The Huion Keydial Mini is a decent shortcut companion for drawing on PC, but it’s also compatible with mobile devices such as the iPad and Android tablets. So even while you are on the move, you’ll have a lightweight option to speed up your workflow in various drawing and painting apps.
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Key points
- 19 buttons and dial
- connects via Bluetooth (5.2?)
- ~ 70hrs of wireless use
- compatible with Android and iPadOS
- save custom profiles on iPadOS Keydial app
- Priced at ~US$55
About the controller
The Keydial Mini has 18 customizable buttons and a dial with an additional button. It’s just over 14 x 9cm and weighs 115g. So it is slightly bigger than some other controllers but it’s still very light.
On computer, the dial button of the Keydial lets you cycled between multiple functions. On mobile however, the dial can only have a single function programmed into it, and the middle button can be used like the others with it’s own shortcut assigned.
The buttons are very much same-feel-same-shape which is fine but it does take quite some time to build up good muscle memory for finding the shortcuts that you need. Expect to make many mistakes at first.
Setup
On both iPad and Android tabs, you will need to first download the free Keydial app. After that, it’s quite straightforward. There’s a welcome sequence and then you’ll land on a view of the keypad.
If you have trouble pairing your Huion Keydial Mini with your mobile tablet and getting the shortcuts to work, it might need a firmware upgrade. You can find this on the Huion website download page.
To customize a button, you tap on one of them on the screen (not the physical keypad), and a window appears. Either select shortcuts from the app presents, or tap customize to choose your own keyboard shortcuts if the app you use is not listed. The Keydial app even lets you assign arrow keys and mouse clicks.
How I customize my keys
When it comes to customizing shortcuts, I like to group certain things together. With the Keydial Mini, typically each row was for a specifica range of functions. In the case of Magma, I grouped the keys as follows:
- First row – different tools (brush, blend, eraser, and undo)
- Second row – layer controls (New, delete, clear, merge down)
- Third row – selection tools (select, deselect, transform)
- Fourth and Fifth – modifiers and view (space, alt, reset viewport, etc.)
I tested the controller on the iPad Pro (6th gen), Samsung Galaxy Tab S9FE and the XPPEN Magic Drawing Pad. The keypad is incompatible with Magic Drawing Pad. It pairs fine but the hotkeys will not trigger. There some slight differences between the Android and iPad version.
Testing on Galaxy tab
It’s not possible to save multiple settings profiles for the Keydial Mini on Android. If you want to use this with apps that have different shortcuts, you might have to change the associated keys each time. If you tend to just draw in one app, then this isn’t really a problem.
The Keydial worked well with the Galaxy Tab. the buttons and the dial all respond well. They can also be held down to temporarily activate a tool like the eyedropper
Testing on iPad
The iPad version offers many more presets than the Android version. This isn’t a big deal, but it can be convenient. Unlike the Android version of the Keydial app as well, on iPad you can save multiple settings profiles for different apps that you might use.
The Keydial Mini is compatible with Procreate. To find the Procreate shortcuts, assign one of your buttons to the Cmd key. Press and hold Cmd to bring up the shortcuts in Procreate.
I actually found myself using shortcuts less in Procreate than on other applications because of how well the pen and touch experience is designed on here.
Issues
- Infinite Painter (android) does not respond to the combinations. This applies to the 8BitDo Micro as well but with a regular keyboard, the shortcuts work
- There’s no Bluetooth pairing mode that you can trigger while it’s connected to another device, as far as I could tell. So you might have to disconnect from one device first if you want to pair this with another.
Should you buy it?
I think the Huion Keydial Mini isn’t a bad remote for mobile. It offers a fair amount of convenience with how many shortcuts you can add, and the dial is nice to have too. If you might bounce between using it with the computer and the tablet, then perhaps it’s not a bad option. However, the 8Bitdo Micro is half the price, more compact, and generally easier to memorize. It might be a little too Micro for some though.
Interested in the Huion Keydial Mini? You can find it on Amazon for around US$55.
If you’re looking for something specifically for computer, and are willing to spend a bit more, you might want to consider the Tourbox Lite instead.
