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They turn the Apple Touch Bar into an independent USB peripheral

This 10-inch aluminum bar incorporates a 2K AMOLED screen, and is capable of working on PC, Mac and even tablets through its USB-C connector, offering almost all the shortcuts you can imagine.

Apple’s Touch Bar is practically like a Stream Deck

ENIAC co-founder Ray Wenting shared a video on

The touch bar has been turned into a standalone gadget, powered by an ESP32 microcontroller: https://t.co/eDMGutLRI2

December 1, 2024 • 23:03

As we said in the subtitle of this article, this Flexbar is like an Elgato Stream Deck but instead of having a specific number of configurable buttons, you have a touch screen that you can distribute and configure however you want. You could put touch buttons, slide bars, shortcuts or whatever you want there and you can also make them change automatically depending on the window you have active at that moment. For example, if you are using Adobe Premiere it might show you the application controls, but if you switch to Word or Excel, it might show you the ones specific to that application.

According to the manufacturer, setting up this Flexbar is much easier than doing so with Apple’s Touch Bar, as its creators have preloaded a large number of shortcuts and controls for many popular programs, making it an almost plug and play device. Additionally, unlike Apple, this Flexbar is compatible with third-party APIs, which would allow us to make it work seamlessly with almost any application.

In any case, to make this peripheral work exactly the way you want, the creators will make the FlexbarDesigner application available to users, which allows you to customize it to modify all its functions and behavior. In addition, there is a community where users can share their creations with other users.

Price and availability

ENIAC, the company that created this peripheral, has started a Kickstarter campaign through which you can buy the device at an initial price of 119 dollarsbut as always happens with Kickstarter campaigns, these are the “early birds”, that is, for users who decide to finance this project in advance. The price tag they have given it for when it goes on sale and we can buy it in stores is $179that is, we will most likely see it around 200 euros.

The campaign was launched yesterday for a period of 30 days, that is, it ends at the beginning of January, and according to the campaign itself, the first shipments will be made in February 2025, yes, to any part of the world. If you are interested in participating, we leave you the link to the Kickstarter page at the bottom of this article.

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