*3 Months of design, to save 3 seconds of time. Worth it.* This was me just hacking away at different solutions, so I'm open to better solutions for this problem.

Just when I thought you've perfected your setup - you go through the ROOF with this!! Amazing stuff! Probably wayyyyy to complex for me to invest similar time into it (I have too many hobbies competing for my time), but it does look amazing!

Impressive combination of software and hardware skills. Kudos to both this and the production quality. A rare combo.

This is so cool how you integrated everything. Also props for designing easy to understand pictograms for all the buttons.

Oh my gosh, this is like the most advanced automation video/guide/journey thing I've ever watched! Especially the modifications to your switch and the desk control panel. Awesome work! My mind is blown!

Honestly this is just super cool. Not much more to say. Props and well done. I love how much effort you put into every step, from the purpose built chassis for the desk adjustment signal pass-through to the custom keycaps for the macro pad.

Can I just say how awesome this guys is to provide all his code?

Holy cow man. I have an Elgato stream deck that I have been using for macro controls but this takes it to a whole nother level. I put so much work into what I did and I still couldn’t get everything I wanted. I don’t think I have been more impressed by anybody’s work I have ever seen on KZfaq in the many years I have been trying to train myself with it than I have been with what you did here. Congratulations. You have an incredibly broad and deep skill set that your average Joe sure is not going to have which makes doing this challenging. I can’t wait to dig into some of your details and see how much of it I can reproduce. Thank you and please continue To publish content and videos on the subject. I would sure like to see deeper dives into some of what you did here. All the best

this is really impressive, you did an awesome job designing and building all of this

That's an immense amount of work, but a fantastic end result. Great job!

Randomly came across your video and If this is content you are showcasing.. i loved it. Great blend of hardware, software and electronics engineering. Many people including myself are curious to build some custom things or automate it in a right way for ourselves to ease daily operations, we cant due to lack of knowledge or understanding. So glad to see you making it. Awesome. Subscribed!!!

I'm so impressed! I came here because I'm a software engineer looking use a macropad for the first time for one-button script running and this was more than I bargained for (in a good way). I'm so excited to watch the rest of your videos and perhaps follow in your footsteps in automation!

I just finished assembling my ideal desk. I used most of your videos as a guide. I am so happy with how it turned out. Thank you for these videos David, they really helped me out.

Man you're inspirational, love all the details you go through to make a video so clean. Would love to find more channels like yours.

Your channel is the reason I got myself a LG C2 42" for myself n I am loving it. Now my workflow is far better. :)

This is sick! I've wanted to do something similar for my setup for a while and you've really inspired me with some functions! I love the window resizing-hotkeys!

This is some seriously impressive work, well done!

Always respect going all out and putting in the work when you have a very specific set of requirements to get just what you want out of something.

This is epic man. I love it. Its such a flex to anybody who comes over

Cool concept! If you want the best of both worlds (in terms of responsiveness on your desktop) you could make the pico (W) make direct calls to HA (or other) and only send pc-specific keys through as shortcuts for AHK. For new users I'm pretty sure you could forward the commands via HA so it wouldn't even have to be attached to your pc!

A day with a new David Zhang video is a good day.

Woah. I love how you kept the functionality of the standing desk touch screen controls by adding the ESP as a proxy.

Really impressive how much functionality is in that device. Thanks for sharing what worked and importantly, didn't work.

I was called poor for 8 solid minutes, but watched it twice. Now I’m in debt.

This is really awesome! Hyped to be subscribed to an actual maker who tweaks his setup.

Bravo! This is absolutely fantastic. You gave me a lot of ideas! Can’t wait to start. Thanks for sharing 😊

I can't get over how amazingly awesome your keypad setup is! That must have been a terrible amount of time spent but it looks to be very well worth it!

Rather than running the 9 key off of your main desktop, have you considered running it off of a Raspberry Pi, or a windows based single board computer and using that to wake everything up? Then you would only have the power usage of the small computer running all the time instead of your full computer. Re-purposing an older NUC might be another option.

Glad this works for you, too much effort to set up for most people tho 😂

Now this is a truly meaningful setup upgrade, this is brilliant.

Fantastic Video! I'd love to see a separate video on the standing desk passthrough controller build.

this is awesome but looks too complicated for me to attempt

That is a really nice project with awesome outcome! I am thinking of doing something similar but I am a little bit afraid of the tight coupling between the components which decreases flexibility when restructuring the desk... So I guess that I will stick with my manual setup for some more years :D

Really impressive! Quite a few little nuggets of inspiration for a few projects here

Was just watching some old videos wondering when the next one would be. Great surprise on a cold winter day!

This is the epitome of programmers spending hours trying to automate tasks that only take few seconds. Loved it!!!

I love the idea behind the automations that one would typically not think of a macropad for. You might want to take a look at the Adafruit macropad 2040. Although it doesn't have a wireless connection you might be able to modify it with a battery and ble or take inspiration from its design.

These are the kind of projects I love. Home/work automation and customisation. I have also used autohotkey for some of my automations and Home Assistant.

this is just on another level. I wouldn't know where to start!

Hi David, awesome integration and automation effort! Could you elaborate and expand on what/how you got the 4 port USB switcher programmed? I'm looking to do something similar but not sure where to start with this. I figured from reading through some reddit posts that I could probably use an 4n25 optocoupler for this. But which ESP controller should I use? 8266? Thanks in advance!

I would highly recommend you add macros for Web tabs switching (left right tab, the pinned tab on the left etc) . I personally had it on my mouse by tilting the scroll wheel, and it was glorious. I would do your setup just for that and windows controls lmao

Truly a programmers way to solve a problem. Thanks for all the videos, its always nice when you post something new and interesting.

Simply awesowe. I never regretted my subscription!

The feeling when everything worked must be incredible

look into MQTT to send commands. may be able to use MQTT to send commands from the Pi to home assistant which in turn can send the commands to whatever PC is currently being used.

Impressive engineering skill and project.

This is the stylish multi hobby super detailed stuff I like. I wish more youtubers made more diy with style tech videos.

I was one of those thinking 'what about Stream Deck?' but it's wired. No getting around that. Wire aside, I too spend a lot of time working on macros, page layouts, AHK scripts and IFTTT to try and streamline at-desk workflows. Feels like a waste until it's (mostly) working. Totally worth it!

I wonder if you can fix the "always on PC" problem by using the raspberry pi your keypad is connected to as the OS that controls everything instead of your PC to do this. It would be a nightmare to refactor given what you've already set up though

This one is the sickest macro pad ever! Thanks for sharing David

Man among a sea if useless dream desk setup videos, you are videos are an inspiration.

Wow. I could tell that your needs are different from mine (e.g. you use a TV as a monitor while I have 4 monitors instead), but you showed some stuff I never thought about that I could use in my own setup, like the USB switch! In my case, instead of having a light bar that has controls on it, I have a Yeelight light bar that comes with its own wireless puck used to control the basic features. I have an old tablet (that I tried to sell but nobody bought) repurposed to be a dedicated Home Assistant dashboard when my PC is powered off and a Deckboard Pro client when my PC is powered on. I may look into some sort of automation thing to have it automatically switch apps when my PC goes offline or comes back online. Besides that, I have a custom Nova Launcher configuration to hide as much of One UI as possible, have an app drawer that starts on a tab that has only the apps I would use, and on the home screen, I have a layout that's intended to mimic the ambient mode on Google Nest Hub, but with an additional widget in the top right for battery status. That tablet has a limited 16 GB of storage and battery charging issues (it can't fast charge). I plan to get a MOFT stand for that. I see you use Home Assistant too!

Any reason why you didn't consider a Stream Deck for the keypad? Appreciate they don't have wireless options but do have underdesk mounts. Feel it would have given you more flexibility on the keys you could use.

I both want to thank you for showing me what you’ve come up with and to curse you for sending me down this rabbit hole. You have found a new fan I’ve subscribed and look forward to seeing what’s next

Very inspirational for people who've wanted to get started with ESP32 tinkering, thank for this chill and amazingly edited video!

Amazing vid. thank you for the inspo and all the info! New to the whole pi boards and programming and rly doing stuff outside of the standard issue pc uses thing and this was very helpful!

Very cool project. This is the exact content I come to KZfaq for.

Thank you so much for this informative and inspirational video! I am already setting to work to create my own patterned around your excellent work!

Holy crap man. You're a true wizard. Amazing project.

Nice job! I'm glad you found my desk hack useful. Thanks for the call-out.

I use a gamepad controller for my Mac and a wired midi foot controller for hand relief, I also set up a ton of voice commands which trigger either app menu options or keyboard shortcuts assigned to those options. Voice commands are for me the easiest to remember. It's made e.g. working with audio and video programs so much easier!

Lots of hardwork I could see!

That’s really nice. I need to find or implement a similar solution for my standing desk.

Discovered your channel via this video. I must say this is incredibly impressive!

VERY NICE would like to see more updates on this.

This has given me so much inspiration! Thank you!

Very good idea, i plan to do the same with secondary keyboard without numpad, thank you mr David.

so pleased you did this, AHK has been my go-to for automating dumb things to make them smart

I was a long time lurker but this was epic and finally subscribed. Sorry it took me so long

Very clean. Amazing work

literally my dream efficient and clean setup

I would have intergrated this into the desk with radio buttons, but having something you can remove is great! Love the project

clear thought, chill vibed video, great video to watch, a even better tool to have 😎

this is beyond cool! great work

Great video! Been wanting to find or build something like this for myself as well, not only for the controls of various things in my home office/studio, but also for my video editing.

Very cool! Might do something similar at some point.

Really cool video, feeling inspired to do something similar.

I'm jealous of your setup. Great work.

Wow that's awesome! Nice work

love love love. I am saving this video. I am definitely gonna implement this

Nicely done david!

Nice. I use AHK for my micro pad. Great tool!

This is my type of video. QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE MAX

you blew my mind with an amazing video and amazing idea subcribed!!

This is a sweet project dude.

I wish I had the time and budget for things like this. very cool stuff

This is a very cool project. Good job!

Impressive skills! Well done.

This is a really cool project!

Looks nice, great job!

This is hall of fame material dude, awesome.

Incroyable, bravo. Ce n'est pas à la portée de tout le monde mais je n'ai pas de mot pour décrire mon admiration. Gg

😮 Wow! Incredible work!

This is one of the best videos of it's kind.

Awesome project, subscribed!

wow this is brilliant. really good work and great content

Nice work! Also Autohotkey and notepad++, hell yeah lol I did a similar thing with a generic usb numpad, taking it apart and designing a 3d printed case which attaches to the side of the desk where an existing bolt was already in place, having those extra hotkeys is a huge help!

this is amazing! I've been getting annoyed with my kvm switches lately and was thinking if I could maybe automate it. good to see someone else already took a crack at it. for me, I would only not make the window resizing buttons part of the main macro keyboard, I have the feeling that I would accidentally press other actions way too frequently. separating the window resizers into another keypad would mean that you can plug that in your usb switch and have it work on multiple machines as well. great video!

Super cool! Looks so satisfying, and the fact that it works with your standing desk is really impressive.

I like your videos since you're dedicated to what you want to reach. It's always the process that it feel more satisfactory than the result. Like solving a puzzle. Love it. Keep these coming, David! Thank you.