Logitech MX Inventive Console Overview: Helpful Management Inputs, if You Put the Work In

Logitech Inventive Console

Execs

• If you do not know the keyboard shortcuts to your apps, will be very helpful
• Dial helps three Bluetooth connections
• Extraordinarily customizable
• Extra handy media controls than on plenty of keyboards
• Can add your individual icons

Cons

• Dial wants a stepped choice, not simply free spinning
• Cannot set the actions ring to look in a hard and fast spot in your display
• Getting the profiles configured the best way you need will be tedious and unpredictable

Just a little over a yr in the past, Logitech acquired Loupedeck, identified for its standard programmable gadgets designed to streamline workflows for skilled creatives and streamers, just like the Elgato Stream Deck and Razer Stream Stream Controller merchandise do. The MX Inventive Console is the primary mannequin underneath the Logitech model, becoming a member of the corporate’s MX line aimed toward superior customers, just like the Grasp sequence. It is undergone a whole redesign to really feel extra approachable for artistic professionals who might discover all-in-one console designs and their advanced customization software program intimidating. One key change is the cut up between the button console and the dial capabilities, which at the moment are two separate items.

It is also priced at $200, making it quite a bit cheaper than a lot of the Loupedeck fashions. Regardless of the decrease price, it gives lots of the identical options because the $559 flagship Loupedeck CT. Plus, it consists of three months of Adobe Inventive Cloud for each new and present customers. It ships on Oct. 14 — I examined it with early variations of the software program — and initially, the product will help a restricted variety of functions:

• Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Traditional, Illustrator, Specific, Audition, Premiere Professional and After Results
• Seize One tethering software program for photographers (Mac solely)
• Ableton audio/video modifying software program
• Spotify, VLC, Apple Music
• FaceTime, Discord and Zoom
• OBS, Twitch, Streamlabs (Home windows solely), VMix (Home windows solely) and Phillips Hue

Nonetheless, extra might grow to be obtainable by the point it launches.

This doesn’t suggest you’ll be able to’t create your individual profiles for different functions, however with out the plugin help you are restricted to hackish mapping of keyboard shortcuts and macros. The plugin is vital, because it permits the Logi Choices Plus app to entry the total programming interface, supplying you with direct management over extra settings without having to manually configure every motion. There are working system settings included, each Mac and Home windows, which is good. And in November, Logitech plans so as to add the power to again up your settings, which is essential.

The CC is available in mild grey or darkish grey and consists of a Bluetooth MX Inventive DialPad — it can additionally work with the $15 Logi Bolt Bluetooth adapter — and the USB-C MX Inventive Keypad.

The DialPad has 4 programmable-per-application buttons, an enormous free-spinning dial (that means there is not any begin or finish level, and no haptic suggestions to point particular spots or models rotated) and a free-spinning curler. It helps connection to as much as three gadgets and runs on AAA batteries, rated to last as long as 18 months. 

The Keypad is a button pad with 9 seen mappable buttons and a pair of previous-next web page buttons. It helps as much as 15 pages of mappings per software. It comes with a stand with a cable router that holds it at an angle. I want it had been adjustable as a result of the fastened angle does not work for me and neither does mendacity it flat. Somebody may in all probability design and 3D print a customized model. Not me, although.

When Choices Plus is loaded, you’ll be able to pop up an onscreen Actions Ring, an app-specific, programmable overlay ring of controls. You choose a software after which manipulate it utilizing the DialPad or one other machine. In lots of instances, these capabilities are the identical as these obtainable on the Keypad, however they’re helpful for conditions the place you are already mousing across the display. Sadly, the Ring at all times pops up at your cursor, which will be irritating in case you reflexively transfer right down to the underside of the display to forestall unintended modifications whereas urgent mouse buttons. For some people, it popping up on the cursor is sensible, as a result of you do not have to maneuver wherever to begin deciding on. However I might like an choice for these of us who work in another way.

To program the whole lot, you principally drag and drop from a listing of actions to the management or button; every set of these is a profile, and every software can have a number of profiles. It could actually mechanically load a default profile primarily based on the applying or software throughout the app you have switched to. As with the Loupedeck, you can get user-contributed profiles for it in Logi Market.

However so far as I can inform, if you would like to have the ability to use a number of profiles inside an software, it’s important to manually add a Swap Profile button for each profile you need to swap to and in each profile you need to swap from. If there is a slider for it within the interface, it’s important to alter it through a dial or curler if you wish to use it with the CC. 

Extra annoying, the software program does not assist you to add buttons from different profiles or merge profiles for incessantly used or customized capabilities you need in each profile. For instance, I want a number of varieties of screenshots accessible from each app. I check keyboards, and plenty of the small ones do not have a PrtSc key, so I’ve to remap a minimum of one shortcut in Recreation Bar, which is a nightmare. (Virtually each combo says: “That shortcut will not work. Decide one other one and take a look at once more,” fairly than telling me which of them are obtainable.)

There are additionally some constraints that Logitech has little management over as a result of they are not within the API. And in my case, there’s plenty of stuff I need it to do this it could possibly’t. As an illustration, Adobe does not have an API for Digital camera Uncooked in Photoshop. 

In my case, it could possibly’t present direct entry to the numeric fields, a minimum of as I’ve seen in Lightroom and Photoshop. (I feel it’s important to create macros if you wish to work round utilizing the dial.) However I need to go to particular values for publicity modifications, like 0.3, 0.7 and so forth. It is quicker for me to only click on into that field and sort it than something CC can do given the API. 

And utilizing the free-spinning dial for something exact is irritating, except you’ve glorious superb management in your nondominant hand (which I do not), irrespective of how low a pace you set it to. I want suggestions that tells me, “sure, you have moved a unit in that route” or, “sure, that is the midway mark for quantity or brightness.” So, for instance, I ended up having to remap the highest buttons on the Dialpad in Lightroom from undo-redo to previous-next photograph to cease flying previous the photograph I wished. Frankly, I am going to in all probability simply hold utilizing the arrow keys. In an ideal world, it could work just like the scroll wheel on some gaming mice, the place you can swap between the free-spinning and stepped modes on the fly. Not everybody feels the identical, however in case you do, think about your self warned. 

I discover the Keypad extra helpful than the DialPad, partly as a result of you’ll be able to add multi-step actions to a single button press, resembling filter by flag, choose all and export in Lightroom. Loads of actions are simply simpler to carry out with the keyboard in case you’ve already memorized the shortcuts — making an attempt break muscle reminiscence is not value it. However for the stuff you solely do often, it may be quicker than making an attempt to recollect the place it’s within the interface.

One drawback is that I might like to have the ability to reorganize them to place the issues I do incessantly on the primary pages and group them collectively in another way. You possibly can transfer the buttons round, change the icon fonts, colours, backgrounds and so forth, however I could not discover a simple technique to transfer them from web page to web page. Looking for a little-used software in additional than two or three pages of decisions if they are not organized your manner actually is not quicker. Nor may I discover a technique to batch edit them, for instance, to alter the background colours or fonts to paint code them for a whole toolset or software. There are solely two international settings, for key brightness and to toggle the automated profile switching on and off.

Logitech says that it will in all probability, finally, add the Choices Plus settings to G Hub, which might make it much more handy for streamers and others who’ve Logitech gaming gear. So there is not any must run two utility functions; the corporate already does this with its MX Brio webcam. Yay!

How a lot you’d respect the MX Inventive Console actually is dependent upon plenty of variables, together with which functions you employ incessantly, whether or not the keyboard shortcuts you want are branded into your mind or not, how dextrous you might be with the hand you may want for the Dialpad, how a lot customization you are keen to do if the default profiles do not cowl sufficient of what you want and extra. I feel there’s one thing right here for everybody, however whether or not it is definitely worth the $200 in case you do not really want it’s one other story.