Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard (electronicmaterialsoffice.com)
Altar II has fully mechanical switches, plus a magnetically detachable dial, haptic feedback, a red backlight, and a native macOS companion app.
I’m a heavy Mac user and I feel that Apple hasn’t given its keyboards the attention they deserve, in terms of hardware, software, and features, so I set out to try and change that.
It was a massive undertaking and it has taken almost 2 years to get to this stage. One of the main obstacles was fitting a reasonably sized battery into the chassis, and aggressive power profiling without messing with the user experience. Another issue was we couldn’t fit any components on the underside of the PCB because there was literally no space to do so (and there are a lot of components).
Around 4 years ago I posted my first keyboard to HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507172). Its response blew me away and ultimately led to me quitting my job and making and selling keyboards full time. I’ve taken some of the feedback from that original post and incorporated it into Altar II (e.g. the detachable dial).
I’ll be around to answer any questions. Please let me know what you think, I’d love to get some feedback.
134 comments
[ 0.38 ms ] story [ 49.3 ms ] threadEdit: in reply to the person above because I keep getting a "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." error because I've made 2 posts in this thread apparently...
Anyway, it would be neat if in the future the M-Dial slot could be used for a fingerprint reader or something else. Swappable items in that slot.
As much as I’d like a mechanical keyboard for my Mac that’s always the part that gets me. I end up using the one my Magic Keyboard 20+ times per workday.
Otherwise it looks beautiful.
I wish it had the option to be ordered with blank keys.
[0] https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/
Does it support the globe key without having to use karabiner?
The devil is in the details.
Do you have a french version? ...
Black/red is a hard no for me. Something fitting with the existing aesthetic (let's call it "Scandanavian milled", subtle frosting, white text) or warmer ("natural", off-white, orange LEDs) etc etc.
One other question: waterproof? I assume that's not possible. Would be a decision maker for me personally probably.
Firstly it makes no sense for a backlight to be anything but a warm colour at night because it strains your eyes exactly when they are most prone to it (at night, in the dark).
And secondly because it allows us some modest power savings. The chemistry used in our red LEDs (AlGaInP) is more power efficient than that used in other colours. Being a very thin device, we have a small battery, and therefore need to save power wherever we can.
- Ours has an actual mechanical switch (with a spring and contact leaf) that is pressed, the butterfly switches were a metal dome
- Our switches have much more vertical travel (1.8mm) compared to the butterfly switches (~0.5mm). A big part of the issues with the butterfly switches was they had tiny tolerances, so specks of dust or dirt could jam them. Since our switches are so much larger, this is less of a problem
- Butterfly switch arms were made from plastic, our arms are made from steel.