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Microsoft Surface Dial

The Microsoft Surface Dial plugin provides hardware controller integration for the Microsoft Surface Dial, a physical rotary input device. It enables hands-free volume control and customizable button actions.

Rotating the Surface Dial adjusts the active amplifier’s volume:

Direction Action
Clockwise Volume Up
Counter-clockwise Volume Down

To avoid overly sensitive changes, eight same-direction raw rotation reports are accumulated before one configured volume step is sent. Small movements in the opposite direction cancel pending movement that has not produced a step yet. Accepted steps are passed to the shared per-device volume coordinator, so they can be safely coalesced while a previous device command is still completing instead of being discarded.

Pressing (clicking) the Surface Dial generates a configurable action that can be bound to any command through the hotkey system.

This means the Surface Dial click can be configured to:

  • Toggle mute
  • Play/pause
  • Activate a preset
  • Or any other hotkey-assignable command

The Surface Dial plugin adds a settings tab with:

  • Enable/Disable toggle: Turn Surface Dial integration on or off
  • Click action binding: Configure what the click button does
  • Microsoft Surface Dial hardware device
  • Windows operating system
  • Device drivers installed (typically included with Windows)