Shortcuts worth a button pad (and the free version)

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The honest case

A programmable button pad is a convenience, not a transformation. It earns its desk space if you have a few actions you repeat dozens of times a day that are awkward as keyboard shortcuts: mute on calls, switching between two or three app layouts, starting a recording, opening a specific dashboard.

What I actually press

TBD — from the owner. The pad brand/model and the saved profiles. This section lists the buttons actually used in a normal week, from the recording, and names which assignments were tried and abandoned.

What is a gimmick

Buttons for things you already do with one keystroke, “productivity” macros you set up once and forget, and anything that needs the pad’s software running to work at all when the pad is unplugged.

The free version

Every operating system has app-level shortcuts, window-layout shortcuts, and a way to assign a hotkey to a script. Set up three: mute, switch layout, open the thing you open most. Live with it for two weeks. If you still want physical buttons, buy the pad. If not, you saved the money and the desk space.

What to check before ordering

• Software compatibility with your computer and the specific apps you want to control.
• Whether the pad needs its companion software running, and how it behaves when you switch computers.
• Size and where it sits relative to your keyboard and mouse.