Connecting your Preonic

Connecting over USB

Connecting your Preonic to your computer (or phone, or tablet) by USB couldn't be simpler. Just plug in the USB Type-C cable at both ends.

Bluetooth pairing

Your Preonic ships with the ability to pair with (and switch between four different devices.) To pair your Preonic to a computer, phone, or tablet by Bluetooth, hold down the Fun key and tap 1, 2, 3, or 4 to select a connection "slot".  Then, hold down Fun and tap the 5 key to put the keyboard into pairing mode. 

After that, go to your device's bluetooth pairing menu or screen. You should see Preonic (#1) (or another number if you selected a different slot.)  

Once you tell your computer to pair with the Preonic, one of the four butterfly wings will start to flash blue to indicate that you're connected. 

To pair your Preonic with another device, repeat this process, but pick another slot number.

Bluetooth device switching

To switch to a different bluetooth connection, just hold down Fun  and tap the number of the slot you picked when setting up the Preonic. While trying to connect, one of the keyboard's wings will flash red. Once it's connected, the wing will flash blue.

To switch to USB mode, hold Fun and tap the `/~ key.

 

The on-off switch

Your Preonic has an on/off switch near the USB connector. When you can see the white dot on the switch, the Preonic is powered on. When you can't, it is powered off. We recommend that you always turn the keyboard off when you won't be using it for an extended period of time or when packing it up to travel.

Charging the battery

To charge your keyboard's battery, just connect it to a computer or charger with the included USB Type-C cable.

 

Customizing the key layout

The easiest way to update your keyboard's layout (and firmware) is to use Chrysalis, our graphical configuration tool. You can access Chrysalis at https://chrysalis.keyboard.io from any web browser with WebUSB and WebSerial support. (This mostly means that you need to use a Chromium-derived browser like Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, or Dia.

Fully resetting your Preonic

To fully reset your Preonic's onboard storage, erasing all customization and bluetooth configuration:

• Make sure your keyboard is turned off and disconnected from your device.
• Hold in the Any key, the Fun key, the Knob, and the Space Bar.
• Plug the keyboard into your device.
• The LEDs will turn Yellow.
• Keep holding those keys.
• The LEDs will turn Red.
• You can release the keys.
• Wait for the the LEDs to turn Off.
• Disconnect and reconnect the keyboard.
• Everything should be factory fresh and good to go.

Open source firmware

The Preonic is powered by Kaleidoscope, a comprehensive open source firmware for keyboards. Kaleidoscope is built on top of the Arduino toolchain, so it's really easy to get started with.

We’ve designed Kaleidoscope to be easily customizable, with an extensive library of plugins to add nifty features you might find useful or entertaining.

You can learn more about Kaleidoscope at https://github.com/keyboardio/Kaleidoscope and https://kaleidoscope.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.

The source code for the firmware that shipped on your keyboard is available from our git repositories on GitHub. We publish the source code versions used to build the firmware on your keyboard at https://github.com/keyboardio/Factory-Firmware-Builds/tree/master/Preonic

Kaleidoscope is constantly improving. We strongly recommend that you use the latest version of Kaleidoscope from https://github.com/keyboardio/Kaleidoscope if you plan to customize your keyboard's firmware.

Getting help

You can find us (and other community members) on Discord, our public community chat system: https://discord.gg/QRxsUGXKxP

Alternatively, if you need a hand with your Preonic, please don't hesitate to email us at help@keyboard.io.