Idasen Desk Controller – Mac app

This is a Mac Status Bar application for controlling your IKEA IDÅSEN (Linak) Desk

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Why?

The best way I've found to get myself to use my sit/stand desk more; is to remove as much friction around moving it as possible.

The Linak 'Desk Control' mobile app let's you set favourite positions — but then you need to open the app, and press and hold the up/down arrow until it get's into position. Having to hold the button the whole time was just a bit annoying for me; and I found myself changing height positions less.

I found a couple of different solutions across Github; but there were no truly Native Mac apps... until now.

I'm already on my Mac when sitting/standing at my desk — so why can't I quickly control the desk from here; without needing to open Linak's Desk Control Mobile app or having to use physical controller?

Features

Easy access from the Mac Status Bar
View current height
Save sit/stand height positions
Move up/down
Move to sit/stand position without having to hold down the button
Automatic launch on startup (configurable in preferences)
Supports AppleScript to interact with it (e.g. via an Alfred App workflow)

Getting started

Download the 'Desk Controller' App, and move it to your 'Applications' folder
Double-click to open it
Now it will show up in your Status Bar

Other info:

To access the preferences either right-click on the Status bar icon and click Preferences – or after clicking on the icon, click on the settings icon in the bottom right
To quit the application entirely; right-click on the Status bar icon and click Quit

Troubleshooting

Make sure no other phones / computers currently have one of the 'Desk Control' apps open and connected to your desk, if you do, simply quit that app, and this Desk Controller app should work
Make sure your Idasen Desk still has the word "Desk" in the name of the device — e.g if you changed its name via Linak's Desk Control mobile app
If it's still not finding your desk; try resetting your desk. To do this:
1. Lower your desk as low as it goes
2. Now once more hold down the physical controller to lower it even more, after a second or 2 it should jump down and up
3. Now press and hold the 'bluetooth' button on the front of the physical controller, for a few seconds – until the blue light starts blinking

Interacting with AppleScript

If you want to interact with your Desk via AppleScript; you can talk directly through the 'Desk Controller' mac app.

This is great for setting up an Alfred App workflow

Commands:

move "to-sit": Will move to the saved 'Sitting position'

move "to-stand": Will move to the saved 'Standing position'

move "up": Will move the desk up a tiny bit

move "down": Will move the desk down a tiny bit

move to "120cm": Will move the desk to a height of 120cm

move to "55in": Will move the desk to a height of 55 inches

move to "80": Will move the desk to a height of either 80cm or 80in depending on your preferences

So you may have an AppleScript script that looks like this:

tell application "Desk Controller"
    move "to-sit"
end tell

andrew-codechimp/idasen-controller-mac