Hi everybody,

We’re sorry we haven’t written in a little while. It’s not that we don’t love you; it’s just that life’s been a little chaotic. Since we last wrote, we got accepted into Highway1, a hardware incubator. We had about a week and a half to pack up the workshop & cats and move out to San Francisco. We’re about a third of the way through the program. So far, it’s been amazing: we’ve gotten world-class help figuring out how to make a really, really nice keyboard for you. In early May, they’re taking us to Shenzhen in China to see how electronics sourcing and manufacturing really work.

We know we’re behind on blog posts. We’ve been tweeting as @keyboardio and posting short daily videos at https://giveit100.com/@Keyboardio/. They’re not high art, but they’ll tell you a bit more about what we’re up to on a day to day basis.

First things first: when can I buy one?

We’re planning to launch crowdfunding early this summer. We’ve held off on launching until we knew how much it will really cost to build and ship you amazing keyboards. We might have been able to launch a campaign a couple weeks ago, but we’re thrilled that we waited. We’re on track to ship you a much, much nicer keyboard for less than we were going to have to charge before.

How can I help you get there?

Take our survey on what you like, love, and hate about keyboards. This will help us figure out exactly what to build you. We’ll select one (random) person who finishes the survey to get one of our first ten production keyboards.

What’s up with the company?

We already mentioned that we got into Highway1, a hardware incubator program in San Francisco. Part of becoming a real company has been finding amazing folks to help us make better keyboards. Brian Garvey has been redesigning our enclosure. He has some gorgeous, elegant ideas that we can’t share just yet. As soon as we can, y'all will be the first to know. We’ve been working with the folks from Upverter to help design our new hackable keyboard logic board (think Arduino optimized for keyboards.) 

What’s up with the name?

We’ve gotten a bunch of questions about how to pronounce the company’s name. And a number of people asserting that our company is called ‘Keyboard.’ As much as we appreciate the vote of confidence, we’re a little worried about how much SEO it would take to show up as the first Google result for 'keyboard’.

So, we’ve standardized on spelling our name “Keyboardio” (without the dot). We pronounce it 'key-BOAR-dee-oh’.

What’s up with the keyboard?

We’ve been working like mad on making to make the keyboard as easy to use and right for your hands and your desk as possible.  Up to now, our prototypes have almost all been flat.  We are working to make the keyboard adjustable without compromising stability and durability – no promises, but we think we may have something.  We’ve also built out our first prototype Bluetooth keyboard, because we really want a comfortable mechanical keyboard that we can use with an iPad (or any other tablet).  We’ve talked with a couple of ergonomics professors who confirmed to us that we aren’t doing anything stupid to your hands.

We have a handful of beta keyboards in the field.  Thank you to everyone who applied to beta test. The response blew us away – there were literally hundreds of you willing to try out buggy beta keyboards. You all type on an amazing variety of keyboards and have some pretty darn cute kids too. It took us weeks to get back to everyone who applied. (We hope we got back to everyone who applied!)

If you have a minute, check out this video from one of our amazing beta testers:



And take our survey – what are you waiting for? 

xoxo,

Jesse and Kaia, for Keyboardio