Sonder E-Ink keyboard

[rowdy]

https://www.sonderdesign.com/

Thoughts?

Wasn't there a full size keyboard with colour e-ink or similar on the keycaps that was promised a few years back?  What happened to that?

Seems like Sonder have got a prototype, and even pre-ordering.

Yes it's Apple aluminium form factor, but who's interested?

I am

[clappingcactus]

Yeah the Art Lebedev keyboards did this a few years ago. They had two. One with individual and separate screens for the buttons and one with one giant screen underneath. The software for both was a mess and the price was $1500. I actually at one point tried to make my own keyboard with 104 individual OLEDs for keys and I got stuck at the point where I would have had to spend $1200 on the OLEDs alone. It's not cheap or practical to do.

There are also a few limitations of e-ink technology that might make this keyboard less than ideal. The refresh rate might mean you might have character ghosting and need to cycle the screens clean once every few weeks. If they want to keep their costs down they'd use one giant e-ink screen across the whole keyboard, meaning accessing your function layer causes a keyboard-wide flicker which wouldn't be ideal since if you're using it to display photoshop tools for example you'd be stuck waiting for a refresh rather than working at full speed. Also, given that they're probably using resistive tech to actuate keypresses, you can bet the keyboard's maximum life-span is in the 18-24 month range.

I wouldn't pre-order if I were you. The company has barely launched and they already have two products in the works... that smells like an acquisition-oriented approach if I've ever seen it. They're probably angling for a company like Apple to just outright buy their design patents given that they're using Macs in their product pictures.

From elsewhere; picture of it taken apart:

[Findecanor]

Yeah, there are already rumours that Sonder would be about to be bought by Apple ... and that Apple would have a MacBook in the works with an "e-ink" keyboard.

The Sonder keyboard looks like it works like the previous Lebedev, Razer and Microsoft keyboards: transparent chiclet lenses over a screen in the bottom with the actual mechanism in the borders.

Would have been fun if Sonder had written its name more metal with two dots over the 'o'. Then it would become "sönder", which is a Swedish word that means broken.
The layout with a 1u \ key certainly is. You know that any ISO and JIS versions of that keyboard are going to be broken, just like Apple's "Magic" broken keyboard is.

[xtrafrood]

Sonder cloud.
Every Sonder keyboard is unique, personalise it your way. Perhaps you use your Sonder as a bloomberg terminal, or for audio editing; with Sonder all your settings are saved automatically to the cloud.

I like the idea of extra displays but I'm not sure about syncing a keyboard to the cloud

[Vladimir]

You can find the KB from Art Lebedev for $500.
I don't know if it's a diferent version.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1251663-REG/art_lebedev_studio_v003903_optimus_popularis_keyboard.html

I like this one with e-ink. Although, it bothers me that the modifiers don't have the display.
I can't change Caps Lock for Control.

[Findecanor]

I like the idea of extra displays but I'm not sure about syncing a keyboard to the cloud

That was my knee-jerk reaction as well, but I think it makes sense. It would open a few possibilities:

* It would be easier to engineer having profiles being stored at the host and the cloud, instead of the host and the keyboard.
* If you would move a keyboard to another computer, you could have it download the profiles from the "cloud" more or less automatically.
* If you would get another keyboard, you could sync it with your existing profile.
* Sharing a profile that you have made.

But we'll see what they will do... Or not do, in case they are swallowed by Apple.

[algernon]

I like the idea of extra displays but I'm not sure about syncing a keyboard to the cloud

That was my knee-jerk reaction as well, but I think it makes sense. It would open a few possibilities:

* It would be easier to engineer having profiles being stored at the host and the cloud, instead of the host and the keyboard.
* If you would move a keyboard to another computer, you could have it download the profiles from the "cloud" more or less automatically.
* If you would get another keyboard, you could sync it with your existing profile.
* Sharing a profile that you have made.

Even if these would be useful, automatically syncing to the cloud would be a security and privacy disaster. Not to mention that most "smart" hardware that is cloud connected, does not work when you are not connected, or requires special drivers. It would suck if your keyboard stopped functioning if an OS upgrade breaks the driver (which is not unheard of), or the vendor goes out of business (which also happens rather frequently). It would suck even more if your OS stops being supported, or you change OS a year or two later for whatever reason.

Not to mention, that with any fully programmable keyboard, all of the above issues are already trivially solvable, without any of the ill side effects. Dropbox or similar for your firmware file, and all you are done: if you move the keyboard to a new computer, no problem, all the smart is in the keyboard anyway. If you get another keyboard, just flash the firmware once. Put the firmware in an auto-syncing Dropbox folder, and you have sync too. The only remaining problem is the firmware<->keyboard sync, but that's not too hard to solve, either. But I very much doubt any of these "lets sync to the cloud" keyboard vendors can do in a sane way.

[Findecanor]

There would still be a need for some kind of (driver) software on the host that changes the images automatically depending on which program is active (or whatever they have in mind).

If they have any sense then they would use the regular USB HID keyboard protocol anyway, with the key image protocol on a separate virtual interface. The keyboard should also reset itself to a "default" downloaded profile on reset.

There are already provisions in the USB HID protocol for displaying an image on a input device - maybe they could use that. Then the protocol would be open.
Of course requiring a working network connection for the driver to work would be idiotic. And if the driver would "phone home" when the user is not asking for any cloud feature then that would be an open invitation to privacy advocates to storm their offices with torches and pitchforks.

[Data]

Yeah, I'm not interested in any "cloud connected" peripherals.  That's a feature I'd immediately disable and block at my firewall.  And if it's required then they can just **** right off.  I imagine this board costing more than I've paid for any of my customs so it needs to perform at least as well, or just blow me away with a flagship feature to the point that nothing else matters.

It is nice to see a company picking up where Art Lebedev left off.  The dream of fancy Star Trek keyboards lives on. 

[clappingcactus]

You can find the KB from Art Lebedev for $500.
I don't know if it's a diferent version.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1251663-REG/art_lebedev_studio_v003903_optimus_popularis_keyboard.html

Cool. Guess I know what I'm budgeting for next month.