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Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

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Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#221

Post by crote »

hamburglar wrote: post #146

This looks incredible but I’m skeptical you can actually produce it for $250 and maintain the level of quality and features that you claim. And it appears you’re offering $100 off of that (or is that the post discount price? It’s hard to tell). I guess I will wait and see.

From what I can see it doesn't look too crazy at first glance. It doesn't seem to have any especially rare or expensive parts or features. A few complications, but that's about it. Very rough guess: $100 BOM for a few thousand units?

I reckon it's doable, but very risky. There's clearly an awful lot of work in this, so the engineering costs aren't going to be trivial. You need to sell a few thousand of them at that $250 price point to break even. On top of that, at this price point it is a luxury product. This means customers expect perfection. You can't afford any kind of QA whoopsies, and especially with a machined metal case it is a recipe for disaster.

Small DIY keebs are quite doable. Mass-produced keebs are quite doable. Boutique designer ones? Cutthroat market with zero room for errors. Stay tiny, grow huge, or go bust.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#222

Post by crote »

bsoles wrote: post #185
aemerson_ wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have spent a lot of time and effort finding manufacturing partners and ensuring they can produce Altar II at the scale and quality we require. In fact we have delayed announcing Altar II for a long time because we wanted to be absolutely certain it was manufacturable and shippable at our price points. Do also bear in mind the final retail price is $349. the $249 price is for early pre-orders only.

I am sure there are afficionados of these things, but $349 for a keyboard is crazy. I am not sure what you get in return for such a price..

It's a luxury product. People spend tens of thousands on a watch, what's a few hundred for a keyboard? In this hobby people are more than happy to pay that much for a second-hand semi-mass-produced TKL, provided it has the right switches and keycaps!

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#223

Post by crote »

ValentineC wrote: post #187

Is the battery replaceable? Or is the keyboard going to be tethered-only when the lithium battery degrades after 5-10 years?

From the renders it looks like the housing can be screwed open and the battery seems to be connected via pogo pins, so it should be user-replaceable. The biggest question is going to be: can you still source a replacement one 10 years from now?

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#224

Post by throw10920 »

ary wrote: post #49

To everyone who is about to pile on regarding the lack of a fingerprint sensor: you know it's not possible, we all know it's not possible, the creator of this project knows it's not possible. What are you adding to the conversation when you complain about it? So it's a dealbreaker for you, don't buy it. To @aemerson_: Congratulations on taking a risk. On first look this is great work. The attention to detail on both…

> To everyone who is about to pile on regarding the lack of a fingerprint sensor

This is a cheap way to try to subvert legitimate criticism by trying to shame others into not voicing their criticisms, and is exactly the opposite of what HN is intended for.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#226

Post by tomburgs »

It looks super nice. I really like the name and the design, but as others have said the numbers seem to be a bit of a turn off. It really seems to throw off the visual balance and almost seems like there's a medical reason for it, like it's for people struggling with dyscalculia or something.

Another small thing is that I would love if it was possible to swap the "caps" key for a different labeled one (or unlabeled), since it appears that there already is a caps key on the right-hand side anyways. I personally always bind control key to the caps key (stems from vim/hhkb) and it'd be nice if it was able to configure the keyboard to reflect that.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#227

Post by tomburgs »

It appears that the audio section where you can preview the different sounds (power on, charging, low battery) are not working for me.

It throws a `Uncaught (in promise) NotSupportedError: The element has no supported sources.` on `audio.play();` at the very end of main.js.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#229

Post by aemerson_ »

Scarbutt wrote: post #72
aemerson_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does! We do some firmware trickery to make the globe key behave just like the Magic Keyboard. Can you tell me what exactly you use it for? I just want to make sure we have your use case covered.

Mostly for these: https://imgur.com/a/c5ty1Ml

Ah very interesting. I will make sure these are included.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#230

Post by aemerson_ »

rc5150 wrote: post #62

there is nothing more satisfying than the thickness of the device being the same thickness of the charge cable terminal. This looks dope, looking forward to ordering in the future.

Fitting the USB-C port into it was actually a real challenge. We also have custom made USB-C housing because all the off the shelf ones were thicker than the keyboard!
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