
How we built Flow - katm
https://medium.com/@senic/how-we-built-flow-c83dea6ca377
======
whiddershins
I love any and all attempts to develop, improve, explore, the interface
between humans and computers. I think it is one of the areas where not nearly
enough is being done ... as a player of the continuum fingerboard, I quickly
realized that a transformation of interface can have a more dramatic and
meaningful impact on sound than the actual synthesis engine.

Roger Linn used to have a great demo on his page showing him playing a
prototype Linnstrument using only a sawtooth wave with a lowpass filter, and
it sounded more expressive than many top of the line physical modeling synths,
because the dimensions of control were so impactful.

That said, the Photoshop example you give seems a little bit of a stretch. The
Wacom tablet is a wonderful piece of human interface for Photoshop that
addresses many of your concerns, and many other concerns, and has existed for
years. For example, some Wacom pens have a ring on them that you can use to
change brush sizes.

Wacom Tablet: [http://blog.phaseone.com/work-faster-by-customizing-your-
wac...](http://blog.phaseone.com/work-faster-by-customizing-your-wacom-tablet-
in-capture-one-pro-7/)

Continuum Fingerboard:
[http://www.hakenaudio.com/Continuum/](http://www.hakenaudio.com/Continuum/)

Linnstrument:
[http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument.html](http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument.html)

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munificent
If you want programmable high-resolution knobs, this is an area that the music
industry has had covered quite well for a long time. A quick Googling for
"midi controller knob" brings up:

Livid Alias 8

Livid DS 1

Nektar Panorama P1

MIDI Fighter Twister

Behringer B-Control Rotary BCR2000

Akai LPD8

The last one is about seventy bucks and gives you eight independent knobs and
eight pads.

Of course, there's value in minimalism and a good UX for
configuring/programming the knob(s), but there's also something to be said for
just trying to solve the problem yourself based on what's currently available.
If a $70 MIDI controller makes your Photoshop experience noticeably better,
great. If not, a single knob might not end up being worth it either,
regardless of how well-made it is.

~~~
oz
Would't using them require application support, like how DAWs support the
Mackie Control protocol, among others?

~~~
bravo22
If they are USB then they support HID

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lnanek2
Not certain their use case of brush size has any relevance. Most graphics
designers have a tablet and can easily set brush size to pressure control, or
they just hold down the hot key that lets you adjust brush size by moving your
mouse/pen so they already have analog input to brush size any time they want.
Maybe some of the other professions they mention are more lacking in
equipment, however. It is kind of weird talking about how hard it is to get to
the brush size dialog, though, when no one uses that unless they are an
amateur...

~~~
DocG
I agree. Although I believe it might have many uses in other areas, in
Photoshop I am fastest with one hand on drawing tablet and other on keyboard.
Having 3 modifier + all one key shortcuts/tools under my fingers is the
fastest way. Specially in digital painting I might sample color, change size,
paint, pan, erase, sample, reverse color, zoom; new layer all within 10-20
seconds. (alt; alt-right click pen; b; left click on pen; e; alt; x; alt+left
click pen; ctrl+shift+n)

brush size? even faster than flow is alt+pen right click and hover pen on
tablet.

Edit: I would thin it would be really neat music controller. I could see use
in there(specially in party's)

------
at-fates-hands
The first thing I noticed from the video was how delicately people were using
the device.

Not sure a majority of the developers I know would be able to be as dainty
with something like this. Most type with heavy hands, beat up their mouse on a
regular basis and have many keyboard shortcuts to reduce dev time in their
Adobe programs.

For these people, using something which looks and is demonstrated as being
very delicate, would not last long in their hands.

Having said that, how durable is this?

~~~
twald
one of the founders here. Thanks for the comment. It's pretty durable. It's
made from turned metal and acrylic glass. It will survive drops from tables
and walls. It is mainly aimed at people who need sensitivity and pixel-perfect
controls in graphic design, 3D modeling or video editing. But it is built on
an open platform so it can also be used for things like music.

~~~
wlesieutre
Looks like a more flexible (and wireless) version of Griffin's PowerMate[1].
The last hardware I crowdfunded is still mired in delays, but I like this idea
enough to try it again.

A couple of questions, if you don't mind:

* Roughly how heavy is it? For physical objects like knobs, I like a bit of heft. Not as big a deal here as in a SpaceNavigator where it's pushing back instead of spinning freely, but I'm curious.

* Specs mention a 4 month battery life. Is that a AAA where I can use a rechargeable, or some sort of button cell? Or not yet finalized?

* How does software support work? I see it has smooth brush size control in Photoshop, but can I expect it to work that well in less common software like Leonardo or Mischief? Or will it have to be bound to keyboard shortcuts that change things in large steps like the square brackets in Photoshop?

Thanks!

[1]
[http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate](http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate)

~~~
twald
thanks. Would love you as a backer. Please let me know which tools you want
this to work with and we'll implement it. _powermate: Yes, we have used it. We
like it. It was too limiting for what we needed and we wanted it to be more
portable and other materials._ Weight: roughly 300 grams. That's one of the
reasons we used metal, to make it heavier. We're also using a slip-resistant
material on the bottom so it won't slip around. * Battery: We have worked
built prototypes with both batteries, AAA and coin cells. This is one thing
we're focusing on right now. We will definitely post an update on the campaign
asap. Your thoughts from the user side would also be appreciated. * Software:
The first and easiest form is using keyboard shortcuts and mapping it to an
application. The second form is through scripts like Apple scripts.

~~~
wlesieutre
I have a BC-700 charger and a bunch of low self discharge AAs and AAAs that I
use in practically everything (game controllers, wireless mouse, TV/roku
remotes, headlamp, and things I'm probably forgetting), so put me in as a vote
for AAA.

For the slip resistant material, I don't know if it exists, but something that
isn't a dust magnet would be great. I've noticed with my SpaceNavigator that
the ring of rubber on the bottom tends to accumulate dust and start slipping
until I wipe it down periodically. Again a bigger deal for them, since their
6-axis devices include pushing sideways as an input.

As far as software support, Mischief does 1px increments with [], so that
one's easy. And open source programs like GIMP and Blender could always be
modified if needed. So I guess I'm not too worried about software.

This is a kind of niche thought, but I wonder if I could suction cup it to the
back of a Surface Pro. I tend to sketch with the tablet in my lap and no good
place to set a Flow. Chairs with no tables, flopped on couches, etc.

Went ahead and backed it! The $20 worldwide shipping is a bummer, but I'm glad
it's been priced into it. IIRC that's one of the big problems that Apollo Pens
ran into.

~~~
twald
Thanks you for the thorough response. Really valuable and thanks for backing
us. I would love to stay in contact and talk more in detail about the suction
cup, software etc. Please feel free to send me an email: hi@senic.com and we
can take it from there.

------
adwf
Love the idea! I'm always looking to see if any gesture recognition controls
will take off for computers, this seems like a very good one as it doesn't
involve raising your hands to any excessive degree. There have been gesture
devices in the past, but they all seem to want you to raise your arms and wave
them about in large-ish motions. Good to see a device that I can still rest my
elbows on the desk and just wave at! I can see this becoming like a 2nd mouse
to the left of my keyboard, a power device for certain apps.

I will just add one slight tip if I may. The first two sentences of this page
don't really explain what the product is:

"We (YC S13) just launched our product “Flow” on Indiegogo. It’s a
programmable and intuitive wireless controller that that gives you high
precision and speed."

I was left wondering what it was a controller of? An RC plane? A games
console? Industrial machinery? Just add "controller for your computer" and
it'll read a lot better. It's not helped by the fact that the gif below only
shows a hand waving over a circular thing with no visible feedback from a
computer screen ;)

~~~
twald
Done. Thank you for your feedback!

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imissmyjuno
Aw, an advertisement blog post disguised as special insight.

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tonylemesmer
Plenty of comments here on how this problem has already been solved by other
devices.

This one appears to be different by allowing functionality to be extended more
easily via programming. 3dconexion spacemouse for example is not that easy to
interface although 3rd party programs like Glovepie do allow interfacing via
simple scripts.

Wacom tablets would seem to be the most obvious existing product out there in
a similar space - simple scripting can interface Wacoms with other apps like
music players, so perhaps this new device isn't necessary.

Users in the video are interacting delicately, this looks like a problem -
when you are zipping through interactions to achieve tasks (especially when
they are repetitive) you want to be able to have good repeatability. Delicate
movements here are your enemy.

I guess the TLDR of my comment is that nothing out there really solves all the
issues out of the box and this one might not either unless it can build an
ecosystem of drag and drop scripts for people to use for their day to day
tasks.

edit: interestingly in the list of "requirements" (para 2.) the ease of
installing new abilities or scripts or whatever extensions is not listed other
than "it has to work with the tools we use" and in the "developers" section it
should mention an "app store" otherwise no-one's gonna find that awesome
Photoshop extension for it.

------
cromwellian
This looks worse than a mouse. I'm just trying to imagine how I'd use this in
a game like Call of Duty or Team Fortress. The modern optical mouse gives you
precise movement and acceleration in 2 dimensions. The touch surface of this
thing is too small to work better than a mouse in a game situation unless you
crank the sensitivity way up at the cost of accuracy.

At first I thought it would be movable and contain an optical mouse tracker
underneath it, but was disappointed to see it's basically a trackpad with a
wheel and a gesture sensor.

Maybe it'll work good for many apps, but it seems every time I see something
that tries to improve on the old mouse, it ends up looking worse, at least for
my use case.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
I'm not sure that this is meant to be a replacement for a mouse -- seems more
like an additional tool for specific tasks (like the Photoshop task mentioned
in the article).

------
state
I _really_ want more things like this to exist, but I can't say exactly why or
what I would use them for.

I _hope_ this thing will succeed, but I can't imagine what the exact market is
or whether its big enough to sustain this project.

~~~
jseliger
_I really want more things like this to exist, but I can 't say exactly why or
what I would use them for._

I feel the same way and have enough spare cash to back it. Twald's explanation
makes some sense, but really I think this is the essential part: "That means
that we can explore completely new user interfaces, ones that are perfectly
designed for the person and their needs," because I translate it to mean, "We
don't entirely know what'll end up happening."

I'm happy existing in that state of ambiguity, however, and for $100 it seems
worthwhile to find out what the future might hold.

~~~
twald
We have a few products in mind that would instantly add value. Think about
your feet or objects and surfaces around you like a table. Why not use them?
Why not blend technology into natural things that use more senses than just
your eyes and a reduced form of haptics.

------
th0ma5
Reminds me of the Monome Arc which apparently isn't being built anymore, but
here is a story about it [http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/24/monome-arc-osc-
controller...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/24/monome-arc-osc-controller-
is-simple-elegant-and-expensive/) ... of course this adds the touch pointing
and non-touch gestures which seems pretty cool, if they can deliver the thing.

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vesche
Article aside, I don't really understand how this is a cool (or even
necessary) device... I watched the videos on their Kickstarter page, and
correct me if I'm wrong, but it has three functions that I don't need: 1) The
outside rotation for adjustments; Mouse wheel? 2) Basic swipe gesture
recognition; Um, any button, and I don't have to be hands off the keyboard? 3)
Touch tracking; Trackpad...?

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brackin
I'll definitely buy this when it ships in 1-2 years.

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wiffleballmike
One of my coworkers has a Griffin Powermate[1]. It's corded and the software
is a bit clunky but is quite similar, although it functions a bit more like a
mouse. [1]
[http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate](http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate)

~~~
spdustin
I was about to comment about that... I've had one for years and still find
clever things to do with it. For example, when searching a project in my
editor for a string, turning the knob jumps between search results.

It's amazing how much functionality you can eke out of such a simple input
device.

It's made me consider other purpose-built init devices (like some of the midi
controllers mentioned earlier). I have a Native Instruments controller
designed for one of their massive sample libraries that I'd love to hack as a
general purpose programmer's helper.

Anyone have any experience with such devices? What other clever uses of these
alternate input devices am I missing out on?

~~~
ivanca
Smartphones are largely unexplored as a secondary input devices. It can be a
input for gestures (zooming, dragging, etc), as an extra place to add custom
keys (think macros), custom sliders and other touch-based UI controls, or it
can be a notification device ("compilation complete")

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johnrob
This could also be a nice alternative to a steering wheel for driving/racing
video games.

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xchip
They totally avoid saying it's an optical mouse:

"changes in position are measured by sensing the scattered laser light which
is reflected by an object."

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Osama011
cool device, i will buy it.

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mikelbring
Because I skim through a lot of articles at first to determine if something is
even worth reading. I thought this was how the task management app Flow [1]
was built. I thought they where trolling with some of the hardware and
"Angular" stuff, then I realized sometimes skimming isn't the best approach.

[1] [https://www.getflow.com/](https://www.getflow.com/)

~~~
letney
...while I thought it would be covering Facebook's Flow project posted here a
week ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625222)

~~~
_asummers
Could also be confused with Square's Flow library.

[https://github.com/square/flow/](https://github.com/square/flow/)

