After several successful Kickstarter campaigns, Input Club is back with a brand new mechanical keyboard, Keystone, which is set to revolutionize the way users interact with their computers. Keystone brings two revolutionary technologies to the keyboard industry – High Definition Analog Control and per-key fast Hall Effect (magnetic) sensing – offering an unparalleled typing experience to its customers.
Analog sensing and Hall effect switches have been implemented in keyboards before, but separately. In Input Club’s Keystone, both these technologies have been incorporated together into one keyboard. Unlike traditional keyboards, Hall effect switches in the Keystone keyboard tracks the movement of a magnet instead of relying on a bending piece of metal for actuation. This makes these switches extremely customizable and durable, providing a lifespan of nearly a billion presses (testing article by HoneyWell).
Analog sensing takes Keystone’s keyboard experience to a whole new level. Unlike traditional switches which register ‘On/Off’ commands, the analog switches in Keystone keyboard register multiple levels for each button press. This will truly change the keyboard industry by offering features similar to what pressure-sensitive touch screens brought to the smartphone market. For example, a gentle press of a button in a game can make the character walk, while pushing it all the way down could make it run. Similarly, in a tying scenario, half-press could register a lower-case ‘a’ while a full press could register an upper-case ’A’. Clearly, the possibilities are endless.
Every individual has a different way of typing on their keyboard. Keystone understands this differentiation and keeps a track of how hard a user presses each key using AI-enabled Adaptive Typing. After a few hundred presses, Keystone maps out user’s keyboard presses and tweaks each key according to its pressing habits. This results in easier presses for pinky fingers and overall a comfortable typing experience.
“Our team has been pushing forward the keyboard industry for the last 4 years. We’ve released and shipped on Kickstarter two times for Kira and WhiteFox, and this project is the one we started our company to make,” shares Jacob Alexander. “Through our work with the switch manufacturer Kaihua – we finally have the factory connections, engineering resources, and quantities of scale necessary to make this project real. Analog has always been our moonshot – we just have enough experience to actually make this landing.”
Key Features
- Analog Hall Effect Magnetic Switches
- Hot-swappable Switch Design allows for Easy Switch Replacement.
- Lifespan Estimated to be Near 1 Billion Presses
- Open Source Software designed to interface easily with games and artistic software.
- Available in Full Size and Tenkeyless form factors
- White and Full Size / TKL
- Designed by Input Club – the community keyboard engineering firm.
Early adopters can back the Keystone TKL (TenKeyLess) mechanical keyboard with RGB lighting for just $99. The Full-Size Layout Keystone model starts from $139.
The Input Club Keystone will change the way we type. The Kickstarter campaign is already live and you can support the campaign from here.
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