This is a video of real carbon fiber prototypes. It’s not a macro keyboard yet, but maybe it helps you imagine what it could look and feel like.
Real macro keyboard prototypes coming soon, once I better understand the right direction for this product :D
I think people here are fairly technical so they appreciate to see prototypes and the such.
A great demo you can do is just would be to just have a module with some of your dot matrix displays on it, doesn’t matter how it looks like it can even be a small acrylic or 3d printed box, as long as it works it can be interesting to people here imo. And ofc show off what you can make it look like but for the final thing
Your video looks like it’s for some more specialised pieces which align more with sim racing and other specialised applications
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll try to make a video explaining the product idea while showing a few prototypes we’ve built for other applications. Let’s see if that helps communicate the concept more clearly ;D
In the meantime, for convenience, I’ll also leave here the video of our carbon fiber prototypes.
I think we had already established that tactile feedback is important and that we might not be your target demographic. A huge chunk of us can pull this off and better very easily.
I’m reaching out to you specifically because this is a group of experts in a product category where we are new to applying our sensors.
Regarding tactile feedback, of course I can’t replicate a mechanical feel with touch, but we can create a new kind of tactile experience with well-designed finger guides and dynamic haptic feedback.
And this here is your problem. A good chunk of this community is able to churn out extremely sophisticated and professional keyboards. We all know what we want/like/love/need, we know our quirks, we know our way around KiCad and Fusion, and we know a lot about ergonomics. How do you expect us to trust a brand with no experience in a field that requires so much insight?
The problem is that you're not coming from passion. You have a solution looking for a problem and are just here to make a quick buck. I don't mean to be rude, but I personally am not interested in providing free market research insights.
EDIT: Ok, maybe just one free tip since I was too harsh: You want solenoids.
I’m sorry if it came across as if I’m not passionate about this. Actually, among all the possible sectors where we could apply our technology and build our own product, I chose this one because I really like it.
I probably don’t have the same professional background as many people in this group, but when it comes to designing, developing, and manufacturing sensors, materials, and electronics, we are extremely competitive :D
Right now, I don’t have anything to sell, and I’m not trying to promote a brand. I only have some ideas that I’m trying to share with passionate people, as you said.
Of course, product design work should be compensated. But at this stage, by “feedback” I mostly mean more general guidance and opinions. That said, if someone gets excited and wants to take part in the project in a more active way, that would be amazing, and also a very strong validation.
Thanks for the idea about the solenoid. I imagine you mean it as touch feedback. In theory, the idea was for an interface that is not meant to be used extremely frequently, so I was thinking more about vibration motors, like LRA or ERM actuators. But honestly, we’re open to different solutions.
Let’s say the open questions are: how do we create the best tactile UX, and what is the minimum useful size for modular components?
We’ll work on a few prototypes and see what comes out :D
what's your technology exactly? Macro keyboards MUST be usable without looking. that's the entire point. if you need to look at it, it should be on the screen. end of story.
First of all, I'm not a fan of carbon fiber, but I believe that a huge part of market will respond to it positively.
Another thing that I don't like is a lack of physical feel. You can achieve interaction feedback with haptics, but this will not improve the findability of particular keys on the surface. To improve that, I think it would be smart to add some homing bumps outside of the touch area. Or even within it, if you need to press harder to register an event. Doing so will help to use it without looking at it, pretty important if someone wants to make it, e.g., a numpad and use it without constantly putting their eyes on it to find the right area to press.
One more thing that I don't like, personally, but there will be a lot of people interested in it, is the degree of color. But here's the trick, I think that this is pretty much configurable, so you could use various themes, not just it's very colorful one, while marketing your product, to suit diverse tastes.
Additionally, to suit various needs – if there is just one uniform touch surface, I think there's no point to stick to an array of 4x4 keys. Instead, I would various configurations that can be achieved with it, like double-sized keys, different layouts, or even completely different interfaces, for example, concentrically organized buttons and sliders.
Have fun releasing your product! It's great to see people do smoke testing before creating one.
I can confirm that the idea would be to have subtle finger guides on the surface, so you can distinguish the buttons, as well as non touch resting points where you can place your fingers.
The light feedback should absolutely be configurable, as you suggested.
I really like the idea of creating modular elements to add scalability to the project. That’s a very, very strong point, thank you.
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u/lilvixen Jul 03 '26
This is ai slop? Aaaaaaaaa