>Sonder proudly acknowledges our partners: >Foxconn
And…? I'm missing the significance.
Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
91–100 of 237 posts
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#92Not exactly a novel idea, the optimus maximus keyboard has been a concept design in 2005 and saw a limited production run in 2007. And it supported colors to boot. I think its main problem was that it was too expensive.
Wow, I hadn't thought about the Optimus keyboard until just now, there was a lot of hype about it at the time.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#93Any chance of a Windows layout for the 90% of the market not running macOS?
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#94An interesting idea, but I just don't look at my keyboards. Even so, I can't help feeling this is a much better approach than replacing F-keys with the Mac Touchbar. The touchbar could have been a great idea if above the pre-existing keys. However, if it was a Model M chassis, sculpted full travel loud mechanical keys, E-Ink, and a modern selection of media keys and volume I'd probably buy one. Regardless of how sill…
Odd that it is based on the standard Mac keyboard. If you're going to build a premium keyboard, then why not add mechanical keys, full size arrow keys and PgUp PgDn?
Given some of the comments in another recent thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12828398) your coworkers just might kill you for using a loud keyboard (but given the construction of an IBM Model M, you will probably be able to defend yourself with it).
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
A general purpose e-ink display? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paperlike-world-s-first-e... I have one. They work fine as a second monitor (no Linux support yet though, Windows and Mac only).
Yes exactly that but affordable.
I agree that they're currently expensive. Better hope that enough people pay the early adopter cost then.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it'd be cool for programming, I have RSI and find using the shift key + another key painful. I also rarely use the number keys above the letters (I used num pad) so changing all those keys to the shit_key equivalent would be neat. And rearranging some of other keys would be great. And don't get me started on games, oooooh, how often to I buy a new game and forget what 'm' does? Knife? Grenade? Pickaxe?
Firstly: RSI is no joke - if you're experiencing pain, there's a non-zero chance it'll develop into a serious medical condition. (At MIT's Media Lab, someone's RSI got so bad he couldn't type at all and had to invent an interface using vocal phonemes to encode common OS actions/lexical keywords to control his OS (OS X) / editor (emacs) / language of choice (python)). If you feel even the slightest bit of pain, that's…
RSI made Richard Stallman stop coding. It just got too painful for him and he eventually refocused his efforts on outreach. The Internet would not be what it is today without RSI.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#97An interesting idea, but I just don't look at my keyboards. Even so, I can't help feeling this is a much better approach than replacing F-keys with the Mac Touchbar. The touchbar could have been a great idea if above the pre-existing keys. However, if it was a Model M chassis, sculpted full travel loud mechanical keys, E-Ink, and a modern selection of media keys and volume I'd probably buy one. Regardless of how sill…
Hi, appreciate the feedback; I'm one of the engineers working on the project at Sonder. Our CEO actually has a Model M and an Apple Extended Keyboard II as reference designs in the office; they're probably the pinnacle of good keyboard design and construction however the product you're asking for (a mech switch display keyboard) already exists and it costs $1500. The reality is, that approach is not optimised for mass production and we would price out most of our market (like Apple is doing now).
Once we ship the product for laptop integration, we will push out more premium designs for those used to mechs and / or gamers.
P.S The perphial keys which were static in the old design was because we had to use an existing display. Making a custom E Ink display needs to be in at least 300k minimum order quantity so we had to wait until we had a mass production order; the current design has a new display which means all the keys are remappable.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#98An interesting idea, but I just don't look at my keyboards. Even so, I can't help feeling this is a much better approach than replacing F-keys with the Mac Touchbar. The touchbar could have been a great idea if above the pre-existing keys. However, if it was a Model M chassis, sculpted full travel loud mechanical keys, E-Ink, and a modern selection of media keys and volume I'd probably buy one. Regardless of how sill…
The 'cloud connected' stuff is an obnoxious gimmick, but Das's upcoming 5q is pretty close to what you're looking for: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229573443/das-keyboard...
It's a small thing but a lot of editors who travel from studio to studio will have their own work process, it's very specific to power users; which this product is designed for. If the feature is a gimmick to you, it's fine; but others really appreciate it and in testing with video editors etc it's something we get a ton of feedback for including.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#99Not exactly a novel idea, the optimus maximus keyboard has been a concept design in 2005 and saw a limited production run in 2007. And it supported colors to boot. I think its main problem was that it was too expensive.
Perhaps, but as you said it costs 10x more. To design the concept so it a consumer who wants a dynamic keyboard to cost less than his terminal; actually takes a lot of novel engineering on a hardware, firmware and software side. The challenge is, to make it look not novel, to make it look obvious, simple even.
P.S I work with the CTO on the project; they read HN also.
Re: Sonder E-Ink Keyboard
#100Hi HN, I'm one of the engineers working on the project, if you have any questions please ask.
Any plans on releasing a version that is not tied to the apple ecosystem? ("super/windows" vs "option", "command" vs "alt") Why are those not configurable, as well? Are "fn" and "control" swappable?
The peripheral keys which were static in the old design was because we had to use an existing display. Making a custom E Ink display needs to be in at least 300k minimum order quantity and a $500k NRE so we had to wait until we had a mass production order; the current design has a new display which means all the keys are remappable.
It wasn't lazy design, just a compromise we had to make until we had the capital.