I often wonder how someone comes up with the strange (and often useless) gadgets I sometimes write about. Do they wake up one day and say “Hey I know! I'll build the Xbox 360 controller monitor and sell it for 600 USD!” and actually think their idea will work? With all due respect for the controller monitor's inventor, I can't help but wonder who will find this device useful.

Intrigued about what this gadget is? Nope, neither am I, since it's as boring as the name it was given. This setup connects a wireless Xbox 360 controller to a display board that indicates which buttons are being pressed by the user, as well as the movement of the analog stick. Thanks to the board using LEDs to indicate this extremely useful piece of information, the user can even videotape it in order to provide latency reference regarding the game itself.

Ben Heck removed the headset jack on the controller in order to make room for the cable and made sure that the signals are buffered so as to not interfere with the date sent by the controller or the Xbox 360. Although he removed the headset jack, you may add any other accessory to the controller that you normally would use with your regular Xbox 360 controller.

Now, I ask you: how many of you have played Soul Calibur IV on the Xbox 360 and actually thought “man I sure wish I could videotape the latency in-between pressing the buttons and their actual response! I bet I could improve my game!”?

Come on, the Xbox is for having a button smashing good time, not videotaping button response and such stuff. And developers have specialized software for that kind of job, they're not going to pay $600 for that piece of... tech. I love gadgets but sometimes you have to know when to stop. Please.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .