AirTurn PED 500 Bluetooth Pedal Page Turner

AirTurn PED 500: Reliable and Versatile – A Gigging Musician’s Must-Have

This is a review of AirTurn PED 500.

I’ve been using the AirTurn PED 500 for 3–4 hour band gigs and long practices, and it has become an essential part of my setup. I use it with a Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (2nd Gen) running the Chords.Wiki app (formerly Guitar Tap), and it is significantly more reliable than trying to swipe a screen with my fingers mid-song. No surprising page skips!

Performance & Feel: The button has a subtle resistance. While it’s not a sharp “click,” it provides enough tactile feedback that I can feel the activation through my shoe. The size is perfect for "blind-tapping"—I never have to look down to find the buttons while I'm performing. The Bluetooth connection has been rock solid with both my tablet and my phone.

Customization & App: The AirTurn Manager App is very versatile. You can program modes 2 through 7 (mode 7 is for MIDI), and I love that you can back up and share your custom modes with other units. Switching modes on the fly is easy just by long-pressing the mode button on the device. One small gripe: the app doesn’t seem to have a specific manual for this exact model yet, but it's intuitive enough to figure out.

Battery & Power Management: I get about 8+ hours of continuous use before needing a charge. The USB-C charging is robust and fast. I especially appreciate the granular auto-shutoff timer (5 mins to "Never"). I set mine to 2 hours so I don’t need to deal with unexpected power-off during a break at the performance. Note: There is a low-power mode for "regular" response, but you can disable it if you need "fast" response. For me, the regular response mode has been adequate.

Versatility: Beyond the stage, I use this for video editing at home. Mapping repetitive keystrokes to the pedal frees up my hands for the keyboard and mouse, which is a huge workflow win.

Minor Downside: I wish it came with a protective case. Because it’s so thin, the power switch can sometimes get bumped "on" in my bag. A case helps protect the finish and the battery life during travel. For now, I am using a small notebook case as a carry case. (see pic.)

Overall: Highly recommended for any performer or editor looking for a durable and reliable and easy to use foot controller

Airturn PED 500 review

This pedal works very well and is easy to use, with a mere foot tap. It makes changing pages hands free and consistent. I like the slight clicking sound which is barely audible but it does provide a reassuring tactile response when operating the foot pedal. The size is also worth to note that it is rather small which makes it light weight and portable but smaller pads make for a smaller foot target area. Battery life is also outstanding even after several uses.

Works Great with ChartBuilder!

Picked this up to use with ChartBuilder, to turn the lyric pages on my iPad. If you're not running Playback in the MultiTracks system and just manually using ChartBuilder as we do, this tool is super helpful toward being able to turn the page with your foot, since you're using both hands to play an instrument (bass guitar in my case).

Basic setup could not be any simpler.. just enable pairing on the device, find it in your iPad and connect... very similar to pairing Bluetooth headphones, etc. The PED 500 does offer some more advanced connection options you could take advantage of too, if needed for your specific situation.

From there, if you're using ChartBuilder you can choose the AirTurn device under the "External Controller" settings, then just "map" the left/right functions and you're done!

One other thing I really like about this AirTurn page turner compared to other page turner devices.... this device stays "awake" for 2 hours. The problem we had with a competing device, is the device would go to sleep after 30 minutes... so when we come back on stage after a 45 minute message, the old device would be asleep and occasionally would not reconnect... however, with this one not going to sleep until the 2-hour mark, it keeps it awake more than long enough so that it keeps connection well longer than the 45 minutes between our full and ending sets.

Well built, easy to set up, easy to use... no complaints and all praise for this pedal!

Versatile, very easy to pair.

First off, this is tiny! Which is amazing, it travels really well.

My husband does a lot of presentations and has greatly appreciated using this. I do a lot of computer work and oddly enough this has been helpful! Also, I had not used online music for the reason of having to stop (online sheet music, that is) to turn the page. I have books that I have opened up and it's not always the most graceful. This makes it SO much easier and all the home clutter of music books (bass, piano, mandolin, ukulele, steel whistle - yes I am a music hoarder) can start to abate.

I am really impressed. So far the battery life has exceeded expectations. It feels solid, it's easy to navigate (very straight forward) and it's a a very integral part of both my work and personal/hobby lives.

Bluetooth Page Turner

This pedal is easy to use. It functions as a bluetooth page turner. I have several bluetooth page turners with more features, but this one works very well. The quality is also better compared to other turners. The battery life is good and the price is reasonable. I highly recommend downloading the app and watch the tutorial on YouTube.

Some improvements can be lesser noise when clicked and maybe the right size button can be bigger and higher so one can distinguish from left without looking. Also more compatible programs and more programmable commands will be great so this can be used for recording, music writing, and other features.

U's Reviews

September 26, 2025

Works Great For Presentations

This thing is awesome! Not sure why I never thought of this. I am often giving presentations where I want or need to use my hands. Trying to control a slide and do this can result in fumbling the object or having to keep setting down and picking up the slide controller. Now with a tap of my foot I can easilt go back and forth through the slides without needing my hands.

It took all of 15 seconds to get it connected to my pc. It couldn't be easier. WHen you turn it on it will automatically put itself in "find" mode for the bluetooth connection. My pc linked up and it immediately acted exactly as I had expected it to. The controls are super intuitive being only 2 "buttons". The one on the left goes backward, the one on the right goes forward.

I have not seen the end of the battery on this yet. I have used it for two 2 hour presentations without charging and it was working fine when I decided to plug it back in. I fyou recharge after use, I do not see the battery becoming and issue for most people.

The pedal can also apparently be used for composing music. I have not tried to do this, and have only used it in the world of power point, but I could see this working really well in a home studio as a foot pedal for a guitar.

The controller isn't cheap, but it does seem to be well made and well designed, so i will say you probably get what you pay for here. It is easy to use and connect to a pc, lightweight and easy enough to slip in a messenger bag or backpack, and super functional.

Great device, works with my Ultimate Guitar App

I got this to use with my ultimate guitar app so that I could scroll through songs with a foot pedal instead of having to swipe down with my hand (which forces me to pause a moment while playing). This does exactly what I was hoping it would do. It took me a bit to figure out how to set it up and configure it to the way I wanted but I was able to do it. There is minimal / no noticeable lag with the pedal and the scrolling. The pedal itself is pretty small about 6 inches wide. The battery life seems quite good as I charged it once and used it for quite a while without issue. If I was playing a gig and using it I’d probably charge it ahead of time just to be safe though. Overall this is a useful device if one is reading music and needs the music to switch pages or scroll without using your hand.

Loud Switches & No Virtual Keyboard — Poor User Experience

I wanted to like this pedal, but it’s been frustrating in actual use.

Switches are loud. Every press makes a distinct audible click, which is distracting during practice or performance. For something marketed as quiet, it’s disappointing.

No virtual keyboard. When the pedal is connected, the on-screen keyboard won’t pop up in music apps. That means if you want to type notes or make changes, you have to physically turn the pedal off first. Huge workflow killer.

Battery issues. It arrived uncharged, and even after charging, the battery drains quickly. This feels like a bad lithium cell.

Limited app support. It doesn’t work with Ultimate Guitar, which was one of my main intended uses.

For the price, I expected a polished, gig-ready tool. Instead, it feels unfinished and inconvenient.

PopCat

September 13, 2025

Great Hands-Free Page Turner or MIDI Controller

AirTurn makes some great products - I have an older BT200 stomp box-style unit I’ve used for years to control my iPad using the Forscore app for sheet music.

This newer model has much of the same functionality but it’s quieter and a bit slicker. The unit connects easily via BlueTooth and using it is pretty straightforward for most applications. For the best results download the AirTurn app which gives you access to firmware updates and a host of other options and adjustments which can be tailored to your specific usage.

In addition to sending keyboard commands the pedal will also send MIDI commands when configured correctly in the AirTurn app. This works pretty seamlessly with a Mac but you’ll need a MIDI over BlueTooth driver or dongle to use the MIDI mode with Windows.

Great Blue Tooth Page Turner

First observation, there is a significant size difference between the Air Turn and the Donner pedals. The AirTurn pedal is much more compact but still large enough to easily press the pedal switches. The AirTurn is much easier to transport because of the size. One of the issues with the Donner pedal was, from time to time, because of the way the on/off switch and the mode switches were located and positioned, with an errant push on one of the Donner pedals, I could either turn off the pedal or switch modes, a real distraction during a performance. The Air Turn resolves this issue by using touch sensitive switches unaffected by an errant foot placement. The Air Turn paired with both devices quickly. After spending some time configuring the modes I was familiar with (the Air Turn is not very intuitive and the quick start guide included with the unit not very helpful) I got the pedal to scroll and play backing tracks. The pedal options in OnSong are a little intimidating, but the Air Turn apparently is capable of many more modes of operation than I use. Just another observation, this pedal is made in the USA.

Works great with forScore

I’m just a hobbyist, not a professional piano player, but this page turner has been a total game changer for me. I keep all my music stored, in the forScore app, and until now I was either lifting my hand to touch my iPad or using the voice accessibility feature to turn pages. Now, with just a tap of my foot, the page turns effortlessly … forward or back … without interrupting my playing.

I love that it has grip so it doesn’t slide around on the floor, and that it connected to forScore via Bluetooth easily. It’s sleek and super portable, which I imagine makes it even more appealing for professional musicians, but it’s been amazing for me as a casual player. Absolutely love this little device!