Cheap Foot Operated Tablet Page Turner

Recently I came across an interesting application for a 10″ tablet, such as an iPad.

A friend of mine who is musician, plays the guitar and sings to audience requested songs.

As nobody can know the music and the words to a huge catalog of songs that the audience might request, she keeps the sheet music in a 3″ thick looseleaf notebook. When a song is requested, she finds the needed sheets in her notebook, takes them out of the notebook and places them on her music stand. (The notebook is too thick to fit on the music stand.) During the song she has to pause a little as she turns the sheet music’s pages. At the end of the song the sheets are returned to the notebook.

As the notebook is kinda bulky and manipulating the sheets is time consuming, an App ( ForScore, $4.95) is available that lets sheet music (in pdf format) be displayed on an iPad. The iPad is thin enough to sit on the music stand and it is very easy to find any song in the library with the App. You still have to use use your finger to turn pages but this is sure a lot easier than using a notebook and paper.

ForScore is not available for Andriods, but you can use the Kindle App (free) or ezPDF Reader App ($2.99) to display pdf files but they are not as music centric as ForScore. ForScore also includes free access to a large library of sheet music. Most of the library's files can be found for free on the Internet but if you are using an iPad, it is likely worth the few dollars not to have to search so much.

To actually turn the pages by foot control, the AirTurn’s BT-105 Bluetooth page turner ($119.95) is recommended by ForScore. As it is bluetooth you don't have any wires between it and the iPad.

I found a less expensive foot control solution. I used a USB Game Foot Control Action Switch Pedal (less than $10 on eBay). Yes, you have to connect the pedal to the tablet via a USB cable but that does not seem to be much of an issue.

.

This unit can be programmed on your PC to send any mouse button, key or string. Once programmed the unit can be disconnected from your PC and plugged into your tablet. It will retain forever and send the programmed signal to your tablet whenever the foot switch is pressed. I programmed it to send the right arrow ( → ) key.

Don’t have a full size USB port on your tablet? No problem; just use a Micro USB To USB2.0 OTG Host Cable Adapter ($1.45 postpaid on eBay).

Hope you find this useful.