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 the keyboard and the website is really impressive.
Not defending anyone using Touch ID as a reason to complain about this -- I think it looks like a great keyboard -- but just yesterday I saw this super cool alternative to the hilarious "buy the world's most expensive mediocre membrane keyboard to tear out a tiny part" idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3lk-PNA6I
As near as I can understand it, macOS supports a smart card reader (and apparently will defer to its sign-off for authentication duties when it's present and configured, and Touch ID isn't), so if you emulate a smart card reader you can make your own fingerprint sensor and have it say "I'm a smart card" and sign challenges like a smart card does.
The creator is very up front that this isn't equivalently secure for preserving state secrets, as if you carefully tear this device apart you can just short the pins that the sensor part connects when it's happy with the fingerprint. On the other hand, it is hilarious that anyone who isn't a person of interest for the CIA, Mossad, MI6, or FSB would think they're important enough for someone to go to the trouble of using that method to unlock their secrets. Anyone else would just club you over the head or slip you a mickey, and stick your unconscious finger on your fingerprint sensor.
People are raising a good point RE Touch ID. It is possible to add a fingerprint sensor. But that fingerprint sensor will never be able to do the things that Touch ID is most useful for: i.e. use Apple Pay. It would be incredibly confusing to have a fingerprint sensor that was usable for some things and not for others. Therefore the better experience today is to not include a fingerprint sensor at all, imo.
Congrats on the great job with the Altar II. If I didn't already have too many keyboards, I'd hop on the Kickstarter!
FWIW, I fully agree with your opinion on including a `half working` fingerprint sensor.
I have an Apple Watch, but kept that feature off because I didn't want the possibility of someone else being able to fiddle with my MacBook when I'm near enough for the watch unlock to trigger.
Unfortunately, I would place this in the 'Sometimes but don't count on it' half of the "Things Apple Watch has Proven Itself Reliable For" list.
(The only non-timekeeping items on the 'Always works perfectly' part of the list are Apple Pay and the little button that dings your phone when you've misplaced it.)
A fingerprint sensor isn't possible, appreciated, but what about a U2F activation button? It could even just be a wireless pass-through for USB to allow your yubikey to work for example (I'm certain this can be done on Linux but unsure about other oses)
My favorite keyboard for years was the Dell SK-8135. It had media buttons without messing with your function keys, a volume knob, and two USB ports!
For a long time I would argue (as an IT support person who would have to support your wireless keyboard problems) that having a wireless keyboard was wasteful and unnecessary if you never used it more than 3 feet from your computer anyway.
You could do all that and maybe after many hours it might work, or you could also solve this in 5 minutes by just plug in the magic keyboard to the computer, stick it in a box with a cut out for the touchid sensor, and just stick your mechanical keyboard on top of the box.
“requires a donor [Apple Magic] keyboard” is not the same as a third party making a Touch ID-compatible sensor. That’s Apple making a Touch ID-compatible sensor and a third party taking it out and putting it in another keyboard.
This does not qualify as a third party Touch ID compatible keyboard.
Yeah, but it’s a third party mechanical keyboard with a Touch ID sensor.
I suppose if one came across a pile of old / broken Magic keyboards, they could extract a bunch of Touch ID sensors and sell those to a keyboard manufacturer (or in their own keyboard). This does not scale, obviously, but including it as an option could work.
I've built about 10 mechanical keyboards so far, including a bunch of split ergo ones and low profile variants too. From that, I know the layout matters a lot, as well as the switches themselves; the programability and other features to me are nice but ultimately can be worked around.
I'm curious about the switches you're using. On the tech specs it says:
"Dual steel arm scissor switch w/ retention spring, 40gf actuation force"
Are they custom switches then? If so, are they most similar to current Magic Keyboard switch feel, or something Choc or MX low profile, or their own thing altogether?
The switches feel like a M-Series MacBook with a decent amount more travel and more "snappy", tactile feeling. They feel quite different to, for example, Choc switches (which we used on our previous keyboard).
I actually like the number font, the presence, but the loss of visibility for the shifted symbols is a huge loss. I know where the numbers are -- I admittedly need more reminding for the symbols as I never explicitly practiced them. The muscle memory for them isn't quite as strong and in low light I need to see them.
One of my absolute favorite keyboard designs: G915 TKL Lightspeed got relegated to the donation pile because the symbols were NOT backlit. Such a dumb design choice to save a few cents IMHO.
Love the design and have also wanted a super low profile mechanical keyboard like this! I have one question though - what is the travel or activation distance of the keys?
The one thing I actually like about the magic keyboard or Microsoft's designer keyboard is that the "click" is immediate and the entirety travel distance of the key is the activation bump. I dislike any amount of the "extra" travel distance (I'm not sure if I'm using the right words/description, but I hope you get what I mean) of regular mechanical switches and is the main thing that turns me off from them.
Oh also, is it possible to get a Windows version or switch the keys around to accommodate Windows as well?
What you are referring to is called the pre-travel distance. There are mechanical key options with very short pre-travel, such as the Cherry MX and Kailh Silver switches. They're mainly used for gaming.
The travel distance on the Altar II switches is 1.8mm, so about 0.8mm more than on a MacBook keyboard. Similar to those keyboards, there is very little pre-travel on Altar II keys.
With regard to Windows keys that is a possibility. We shipped our previous keyboard, Altar I, with both Mac and Windows markings on the keys.
Love the keyboard, looks solid. Out of curiosity, why did you make the numbers so big? It looks like an intentional design choice and I don’t know if I like it, but I’m wondering if there’s reasoning behind it that could change my mind
Yeah it seems like if they wanted to make it appeal to Apple people they would make it more consistent and subtle. It's all so clean and then the numbers look like they came off a special calculator for people with failing eyesight.
Thank you so much! A genuinely silly amount of time went into the website.
If you'll indulge me for a moment, because I never get to talk about this stuff: the corner radii of the cards on the site are actually "squircles" rather than perfect rounded corners. To me this is much more pleasing to the eye. The squircles are achieved by creating a PNG mask which is then 9-sliced and expanded to mask off the edge of the cards. Another mask is used for the stroke and laid on top of the first mask, to give the gradient border effect.
Is there any way to prop it up so it doesn't lay flat against the table?
I have round foam adhesive dots stuck to the bottom of my current Apple keyboards. It works, but it's an obvious deficiency in the design. Every other keyboard on the market has tilt.
Looks great, but at this point I’m too used to HHKB layout on custom MX/topre boards to go back to full time typical 65%/75% layouts. Standard Delete/Backspace position in particular is almost grating now. Totally understand if that’s too niche of a market to serve, though.
The switches look a lot like the new ultra low profile Cherry switches that Alienware was putting on their laptops a few years ago, is that what they are?
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.
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 don't even know if this is going to be a big or a tiny ask, and I don't know if I'm going to end up with this beautiful product at all, but just in case it's going to be trivial to do so, could you add an option or extra keycaps to have Caps Lock key physically engraved as "Control"? IIUC the ctrl-caps swap itself isn't so rare, but actual keycaps engraved as such seem to be relatively rare.
It's apparently a UNIX thing, and old Apple, NeXT, some of DEC, Sun, HP UNIX, Sony NEWS, even IBM XT, many of modern Mac JIS, etc. seem to/did/do have the legends for that key as "Control", "CTRL", or "Ctrl". I think that adds even more to the cool factor.
Caps Lock is such a tragic throwback. Even after decades of ridicule "Caps lock is cruise control for cool" keyboard designers don't get that we don't want it.
This is absolutely fantastic, but those gigantic numbers are just bizarre and not at all good to look at. They feel completely out of place there, like you enlarged them by mistake. Not good.
This looks beautiful. While obviously a Mac keyboard, to what extent is it compatible with Linux?
Will there be documentation of its features beyond a standard Bluetooth HID, such that users could potentially develop software that utilizes the speaker and haptic feedback mechanisms?
At this point - make it a tool for agentic work. Leds that tell you that some agent is idle/working and needs attention. Clickable = open the right terminal etc. And dictation button, some cool PTS kind :)
Maybe even something like a small LCD display, and it could be touch sensitive so you could switch directly to an agent? Like ... the Touch Bar? :)
(I always liked the idea of the Touch Bar, but in practice I only used it to change the volume. I still miss that, though. Now I have to Opt-Shift-Volume to try to get the right volume, which is always halfway between the options somehow.)
Good question on the haptics. There's no feedback when press most of the keys. But there is some feedback when you do things like turn the dial, or complete a shortcut (e.g. cmd + c). This is all configurable in the companion app as well.
Opened the site, thought it was teenage engineering... Which is a compliment to me, because I always love their designs! Unfortunately as a HHKB user I'm not a fan of low profile keyboards otherwise I would've bought this.
I’m assuming it’s not possible for it to include a fingerprint sensor?
As much as I’d like a mechanical keyboard for my Mac that’s always the part that gets me. I end up using the one my Magic Keyboard 20+ times per workday.
Unfortunately not possible, at least not securely, and not in a way that users would expect. I really tried.
We could include _a_ fingerprint sensor, and even include a special secure/tamper-proof chip, but it would never be able to work with things like Apple Pay. It would probably be able to do some things like log you in to your Mac by spoofing itself as a card reader or secure key. But because we can’t communicate with Apple’s Secure Enclave it would never be a seamless experience.
Maybe someday Apple could open up Touch ID like they do with Find My. But for now it’s pretty much a non-starter.
Yes, agreed. Beautiful keyboard, but when I heard "magic" I hoped to find a touch ID. That sensor so useful that even though I use a mechanical keyboard, I keep an apple magic keyboard off to the side of my desk just for the touch ID sensor.
What I'd love to have is a standalone touch ID sensor that I could attach anywhere -- mechanical keyboard, side of the monitor, under my desk, etc. I guess this is bottlenecked by Apple's IP on the device, so I've considered just hacking one together by deconstructing and extracting an Apple keyboard...
You have to carefully tear down and extract the touch id sensor, and then remount it in a box. I went the battery route so it could stay wireless. The tradeoff is the box is bigger.
> In my setup my laptop is close enough that I can reach out and use the fingerprint reader on it.
Some mechanical keyboards ship with an embedded USB hub that supports a couple of USB ports that allow users to pick and choose what devices to plug in.
Not arguing with the general usefulness of the USB hub, but Apple chooses to make their Touch ID sensor 100% proprietary, so the inclusion of a hub is a separate topic to the comment you're quoting. There's no USB Touch ID reader, other than a whole dang Apple-branded keyboard (which is wireless but will work as a USB device).
I use my MacBook in clamshell mode 80% of the time, and password autofill just takes over by itself. Fingerprint ID is nice, but my mechanical keyboard is nicer.
The thing I find most attractive about mechanical keyboards is that they send a keypress when a key is only partially pressed down. When combined with the tactile bump and audible click created by actuating the key, this means that typing on a mechanical keyboard is much less fatiguing than using a rubber dome or laptop keyboard because you're only pushing the key down partially until you feel the bump and hear the click rather than slamming your finger into the bottom of the keyboard. Does your keyboard still have this feature even with the slim profile?
I believe you are referring to the "pre-travel" of the key and yes, Altar II has a very small amount of pre-travel actually. This is partially due to it having such a small vertical travel.
You should check into hall effect mechanical keyboards. They can have a floating actuation point for retrigger that is based on detecting press, partial release, press. It's really pretty cool.
The battery is in the logo side, correct. In fact most of that entire area is taken up by the battery! We did expand vertically that area slightly as you can see, to allow for a slightly thicker batter.
This is so sick. I'm almost convincing myself to get it but I feel like I would really miss my 36% keyboard with multiple layers too much. Still tho...
I am a big fan of the original Altar. I like that you’ve been trying new things with that design like the novel keycap profile.
The switches look like cherry ultra low profile switches. I’ve not tried these out, how do they feel compared to the linear kailh choc v1’s you used before.
They feel quite different to the Chocs, unsurprisingly. Although the required actuation force is close to the Choc Reds (40gf on our switch vs 50gf on the Choc Reds), because it's spread over such a small vertical travel it feels much "snappier". There is also very little pre-travel. It's kind of like a much sharper/tactile feeling chiclet switch with more vertical travel, if that makes sense.
Great concept! I need eu layout with the extra button next to the left shift. Why I would buy is essentially. Thin, premium typing experience, accessibility features. Don't need the fancy dials, stick out buttons, or a speaker. Dim it down, and it would be perfect
Very cool looking, but there is an ocean of mechanical keyboards already available with the US keyboard layout. I would explore making ISO international versions. That market is underserved. Because I wanted a mechanical keyboard with a CAN/CSA Z243.200-92 layout with Mac modifiers, I had to design my own layout in SVG for a Max Keyboards custom job. Keep in mind, I did not want to design my own, but I had to!
Je suis gaucher, et j'ai fait le choix idiot quand j'étais jeune de mettre ma souris à gauche. C'est un choix très étrange, mais ça fait en sorte que je n'ai jamais eu à me troubler des touches supplémentaires à droite. Sont juste là, accessible, et pas dans mon chemin. Mon clavier est de pleine taille sans enjeu ergonomique pour moi.
J’utilise également une trackball à gauche de mon clavier à cause de douleurs à mon épaule droite.
L’avantage de Lafayette est que toutes les touches sont dans les deux blocs 3x5 du clavier.
C’est plus ergonomique, la gestion des accents est beaucoup plus logique et confortable et le layer des symboles est clairement fait pour faciliter les déplacements vi.
C’est le meilleur layout Qwerty pour développeurs francophones.
For those in the comment section looking for a split alternative to this, there is this Kickstarter(be warned of the usual problems with Kickstarters):
I love it when people obsessively iterate over something seemingly trivial until it's exactly what they want. This looks amazing, congrats on the launch. I love mechanical keys, but I keep coming back to the Magic keyboard because mechanical keyboards are so clunky. I would order this in a heartbeat if it was available with a nordic layout
> ... but I keep coming back to the Magic keyboard because mechanical keyboards are so clunky
For a laptop or for a desktop? For a desktop the keyboard sits its entire life on the... desk?
And a laptop happens to have its own keyboard. The only people I know who use an external keyboard with a laptop do it precisely because they want a particular mechanical switch / keyboard layout.
Are there people taking their Magic keyboard with them in their backpack or car or whatever just to hook it to a laptop? I don't think many do that.
So you find a keyboard on a desk looks clunky? Do you need a "not clunky" keyboard to take pictures you post on Instagram?
I've got a 60% mechanical keyboard on my desk: its footprint is smaller than some Magic keyboard versions. And, well, vertically there's room on my desk.
For Apple folks I guess, but would be nice to see a pointing stick. Trackpoint keyboards are becoming difficult to find and a suitable replacement would be an instant buy.
Love what you did, the dedication for 2 years to launch this is awesome. Apple keyboards are near-horrific IMO so you are filling an important niche for sure. I know it is a silly complaint in the mech KB space but the price compared to something like a Keychron K3 makes this a no-go for my preferences. The K3 is very close to what I'd consider suitable as a daily driver at work.
Thank you for including audio of the typing!!!! Again this is my preference, the Alter II is not "thocky" enough for what I like to hear. Clacky and Clicky keyboards are just far too distracting or painful to listen to for extended periods.
Also interesting to see a speaker built-in. I'd have cut it for cost and space.
I visited a mechanical keyboard shop, tried about 20 of them including low profile variants, then visited an Apple shop. Both shops allowed me to sit down and measure my typing speeds on a computer over many trials.
The apple magic keyboard, full-size, gives me about 10-20% faster typing speeds. Over the previous three years I had only used mechanical keyboards.
I also found it very aesthetically pleasing to type on, rivalled only by the Logitech pebble in terms of subjective feel. There's something about feeling the whole aluminium frame and plastic membrane flex when I hit a key hard that I find pleasing in a way that isn't matched by many other keyboards.
I bought one, and it's the only piece of apple hardware I own. My 3 mechanical keyboards are collecting dust.
Thank you, and what you say is completely fair. The Keychron K3 is an excellent keyboard and certainly gets the job done for many people. I would actually argue Altar II is excellent value at $249, especially when you consider the materials, special components, and scale we are at.
Altar II is quite a quiet keyboard, and there is a special sandwich of materials specifically designed to make it as quiet as possible.
The built-in speaker is interesting. Really it's just there because it's fun, and its nice to get the odd bleep or chime when your keyboard connects or begins charging.
Looks great, but sadly no fingerprint sensor is a deal breaker for me. I know it's not actually possible, so not your fault, but it's not for me. I rely on that thing way too much.
When I saw the announcement I was kinda hoping that they were taking a magic keyboard, tearing it apart and adding the extra hardware to make having this possible.
I respect that you're doing a single variant up front, and I understand the business challenges and risks of going wide on a niche product like this... but as a single datapoint, I'll pay double for an ortholinear with similar features and style.
This looks awesome! The thing I'd want to know is how much of the configuration lives on firmware vs. in the macOS app? If the app is a thin config editor and the mappings remain on-device, that's very different than if the dial and haptics stop working when a future macOS release breaks the app. Also, is there any commitment on firmware being flashable/open if the company someday isn't around?
Everything lives on the keyboard itself. The app just configures files on the device, basically. The keyboard also works without the app of course. This approach has the added benefit of making your configuration portable. For example if you remap your dial, and move to a different computer, your remapped dial will persist.
There are a couple of small quality-of-life features that do require the app: for example if you want haptic feedback when you receive a notification. This is because the keyboard has no idea what is happening on your OS, and requires some middleware. But all the core functionality requires no app at all.
Both Altar I and Altar II firmware are based on the open-source ZMK (https://zmk.dev). We try to contribute back to ZMK whenever we can because we have benefitted so much from it. Two members of our team are also long-standing ZMK contributors.
What a beautiful device. Few questions:
Will it be okay for someone who switches between devices and OSes often? Can I have layers that I can swap between like on a VIA board?
What is the click latency?
Is USB just for charging or can I use it without BT?
Thank you so much. It means a lot to hear that. We're a very small team (1 full time, 3 part time) so going up against a company worth five trillion dollars is quite daunting!
Right? When Apple expects $149 minimum for their extremely mediocre membrane keyboard, and its only feature is the one they cheat to keep exclusive, it's embarrassing how much better a tiny team can do.
I love this. I type with one hand, & I find mechanical keyboards with lots of travel very difficult because of the speed I type at and the depth that you need to make the key activate. It's a shame about the lack of fingerprint sensor - I wonder if there's any projects out there where you could rescue one from a donor keyboard & just put that in a small profile case nearby?
Hey, hooray! I still have my switch-modded Altar I but it ended up being too tall for me, so this is a surprisingly great discovery for my morning. Looking forward to trying a new keyboard :D
Out of curiosity, what exactly is a "fully mechanical scissor switch"? And is this the first such switch on the market? If I search for other such products I can only find "metal scissor switch over rubber dome" style.
Looks amazing. Would've been crazy good to include a few OLED keys a la Optimus Maximus [0], which has forever been a dream, even with all the negative reviews.
Sold me one, even though it doesn’t have Touch ID. It can be forgiven given the rest.
The mdial is amazing. The Nixie tube numbers are fun. The sleekness. And this website with all demo’s is really well made. Also the “about” site is cool.
You were not underpromising when stating Apple didn’t spend enough energy here. This is a leap. And I fully trust you’ll deliver.
If anything, why not work at Apple after this adventure and get these things (or another next level keyboard) out at massive scale?
Absolutely love the design, features, website, attention to detail, and just...taste. It's been quite a while since I mashed that reserve button so quickly haha. Hope it lives up to the design and looks!
Looks beautiful, congrats on the launch! I've been looking for a replacement for my Apple Magic keyboard. I would love to buy one, but ISO layout is a must for me, also would like blank or swappable keycaps.
There aren't many Mac layout mechanical keyboards out there. This is an addition to the very few choices out there. I don't know why you feel the need to shit on it.
Part of the reason for the overwhelming praise is because this is a “Show HN” thread[0]. People liked the amount of effort put in. Keyboards are highly personal anyways, so I wouldn’t be surprised that an average person would disagree with a few design decisions here.
Maybe a bit (a lot) overboard with the marketing snazz on this page.
it's a keyboard
It's not a miracle.
If you're going to have all this 3D imagery, put a glTF model viewer on the page, and let me look at it.
though to be told, I definitely want one. low profile keyboards are indeed my jam. I don't know why the hell keyboards need to have batteries though. No one needs a wireless keyboard. Wires are not that much of a pain in the ass. Coiled, self-retracting keyboard cables are a thing. Keyboards do not need to be wireless. Wires are fine, I promise! Wireless mouse? Sure. Wires make the mouse move when you don't want it to move. Wireless credential entry device? Those should remain wired, I think.
This is very cool and it looks like a lot of effort went into it. Personally, I like the high profile clunky mechanical keyboard experience, so it's probably not for me, but I really hope this does well.
I also really hate Apples decision to put the FN key in the bottom left corner, but I understand following their layout. I always swap the ctrl and fn keys on my Apple devices, so I assume you could do the same thing here.
Why do you need screenshot button for programming? How many times do you press it?
You can just use fn button for that.
People are programming on a 36-key keyboards just fine and they don't miss any keys.
It's easier to press fn + something than reaching out for screenshot button, which is usually far away. That way, you don't have to move your hands.
The cognitive load of having to press two keys takes its toll and breaks flow, even though it doesn't seem like it should make a difference, at least in my experience. I'm back to TKL or larger.
you can do it using any button you like. lots of keyboards are entirely remappable. i don't understand how/why one saying they never touch these buttons is some kind of flex, like it's somehow superior to avoid using some keys or something.
If we did a numpad I would probably do it as a separate device. Personally I don't like how the numpad sits between the edge of my keyboard and mouse. I'd prefer it to the left of my keyboard or to the right side of my mouse.
Cramming the fn key into the sacred ctrl-alt-cmd triumvirate is disagreeable. Would require learning and remapping. I prefer fn to be distant as I have chorded for decades with the said trio.
It's kind of like a M-series Mac keyboard but with substantially more travel on the key (we have about 0.5mm more travel), and more of a more definitive sense of when the key is actuated. It's a much more tactile experience than the MacBook keyboards, but that is still the closest comparison.
I was really excited about Altar I, but no shipping to Brazil, so I gave up on it. Nice to see the idea continues (consider worldwide shipping would be my only feedback on the idea, I guess).
I now own a Logitech MX Keys S and I'm quite happy with it.
Great work! Have you, or do you intend to, write about the process of bringing this to fruition? Would love to learn more about how a polished bit of hardware like this is designed.
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.
Wow, beautiful. Both the site and the keyboard. I put a deposit down.
Edit: in reply to the person above because I keep getting a "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." error because I've made 2 posts in this thread apparently...
Anyway, it would be neat if in the future the M-Dial slot could be used for a fingerprint reader or something else. Swappable items in that slot.
Honestly the price seems quite low for what you get (at $249) and what looks like might be a small batch production. I hope you can make a profit after everything is said and done at that price!
This price is only for people who reserve before we launch on Kickstarter. I agree it is good value but also I should point out the retail price will be $349 for anyone buying after we fulfil all the pre-orders.
Rest assured we are building a sustainable business that will be around for the long haul.
Lovely engineering; if you bring it to market(?) I suggest offering if not full customization a range of aesthetics.
Black/red is a hard no for me. Something fitting with the existing aesthetic (let's call it "Scandanavian milled", subtle frosting, white text) or warmer ("natural", off-white, orange LEDs) etc etc.
One other question: waterproof? I assume that's not possible. Would be a decision maker for me personally probably.
Looks nice. However, 2 years and you still squished the arrow keys into the rest of the keyboard. Unacceptable "design" mate. You need to talk with your customers.
Unfortunately, no numpad is definitely a dealbreaker. Looks like a really cool product, but the numpad is a _must_ for any keyboard you want to do real work on, at least in my opinion.
But yeah, I guess that's fair, not everybody's workload is going to involve inputting incident numbers, and order numbers, and asset numbers, etc etc etc all the time... even IP addresses, I just find it so much more comfortable with the numpad, whereas I find I have a tough time touch-typing on the number row.
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 the keyboard and the website is really impressive.
As near as I can understand it, macOS supports a smart card reader (and apparently will defer to its sign-off for authentication duties when it's present and configured, and Touch ID isn't), so if you emulate a smart card reader you can make your own fingerprint sensor and have it say "I'm a smart card" and sign challenges like a smart card does.
The creator is very up front that this isn't equivalently secure for preserving state secrets, as if you carefully tear this device apart you can just short the pins that the sensor part connects when it's happy with the fingerprint. On the other hand, it is hilarious that anyone who isn't a person of interest for the CIA, Mossad, MI6, or FSB would think they're important enough for someone to go to the trouble of using that method to unlock their secrets. Anyone else would just club you over the head or slip you a mickey, and stick your unconscious finger on your fingerprint sensor.
People are raising a good point RE Touch ID. It is possible to add a fingerprint sensor. But that fingerprint sensor will never be able to do the things that Touch ID is most useful for: i.e. use Apple Pay. It would be incredibly confusing to have a fingerprint sensor that was usable for some things and not for others. Therefore the better experience today is to not include a fingerprint sensor at all, imo.
(The only non-timekeeping items on the 'Always works perfectly' part of the list are Apple Pay and the little button that dings your phone when you've misplaced it.)
Everyone would be better served with a generic USB hub in the keyboard, not shipping a security key with the keyboard.
For a long time I would argue (as an IT support person who would have to support your wireless keyboard problems) that having a wireless keyboard was wasteful and unnecessary if you never used it more than 3 feet from your computer anyway.
CC @gtsteve
Reverse-engineered from the Apple Magic Keyboard and requires a donor board, though
This does not qualify as a third party Touch ID compatible keyboard.
I suppose if one came across a pile of old / broken Magic keyboards, they could extract a bunch of Touch ID sensors and sell those to a keyboard manufacturer (or in their own keyboard). This does not scale, obviously, but including it as an option could work.
If you're willing to share: how many presses are these rated for? What is the yield looking like for manufacturing these?
I'm curious about the switches you're using. On the tech specs it says: "Dual steel arm scissor switch w/ retention spring, 40gf actuation force"
Are they custom switches then? If so, are they most similar to current Magic Keyboard switch feel, or something Choc or MX low profile, or their own thing altogether?
I used to use it everyday but the low profile switches sometimes get stuck and it’s also a little bit tiring to type.
I currently use nuphyair 60 HE, and I find the low sensitivity keys don’t tire my fingers.
100% this.
One of my absolute favorite keyboard designs: G915 TKL Lightspeed got relegated to the donation pile because the symbols were NOT backlit. Such a dumb design choice to save a few cents IMHO.
The one thing I actually like about the magic keyboard or Microsoft's designer keyboard is that the "click" is immediate and the entirety travel distance of the key is the activation bump. I dislike any amount of the "extra" travel distance (I'm not sure if I'm using the right words/description, but I hope you get what I mean) of regular mechanical switches and is the main thing that turns me off from them.
Oh also, is it possible to get a Windows version or switch the keys around to accommodate Windows as well?
https://keychron.ca/blogs/news/kailh-mechanical-switch-guide
With regard to Windows keys that is a possibility. We shipped our previous keyboard, Altar I, with both Mac and Windows markings on the keys.
How long are preorders/is the preorder discount available? I may seriously consider this.
Thank you, good luck, and looking forward!
If you'll indulge me for a moment, because I never get to talk about this stuff: the corner radii of the cards on the site are actually "squircles" rather than perfect rounded corners. To me this is much more pleasing to the eye. The squircles are achieved by creating a PNG mask which is then 9-sliced and expanded to mask off the edge of the cards. Another mask is used for the stroke and laid on top of the first mask, to give the gradient border effect.
I have round foam adhesive dots stuck to the bottom of my current Apple keyboards. It works, but it's an obvious deficiency in the design. Every other keyboard on the market has tilt.
The switches look a lot like the new ultra low profile Cherry switches that Alienware was putting on their laptops a few years ago, is that what they are?
Do also bear in mind the final retail price is $349. the $249 price is for early pre-orders only.
It's apparently a UNIX thing, and old Apple, NeXT, some of DEC, Sun, HP UNIX, Sony NEWS, even IBM XT, many of modern Mac JIS, etc. seem to/did/do have the legends for that key as "Control", "CTRL", or "Ctrl". I think that adds even more to the cool factor.
Will there be documentation of its features beyond a standard Bluetooth HID, such that users could potentially develop software that utilizes the speaker and haptic feedback mechanisms?
The firmware source code will be published publicly on Github in the future, as our other keyboard (Altar I) is: https://github.com/electronicmaterialsoffice/firmware-altar-.... Anyone is welcome to play around with it.
(I always liked the idea of the Touch Bar, but in practice I only used it to change the volume. I still miss that, though. Now I have to Opt-Shift-Volume to try to get the right volume, which is always halfway between the options somehow.)
I'm curious what the purpose of haptic feedback on an already mechanical keyboard is?
Cool that you've been able to turn this into a livable business though.
the website however is a terrible experience. There is so much movement whilst scrolling that it triggers my motion sickness.
As much as I’d like a mechanical keyboard for my Mac that’s always the part that gets me. I end up using the one my Magic Keyboard 20+ times per workday.
Otherwise it looks beautiful.
We could include _a_ fingerprint sensor, and even include a special secure/tamper-proof chip, but it would never be able to work with things like Apple Pay. It would probably be able to do some things like log you in to your Mac by spoofing itself as a card reader or secure key. But because we can’t communicate with Apple’s Secure Enclave it would never be a seamless experience.
Maybe someday Apple could open up Touch ID like they do with Find My. But for now it’s pretty much a non-starter.
What I'd love to have is a standalone touch ID sensor that I could attach anywhere -- mechanical keyboard, side of the monitor, under my desk, etc. I guess this is bottlenecked by Apple's IP on the device, so I've considered just hacking one together by deconstructing and extracting an Apple keyboard...
https://www.printables.com/model/355924-clickable-touch-id-b...
https://gist.github.com/KhaosT/1406a6b6bea38f59e059c2afcb39d...
You have to carefully tear down and extract the touch id sensor, and then remount it in a box. I went the battery route so it could stay wireless. The tradeoff is the box is bigger.
So frustrating that Apple won't sell just a button even at any price. Gotta buy their terrible keyboard for $150 to get that. eyeroll
Some mechanical keyboards ship with an embedded USB hub that supports a couple of USB ports that allow users to pick and choose what devices to plug in.
I wonder why this feature isn't widespread.
The switches look like cherry ultra low profile switches. I’ve not tried these out, how do they feel compared to the linear kailh choc v1’s you used before.
They feel quite different to the Chocs, unsurprisingly. Although the required actuation force is close to the Choc Reds (40gf on our switch vs 50gf on the Choc Reds), because it's spread over such a small vertical travel it feels much "snappier". There is also very little pre-travel. It's kind of like a much sharper/tactile feeling chiclet switch with more vertical travel, if that makes sense.
https://qwerty-lafayette.org/
L’avantage de Lafayette est que toutes les touches sont dans les deux blocs 3x5 du clavier.
C’est plus ergonomique, la gestion des accents est beaucoup plus logique et confortable et le layer des symboles est clairement fait pour faciliter les déplacements vi.
C’est le meilleur layout Qwerty pour développeurs francophones.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-s...
or this that is in stock but doesn't exactly follow Apple's layout
https://www.ozokeyboards.com/products/jiffy75-wireless-split...
For a laptop or for a desktop? For a desktop the keyboard sits its entire life on the... desk?
And a laptop happens to have its own keyboard. The only people I know who use an external keyboard with a laptop do it precisely because they want a particular mechanical switch / keyboard layout.
Are there people taking their Magic keyboard with them in their backpack or car or whatever just to hook it to a laptop? I don't think many do that.
So you find a keyboard on a desk looks clunky? Do you need a "not clunky" keyboard to take pictures you post on Instagram?
I've got a 60% mechanical keyboard on my desk: its footprint is smaller than some Magic keyboard versions. And, well, vertically there's room on my desk.
I visited a mechanical keyboard shop, tried about 20 of them including low profile variants, then visited an Apple shop. Both shops allowed me to sit down and measure my typing speeds on a computer over many trials.
The apple magic keyboard, full-size, gives me about 10-20% faster typing speeds. Over the previous three years I had only used mechanical keyboards.
I also found it very aesthetically pleasing to type on, rivalled only by the Logitech pebble in terms of subjective feel. There's something about feeling the whole aluminium frame and plastic membrane flex when I hit a key hard that I find pleasing in a way that isn't matched by many other keyboards.
I bought one, and it's the only piece of apple hardware I own. My 3 mechanical keyboards are collecting dust.
Altar II is quite a quiet keyboard, and there is a special sandwich of materials specifically designed to make it as quiet as possible.
The built-in speaker is interesting. Really it's just there because it's fun, and its nice to get the odd bleep or chime when your keyboard connects or begins charging.
But seems like that is not the case.
(no affiliation, saw a thread on it here)
I respect that you're doing a single variant up front, and I understand the business challenges and risks of going wide on a niche product like this... but as a single datapoint, I'll pay double for an ortholinear with similar features and style.
There are a couple of small quality-of-life features that do require the app: for example if you want haptic feedback when you receive a notification. This is because the keyboard has no idea what is happening on your OS, and requires some middleware. But all the core functionality requires no app at all.
To answer your second question, the firmware for Altar II will be open-sourced, as the firmware for our Altar I keyboard is. You can see the Altar I firmware source code here: https://github.com/electronicmaterialsoffice/firmware-altar-...
Both Altar I and Altar II firmware are based on the open-source ZMK (https://zmk.dev). We try to contribute back to ZMK whenever we can because we have benefitted so much from it. Two members of our team are also long-standing ZMK contributors.
What is the click latency?
Is USB just for charging or can I use it without BT?
I wish it had the option to be ordered with blank keys.
[0] https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/
The mdial is amazing. The Nixie tube numbers are fun. The sleekness. And this website with all demo’s is really well made. Also the “about” site is cool.
You were not underpromising when stating Apple didn’t spend enough energy here. This is a leap. And I fully trust you’ll deliver.
If anything, why not work at Apple after this adventure and get these things (or another next level keyboard) out at massive scale?
The single wide space bar is an even worse offender than row staggered or qwerty.
What's with the giant numbers and tiny symbols? I know where the numbers are from muscle memory. I don't have the symbols memorized.
Haptic feedback when you use the command key? Why?
No number pad or page up/page dn, which would be something useful.
This is like The Homer of keyboards. Does it play La Cucaracha out of the speaker if you push the knob four times?
You clearly have the technical capabilities but the product requirements are bonkers.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Me and my preorder
it's a keyboard
It's not a miracle.
If you're going to have all this 3D imagery, put a glTF model viewer on the page, and let me look at it.
though to be told, I definitely want one. low profile keyboards are indeed my jam. I don't know why the hell keyboards need to have batteries though. No one needs a wireless keyboard. Wires are not that much of a pain in the ass. Coiled, self-retracting keyboard cables are a thing. Keyboards do not need to be wireless. Wires are fine, I promise! Wireless mouse? Sure. Wires make the mouse move when you don't want it to move. Wireless credential entry device? Those should remain wired, I think.
I also really hate Apples decision to put the FN key in the bottom left corner, but I understand following their layout. I always swap the ctrl and fn keys on my Apple devices, so I assume you could do the same thing here.
People are programming on a 36-key keyboards just fine and they don't miss any keys. It's easier to press fn + something than reaching out for screenshot button, which is usually far away. That way, you don't have to move your hands.
I take lots of screenshots and videos and add them to PRs, which clearly communicate what has changed.
It's very convenient, when your hand don't move at all and can reach every button.
If we did a numpad I would probably do it as a separate device. Personally I don't like how the numpad sits between the edge of my keyboard and mouse. I'd prefer it to the left of my keyboard or to the right side of my mouse.
The devil is in the details.
Do you have a french version? ...
I now own a Logitech MX Keys S and I'm quite happy with it.
I'd complain about the lack of thumb keys, and then the flatness, and suddenly we're talking about a completely different keyboard.
This looks dope, looking forward to ordering in the future.
Does it support the globe key without having to use karabiner?
Edit: in reply to the person above because I keep getting a "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." error because I've made 2 posts in this thread apparently...
Anyway, it would be neat if in the future the M-Dial slot could be used for a fingerprint reader or something else. Swappable items in that slot.
If you have any questions I'd be very happy to answer them.
Rest assured we are building a sustainable business that will be around for the long haul.
Black/red is a hard no for me. Something fitting with the existing aesthetic (let's call it "Scandanavian milled", subtle frosting, white text) or warmer ("natural", off-white, orange LEDs) etc etc.
One other question: waterproof? I assume that's not possible. Would be a decision maker for me personally probably.
But yeah, I guess that's fair, not everybody's workload is going to involve inputting incident numbers, and order numbers, and asset numbers, etc etc etc all the time... even IP addresses, I just find it so much more comfortable with the numpad, whereas I find I have a tough time touch-typing on the number row.