedback to help us improve our products for wider appeal and functionality"
"This is why we want your help"
They are asking people to pay for a beta product, to make a review and help them improve it
Am I really the only one bugged by this ??
At $100, this thing is not only a rip-off, but a con. You can get a full-size mechanical keyboard for that. Maybe not from "A list" brands, but even so.
I think I'll wait for my Wooting Two, it's only $45 more for a full keyboard...
Granted, the price is insane, this should be like 20-25$ at most, but it does serve a niche that at the moment nobody else does as far as I know of.
Now, can anybody make sense of what that "aimpad allows for analog input through digital devices" mumbo-jumbo means? Does this have analog switches for some keys? Or some sort of software silliness? If it had analog keys for WASD or similar, that would make it interesting.
For those of you complaining about the price, devices like this have always been expensive. The G13 was like $70 and non-mechanical, and Razer has the Tartarus with fewer keys and a worse layout for a similar price.
I am against CM being able to Crowdfund, and ergonomically the idea looks painfull....
As for the product in question here, I think the main problem is that CM released a crappy, uninformative press release that omits a lot of important info. After checking out the kickstarter, I'm actually considering backing this, specifically the $55(!) version with Gateron switches. Why? First off, every key can register analog input. This partially negates the desire for an analog stick (even if I like the thought of reducing in-game movement from 3 fingers/4 keys to 1-finger input). Then there's the price, which for the Gateron switch version is excellent. It's not bad for the Cherry version either, even if retail prices are likely to compete with or exceed the $130 Razer Orbweaver Chroma. Even the cheapest kits come with two keycap sets (generic + one of 4 specialized designs for FPS gaming, PS, Illustrator or Premiere), and while the scroll wheels are placed in an utterly dumb position (impossible to reach without moving your hand - why not place at least one on the side edge of the board?), I don't think they'll be the most important for me, and it's better to have them than not. I can imagine this being plenty useful in Lightroom too, which is a plus for me. Oh, and it has a full 5-row layout, which dramatically lowers the need for key remapping and teaching yourself how input works in every single game. I particularly like the "mini-spacebar" in the bottom right.
In short: this really isn't as bad as it looks.
While I entirely agree that major companies are generally scumbags and looking to rip people off, this doesn't strike me as a case of that. I might, of course, be wrong in this, though.
Turning to KS is a separate issue worthy of a separate set of opinions, but at least understand what makes this product unique in the marketplace. Logitech and Razer don't have anything like that. No one but Wooting does.