Dialed

July 14, 2026 · View on GitHub

A hardware-controlled, per-application volume mixer for Windows.

Dialed pairs a small physical controller (an ESP32/Arduino with knobs or rotary encoders, a push switch, and a round display) with a Windows desktop app so you can set the volume of individual apps — Spotify, a game, your call — by turning a real knob, mute with a press, and flip your default output device with a switch. The controller's round display shows the app icon and volume of whatever you're adjusting.

Features

Per-app and master volume control from physical knobs / rotary encoders
Mute an app with a knob press
Switch the Windows default output device from a hardware switch (or in-app)
Live app icons + volume mirrored to the controller's round GC9A01 display
Idle-screen GIF library uploaded to the controller's flash
Runs from the system tray; optional start-with-Windows
English and Portuguese (PT-PT) localization

Hardware

You need the companion controller: an ESP32 (or Arduino Nano variant) with potentiometers or rotary encoders, a push switch, and a round GC9A01 display, connected over USB serial. Wiring, the serial protocol, and the firmware sketches live in Arduino/README.md.

Installation

Go to the Releases page.
Download the latest Dialed-Setup-<version>-x64.exe.
Run it and follow the installer.

SmartScreen note: the installer is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC". Click More info → Run anyway to proceed. (Code signing requires a paid certificate and isn't set up for this project.)

Requires 64-bit Windows 10 version 1809 (build 17763) or newer.

Usage

Plug in the controller over USB.
Launch Dialed; open Settings and pick the controller's COM port.
On the mixer page, assign an app to each knob.
Turn a knob to set that app's volume; press to mute; use the switch to change the output device.

Build from source

Prerequisites: .NET 8 SDK and the Windows App SDK tooling (Visual Studio 2022 with the "Windows App SDK" / WinUI workload, or the standalone SDK).

dotnet build Dialed.csproj -p:Platform=x64 -c Debug

-p:Platform is required — there is no AnyCPU platform (valid values: x64, x86, ARM64). The app is self-contained, so builds bundle the Windows App SDK runtime and need a matching RuntimeIdentifier (derived automatically from the platform).

To produce a release publish folder:

dotnet publish Dialed.csproj -c Release -p:Platform=x64 -p:PublishProfile=win-x64

Architecture

Dialed is a single MVVM WinUI 3 app. NAudio's Core Audio API applies per-app volumes to Windows audio sessions; a symmetric, stringly-typed serial protocol talks to the controller firmware. For a full tour of the code, see CLAUDE.md.

Releasing

Push a version tag and GitHub Actions builds the installer and publishes a Release:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The Release workflow publishes the x64 self-contained build, compiles the Inno Setup installer, and attaches Dialed-Setup-<version>-x64.exe to the GitHub Release.