AirTurn Duo

AirTurn Duo

We received an AirTurn Duo from the Nederland, CO based company AirTurn  (www.airturn.com) and proceeded to figure out what it’s good for.

Basically this is a bluetooth enabled wireless foot switch.  It can be used to switch a wide variety of things, but it was presented to us as something we could use with a tablet (iPad or Android).

We didn’t have our tablet with us the day it arrived, so we impulsively checked to see if it would work with our Android smartphone.  We were excited to discover that it would. The process of connecting it (or pairing it, in Bluetooth lingo) was as easy as turning on the bluetooth in my phone and selecting the AirTurn device.  Bingo!  It was connected.

So, eager to see what the pedals do, we downloaded the Music Player for Android app (which was on the handy list of apps that are compatible with the AirTurn and started stepping on the pedals.  Sure enough, the highlighted song changed as we pressed the pedal.  Pedal one moved down the list, pedal 2 moved up the list.  Pushing the little bitty button labelled “5” in the center of the AirTurn, played the song.  Unfortunately, you can’t push the “5” Button with your foot and there’s no way to plug in an extra pedal for that.  All the AirTurn Duo does is send your cursor or highlight up and down.

Undeterred, when we got home, we tried to pair up the AirTurn with our tablet.  This time it took me a bit before we eventually opened the manual and started reading.  The AirTurn only pairs with one device at a time and there is no display to tell you what device that is, so you have to push the Power button for eight seconds in order to clear out the previous pairing before it will pair with a new device.  Not a big deal if you only plan to use it with one device, but also not exactly user friendly in the event you need to switch devices in a hurry and don’t already know this trick.

Once paired with the tablet we tried out a couple more apps: Android Prompter and Setlists.

Android Prompter, designed to facilitate teleprompting on a tablet (could be useful for lyrics you keep forgetting, or a long speech you need to give). Just like on my phone, the AirTurn Duo did the job of scrolling up or down the page.  That’s pretty much all you need in a prompter, so this was a very good use for the pedals.  We plan to use this next time we are recording a scripted video.

Setlists seemed like something musicians would be more inclined to use on a regular basis, so we loaded up the app and gave it a go.  The app is pretty cool because it not only lists the names of the songs, but has spots to input the song lyrics, keys, and other info you might scrawl on the edges of your set lists.  As promised, the AirTurn Duo allowed me to scroll up and down the list of songs easy as pie.  Unfortunately, we then wanted to click the songs, in order to get to the extra info, like lyrics and whatever, but had to either touch the tablet or bend over and touch the “5” button again to do this.  One more pedal programmed to the “Enter” or “Click” function would have been wonderful, but it wasn’t there.  In practical use, though, touching the tablet between songs would probably not be that hard to do, so that’s not really such a big deal.

In an effort to get a little more use out of the AirTurn we turned on the feature that allows you to keep your foot on the pedal and after two seconds it will start scrolling continuously up or down the list until you take your foot of the pedal or get to the end.

What the device is really designed for is to let you turn a page of sheet music without having to take your hands off your instrument.  So we loaded up the “My Sheet Music” app and tested it.  It Worked as expected with the pedals moving you from one page of sheet music to the next without having to take your hands off your instrument.

Having tested the device on our Android tablet we wanted to test it on an ipad.  We borrowed our beautiful gal’s iPad Air 2 and went to town.  After a bit of fumbling to get it paired up, we loaded a few of the same apps and tested them.  They worked just the same as described above for the Android tablet.

Thinking this might be a good fit for turning pages while reading a digital book, we tested the AirTurn on a Kindle app.  It didn’t work at all.  Not surprising, as it’s not on the list of compatible apps, but a little disappointing none the less.

We didn’t try the AirTurn with Powerpoint or any similar presentation app, but they are on the list of compatible apps, and we suspect that this would be another awesome use for these pedals.  Switching between slides using a foot pedal seems super cool on top of being useful and fun.

The pedals themselves are all plastic and don’t actually need to make contact in order to operate, thus, the claim of silent operation holds up.  We had no problems with actuating the pedals.  The whole thing is pretty small considering what it does: Only 7 inches long by 4 inches wide and less than 1 inch tall.  Easy to fit into your gig bag. It weighs only 9 ounces, so it’s not gonna break your back to carry around.  It comes only with a charging cord that can be hooked up to any USB phone charger or your laptop, or whatever you can plug a USB into.  They claim a hundred hours on a charge, since there’s no display, beyond a few blinking LEDs, We are inclined to believe it.

One minor drawback to setting up the AIrTurn, is that the devices we tested it on would not let us type anything into them when the device was first connected.  Eventually,  we realized that we had to tell the tablet to not use the hardware as a keyboard.  After that the keyboard popped up on the tablet with no issues.

Summary:

Did it do what it was expected to do?  Yes.  

Did it do any more than that?  No.  

Could it be improved?  Certainly.  

There are a variety of models with differing numbers of foot switches (The four pedal version is called the Quad) and the ability to be used with other types of switches (The Stompkit models) and you can even hook it up to a drum machine and use it as a drum triggering device (the Tap).

At a retail price of $99, we’re not sure if it’s exactly a bargain, but if it’s just what you’re looking for, please do buy one and tell them we sent you.  

Use this link:

AirTurn Logo

 

 

We want to review your stuff:

Do you have a new device, app, or anything else that you would like reviewed?  Please send it in.  We prefer to deal with stuff designed for musicians or can be used in the music industry and we will give preference to things built or created in Colorado, or that have a strong connection to our state.  If you would like to know if it’s something we would review, please contact us with an inquiry: webmaster@rockoncolorado.com.