Author Topic: Idea for configurable keyboard electronic sound  (Read 78776 times)

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Offline sordna

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Idea for configurable keyboard electronic sound
« on: Sat, 03 May 2014, 11:47:16 »
Hello,
I would like to suggest an idea for future keyboards. Can you add a piezo buzzer to produce a click sound upon actuation?  This works great for silent switches (reds, browns, blacks) to provide audible feedback and REALLY helps avoid bottoming out. Some keyboards such as the Kinesis Advantage, and some old Zenith keyboards have this. I also did this myself on my Ergodox pretty easily, with a $2 buzzer and a few lines of code I wrote in the firmware.

The sound should be configurable (default off) and if possible it should have 2 or 3 levels of volume.

Here is an mp3 sound sample which I recorded, in case you don't have access to a Kinesis Advantage to hear it.
I used a 2KHz buzzer, sparkfun part number COM-07950 aka CET12A3 ... the buzzer only needs a brief voltage to produce a sound.

You could use a speaker instead of a buzzer, and give it a sinewave for configurable pitch or sound samples (buckling spring, cherry blue, topre sound etc)  !

I just saw your QuickFire Rapid-i which lights up when you hit a key, which is pretty neat, so imagine how nice it would be to make it also produce sounds!  This is not just a fancy effect, but sound feedback actually helps when typing so you know if you hit a key properly or not, etc.
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard