SlideBar: A Mechanical Keyboard Slider

Although keyboards may vary to some degree, they are pretty mundane for the most part. Sure, you may have a numeric keypad or use a loud mechanical version, but if you’d like something truly unique, why not add a motorized slider?

As seen in this Imgur set, hacker Jack Kester did just that with a force feedback-enabled slider that can be attached to the top or side of your input device. The aptly named SlideBar is based on a linear potentiometer, controlled by an Arduino Nano and a motor driver breakout board.

You could mount it to the top of your keyboard to have it advance like a typewriter, or along the side to vibrate every time you receive a notification. Of course, this has all kinds of potential as an input device, and he shows it being used to cycle through programs and browser tabs, working with video, scrolling through websites, and changing the computer’s volume. He’s even created a plugin for easy timeline scrubbing in Adobe Premiere.

Though an impressive list, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination! Watch Kester provide a more in-depth overview of the SlideBar and all of its capabilities below!

[h/t Reddit]