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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

#111

Post by magicalhippo »

badRNG wrote: post #93
layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

> and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I'll bite; how useful is the Menu key really? Is there something in your workflow that is benefitted by having it? Totally agree with Home/End/Insert/Delete being required on any keyboard I use.

It has saved me many times when the mouse failed. Especially in RDP sessions where the cursor sometimes develops an offset, ie click location is suddenly a fixed number of pixels away from the cursor tip, making it incredibly difficult to click on things.

I also use it every now and then to change things up when I feel the RSI sneaking.

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

#112

Post by gwd »

I've been using the HHKB bluetooth keyboard as my main driver for over a year now. My feedback:

* I don't miss the arrow keys at all actually; if you haven't tried it, you could experiment with getting rid of them and seeing how you feel. That makes all "cursor move" operations consistently chorded (with the fn key, naturally).

* The HHKB allows you to connect to five devices simultaneously: 4 bluetooth devices and the USB-C connection. It allows you to switch between them with a single key chord (Fn-Control-). I've found this really nice now that I'm forced to use a company laptop for my main work, as I can keep my personal laptop up and switch between them very quickly. A switch would be OK but would probably feel fiddly and annoying by comparison (and there's a risk of it wearing out if someone switches too often).

Other than that, looks like a cool addition to the solution space -- good luck and I hope it goes well!

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

#115

Post by noisy_boy »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #42

Got a MX Keys keyboard from Logitech and, for better or for worse, it's been so good that it set a standard for me regarding keyboards. While I was considering it saw some other Logitech keyboards that had a knob for volume control/etcetera, which I feel like it would be a much more sane approach regarding the low profile aspect than this 'rotary encoder' thing. Also, as someone said, some lateral buttons would've be…

I have been using the Keychron Q6 knob variant[0] - can totally vouch for having the knob. Having a hardware control to deal with volume that works across various DEs on Linux is so much convenient.

[0]: https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q6-qmk-custom-mec...

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

#116

Post by rodrigodlu »

alanbernstein wrote: post #67

Looks nice. I would not call this "ultra low profile". That isn't really possible with mechanical switches. Even with mechanical switches, there are alternatives that are thinner, like the keytron/keychron line. The k1 would be the perfect keyboard for me, if it actually worked reliably. Like someone else said, it's not easy to gauge the size of this one from the graphics on the landing page.

I'm considering a k1, what kind of reliability issues you're talking about?

I'm using an MX Keys with the Logitech dongle, it's slick without any lag (except sometimes when I have multiple Bluetooth connected things nearby + 20 visible Wi-Fi networks from my neighbors, then I can just make sure the dongle is closer).

But using the Bluetooth mode it's only as slick connecting to MacBooks, or to specific Wi-Fi/Bluetooth cards (AX201 is fine, The original Broadcom is shit).

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

#117

Post by elliotpage »

mromanuk wrote: post #101
kerblang wrote: post #46

Web site advice: The spinning graphic is cool but it's very hard to get a decent look at the whole thing. I even tried clicking to pause it. It seems like all the pictures are partial or moving. As the keyboard goes: As others have noted, it would be really nice to see this design approach taken to a more full-sized standard keyboard. I think it's necessary to have some kind of tactile thing between function keys - a…

More Website advice: - the text is too big - Add padding to text and images - Add space between elements (look crowded) - too much moving stuff: Loose the marquee text Pictures and videos looks awesome, the product looks superb, love the concept of having different height for keys. Congratulations on your launch!

I am sorry, but I strongly disagree.

The Marquee text is what catapulted the site from "This is nice" to "This is Art" for me.

But then again I am more viewing the page as a piece of performance art than an actual attempt to sell me a keyboard!

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

#118

Post by micheljansen »

I really like the aesthetic, both of the product and your website. One point of feedback, since you ask: the website makes it really hard to get a sense of the material. You describe it uses recycled machined aluminium for the body and some polymer, but it's really hard to get a sense of the actual hardware from the CGI renders. One thing that especially jumped out at me was that in the videos, such as this one: https://electronicmaterialsoffice.com/video/Turntable_mobile... there appears to be some kind of film grain overlaid on the video. This makes it really difficult to assess the texture of the material.

Oh and I really like the idea of having a physical switch for multiple Bluetooth paired devices.

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

#120

Post by lewisflude »

Beautiful design language, great functionality and thoughtful SKUs.

Good luck with the launch/release. As someone who designs keyboards, I think the design space outside of the "core hobbyist" market is super interesting. This looks like a great keyboard that would look great on the desk of people who value aesthetics, ergonomics and good design.

I'm a big fan of your principles and the overall presentation of this project.

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