nOb is a control knob for all your devices

Controlling an on-screen dial is all well and good, but sometimes you want a proper analogue control.

That’s where nOb comes in. Yes, it might have a name like a piece of childish graffiti, but it’s actually quite a slick piece of kit. It’s a retro-styled dial with two switches, and can be set to control pretty much anything. According to the manufacturers, it’s “able to control virtually any parameter you would normally adjust with your mouse”, and works with any operating system and software package.

To use it, just point your mouse cursor to the parameter you want to adjust, and twist the nOb dial to fine-tune it. Any draggable interface element can be adjusted, including sliders, scrollbars, knobs or draggable value indicators.

It’s aimed at those working in media production, like colourists, music producers, sound designers, video editors and 3D artists.

The dial itself is made from solid aluminium, and has an adjustable rotation resistance, so you can make it – ahem – stiffer if you like. The industrial grade encoder has up to 2,400 ticks per revolution.

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The electronics are housed inside a hand-crafted mahogany enclosure which can be customised to your taste. It also has some neat touch-sensitive controls: double-tap the knob to undo the last adjustment, touch the right toggle switch to temporarily flip the operation mode, etc.

It’ll add a bit of steampunk to your workflow. It’s raised over €21,000 of a €52,000 goal, and will ship in May. Prices start at €149 (£107).