Review: Huion Keydial Remote K40

Review unit provided by Huion

The Huion Keydial Remote K40 is a shortcut remote designed to help visual content creators and digital artists work more efficiently. This was released in July 2025. Price is USD 99.

This is the third shortcut remote from Huion if I'm not wrong. I've also review the Huion KD100 and the subsequent Huion K20, currently USD 69.

Things included

• Shortcut remote
• USB-A for USB-C charging cable
• Zipped carrying case
• User manual

The carrying case is quite well made, and has pockets inside to store the cable.

Design

Design of the K40 looks good. Body is made with plastic with plasticky feel but overall build quality is solid enough. It doesn't feel cheap. This shortcut remove is designed to be held comfortably in hand, but you can also have it down on the table.

The symmetrical design is suitable for both left and right-handers.

This shortcut remote can be paired to two devices using Bluetooth. The switch by the side switches from power, device #1 and device #2.

On the other side is a USB-C charging port. Battery capacity is 500 mAh but I do not know the exact battery life as this is something difficult to test.

There are 10 hotkeys and two dials, all customisable with the Huion driver.

In the middle is an OLED display that shows the shortcuts for the hotkeys. Since it's possible to configure up to 48 shortcuts, having the OLED with displayed shortcut labels is helpful.

Some of the hotkeys have surface indents or extrusions to help you locate the hotkeys without having to look. The hotkeys have firm feedback and audible click when pressed.

Back of the shortcut remote has this huge rubber for extra grip on the table.

The exterior ring and internal dial can be adjusted easily with a thumb, and there's audible feedback when they are turned.

Driver

Drivers for Mac, Windows, iPad and Android are available.

This is the desktop driver, the Mac version to be specific.

Customising the hotkeys and dials is straightforward. Just click on the controls you want to configure, and set your shortcuts.

From the main page, you can change the rotation of the text displayed on the OLED display, adjust the auto-sleep time (0, 15, 30, 60, 90 minutes), and configure groups of shortcuts.

Battery life indicator is shown on the right.

CONFIGURING THE DIALS

There are four default shortcuts for the two dials:

• Zoom in and out
• Rotate the canvas
• Change brush size
• Scroll

You can only choose one of the four shortcuts for each dial. The driver does not have a function key to switch between the four shortcuts.

It is also possible to input your own keyboard shortcuts for the dials' clockwise and anti-clockwise movement.

CONFIGURING THE HOTKEYS
These are the shortcuts you can set for the hotkeys:

• Your own keyboard shortcut
• Mouse controls: left, right, middle, double clicks, wheel forward and backward
• Multimedia: Previous and next song, play/pause, volume up/down, mute
• Show/hide the driver, or functions of express keys
• Launch an app
• No function

Whether you can use combination keys depends on the driver you use. Combination keys are possible with the Windows and Android driver, not possible with Mac and iPadOS drivers.

While there are 10 hotkeys, 2 are reserved for switching between the 6 groups of shortcuts you can create. In other words, you can create 8 shortcuts in one group, or a total of 48 shortcuts across 6 groups.

For the dials, you get 2 shortcuts x 6 groups, so a total of 12 shortcuts.

You can also create groups of shortcuts specific to apps, and those shortcuts will load automatically depending on the active app. E.g. When you use Photoshop, Photoshop shortcuts will load, and when you switch to Illustrator, Illustrator shortcuts will load.

The shortcut remote can be used for drawing, navigating around the canvas, change brush size and other functions. The shortcut works well.

I've also configured shortcuts for Final Cut Pro for video editing and that worked well too. I could use the wheel to nagivate the timeline and the hotkeys for my edits.

For the Android drivers, there are pre-programmed shortcuts for

• Clip Studio Paint
• Infinite Painter
• Krita
• Lightroom
• Nomad

If the shortcuts you want for those apps are not listed, you can always input your own keyboard shortcuts.

At the time of review, 13 July 2025, with iPadOS driver v3.3.0, I could not get the driver to detect the shortcut rmote.

Comparing to the Huion Keydial Mini K20

The main difference between this vs the K20 is K40 has fewer hotkeys but can configure more shortcuts, but K20 has more hotkeys but total number of shortcuts is fewer.

To access all the shortcuts on the K40, you'll need to use the two group switch hotkeys at the bottom, and sometimes that's an inconvenience since it's an extra button press before you can use your shortcut.

Conclusion

The Huion Keydial Remote K40 looks good and works well. As to whether to choose the K40 or K20 will depend on the apps you use and your workflow. I personally prefer the older K20 design because I don't having having to press a button or two before getting other shortcuts even though the total number of shortcuts that can be configure is higher than than K20. But it's good to have more options to choose from.

Availability

The Huion Keydial Remote K40 can be purchased from Huion online store and Amazon US.

The Huion Keydial Mini K20 can be purchased from Huion online store and Amazon US. Price can go as low as USD 39.