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I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

electronicmaterialsoffice.com

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Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#11

Post by bodge5000 »

pmontra wrote: post #5

What's the purpose of the rotary encoder? On a laptop the number pad is deadly because the screen and the keyboard are fused together and to have the touchpad / spacebar aligned with the axis of the body all the laptop is shifted to the right. On desktops I seldomly use the number pad but as I can shift the keyboard to the right so I have no problem buying keyboards with it. Unfortunately it moves the mouse further a…

> What's the purpose of the rotary encoder?

Presumably thats configurable, but people usually use it for volume control which is quite nice to have

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#12

Post by bodge5000 »

Festro wrote: post #2

Looks really nice BUT: There's a split between what people online post pics of on fancy desktop setups and what people prefer to use as their daily driver. Minimal keyboards are for minimalists, and people who like to show of their setups. Just like desktop vanity posts typically have speakers, yet everyone uses headphones. Anecdotally there was a post recently on some PC subreddit asking what keyboard people preferr…

Funnily enough the only people I've seen using a fullsize keyboard for work are those using the company provided ones. Anyone who had their own had a TKL, or smaller.

I own a fullsize mechanical keyboard which I (used to) use for my personal computer, but for work I use a TKL. The only reason I have even had a fullsize at home was for Blender

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#14

Post by Festro »

jacknews wrote: post #6
Festro wrote: post #2

Looks really nice BUT: There's a split between what people online post pics of on fancy desktop setups and what people prefer to use as their daily driver. Minimal keyboards are for minimalists, and people who like to show of their setups. Just like desktop vanity posts typically have speakers, yet everyone uses headphones. Anecdotally there was a post recently on some PC subreddit asking what keyboard people preferr…

I disagree, I've been using laptop, or tenkeyless, or currently a 65-key optical mechanical keyboard, for forever. I almost never use the numpad, or pgup/home etc keys (vim user), and rarely function keys, so they just get in the way. Keyboards are quite a personal thing, I think there's room for many different designs.

That's my whole point?

Add another design, because it's personal, and just the vocal minority that show off their sleek minimalist tenkeyless keyboards.

I wouldn't suggest adding too many designs at launch though, that's obviously unsustainable. But eventually sure. I'd just start with a minimal and a 100%. To cover the core bases.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#15

Post by goosedragons »

Festro wrote: post #2

Looks really nice BUT: There's a split between what people online post pics of on fancy desktop setups and what people prefer to use as their daily driver. Minimal keyboards are for minimalists, and people who like to show of their setups. Just like desktop vanity posts typically have speakers, yet everyone uses headphones. Anecdotally there was a post recently on some PC subreddit asking what keyboard people preferr…

Eh disagree. The most I have probably used a number pad is for playing Alpha Centauri. It's pretty unnecessary IMO unless all you do is a lot of data entry which is probably a minority of jobs. I don't like the extra effort of moving off home row to hit the number pad. Only recently with my Kinesis Advantage have I really started to use it and that doesn't have a real numpad at all.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#17

Post by bk6u »

filippofinke wrote: post #4

Is it possible to remove the 'rotary encoder'? As someone who often carries his keyboard around in a backpack, I think this part can break very easily.

This would be exactly my use-case for this kind of keyboard, and it does seem counterproductive having a low-profile keyboard with a whopping rotary encoder sticking out of it. I like SouthPawEngineer's use of scroll encoders, which might be more low-profile: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/nwye70/g...
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