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A review from the viewpoint of 2026.
The Griffin PowerMate is a fun little accessory that came out in the early 2000s, aimed initially at the Mac market. It’s nothing more than a simple knob, machined from solid aluminium. The original PowerMate connects over USB, and enables two basic actions – knob rotate left/right, and button press. The base is a flexible translucent rubber-like material, and there’s a blue (red on some variants) LED on the underside. Later PowerMates, which had bases the same diameter as the button tops, were Bluetooth enabled.
The PowerMates shipped with software that recognized the device and allowed various apps to respond to user input.
The functionality doesn’t sound like much. It is quite simple. But simplicity is its strength. If you need something for quickly adjusting the volume of a music player, or scrubbing along a video timeline, or changing magnification on a graphics app, it’s perfect.
Of course, it’s an obsolete product that was discontinued in 2018.
The hardware
The hardware
The original USB version of the device basically consists of two interlinked parts – the base and the rotating knob. The knob part is 44mm in diameter, the base is 54mm in diameter, and it’s 38mm tall. It’s heavy enough, with an anti-slip base, and so it stays OK on a desk.
Two colours were sold. The plain aluminium version was the most common, but Griffin also made a black anodized one. That’s the one I have, as you can see in the photo above.
The rotation is fairly smooth, but the axis isn’t as solid as it could be. The knob part rocks slightly from side to side, which is a little disappointing and makes it feel a bit less premium than they were claiming. I’ve tried three PowerMates and they all had the same problem.
It has the name “GRIFFIN POWERMATE” engraved into the side, which I wish it didn’t. The aluminium one has a plain recessed engraving; the black version has an off-white engraving.
The USB cable terminates in a USB A plug, as you’d expect for a product of the era. The cable uses then-fashionable clear wire with silvery RFI shielding – the kind that tends to turn yellow (the insulation and strain relief) and green (the internal wires) with time. The cable is not detachable and fixed permanently to the PowerMate. Unfortunately the black anodized version of the PowerMate also has a clear cable.
Some people have succeeded in dismantling the device, but there’s no obvious way to release the knob from the base. I don’t particularly want to force it, so I’ve left mine as is. I did toy with the idea of detaching the base, which seems to be held on with double-sided tape type material, and replacing the USB cable with a newer black one. Maybe someday.
Original Griffin software
Original Griffin software
The original macOS-compatible PowerMate software is no longer supported, and indeed Griffin longer exist as a company. Copies of the final version released, 3.10 of 2014, are floating around out there.
For example, you can download version 3.1 from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine’s backup of the Griffin website. Another reason to donate generously to maintain a vital online service that’s constantly under attack!
3.1 still works on my old Intel machine running macOS Sonoma. However, there are problems.
First, it expects to control iTunes, not the Music app. So I had to put together new settings that send AppleScript commands to Music.
Second the app, and therefore the PowerMate, became non-responsive when the iMac’s display went to sleep. Making it useless as a music player. I don’t know if there’s a workaround for that other than disabling display sleep mode.
The software, which looks like an antediluvian MacOS 9 port, is also a bit of a pain to configure. It feels like something designed for an experienced user who already knows how it works – it takes a bit of messing around to figure out how set things up. For something as simple as a knob with a button it’s amusing how overcomplicated the software is.
Still. It is pretty configurable, allows the device to do stuff like distinguishing between knob rotate and knob rotate with the button down, and lets you control what the underside LED does.
Apparently there was a Windows release as well. I know nothing about this version, and whether it works on contemporary Windows PCs.
PowerMate Reborn
PowerMate Reborn
This app looks very promising, but it doesn’t work. It basically is meant to enable the full functionality of the PowerMate on modern Apple hardware, and send commands to all kinds of Mac applications. It’s written in Swift, as an IOKit HID (Human Interface Device) module. Unfortunately it requires both Apple Silicon and Sequoia or later, so I can’t use it on my old Intel Mac.
I tested it on an M1 Mac running both Sequoia 15.7.5 and Tahoe 26.5.1, but it failed to load for me. The app crashed silently with a segfault immediately on startup. I sent a bug report to the developer, who said he’d look into it. We will see.
https://github.com/EricBintner/PowerMateReborn
USB Overdrive
USB Overdrive
This is a $20 USD app that enables all kinds of USB devices.
It’s really limited when it comes to PowerMate, however. It does recognize the device, and can be configured. (though its UI is fiddly and needlessly confusing to use) However it only recognizes button down, knob up, and knob down. I don’t see any obvious way for it to recognize long button down, double-click, knob up/down with button pressed, etc. You also can’t control the base’s LED, obviously. It just glows dimly and continuously.
And you can’t control the rotational speed/acceleration or sensitivity. This latter is a bummer, since it means it‘s easy to bump the knob and have your music player suddenly become deafeningly loud or fall silent.
However, unlike the Griffin software, it still responds when my Intel iMac’s display is off. So that’s why I’m using it for now.
Incidentally, if you find the PowerMate doesn’t respond and you’re using USB Overdrive, you probably have to unplug the PowerMate and plug it back in.
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