Does anyone know is there a reason why they got rid of dislike? I’d have thought they’d want it to help improve recommendations?

Right that’s true

It wouldn’t be open source. The main reason is because we want to do a clinical trial on split & curved keyboards and need to get govt funding. It’d cost >$100k. I’ve tried applying for grants already and was rejected because they wanted to see a patent. So it can’t really be open source. I was thinking if we got a large enough Kicksarter that we might not need grant funding (or enough sales after). But that isn’t looking like it’ll happen haha. Which is fine, just got to keep chugging along. I’ve thought of a few ways around this to still give back to the community. But either open sourcing parts of it that are not covered by the patent or, from what I’ve seen some medical device companies do, dedicate a portion of profits to provide the product for free for people who can’t afford it. But yeah I mean this keyboard was built on the back of giants so giving back is an obvious thing we need to do.

Thanks! Oh and another thing regarding price is we’re hoping to register it as a medical device at some point so that it can be covered by insurance. But just because I’m only familiar with US/Canada medical device regulations, we would prioritize US/Canada first.

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll edit it so the injection mold part is more prominent. Yeah I’m not aware of any concave keyboards that are injection molded that are hotdwappable.

It’s TRS, which works with TRS and TRRS cords. I tried “mocking” a USB-C port and asking for feedback and got some people confused which port goes where, so just went with TRS in the end. It’s not TRRS also because it doesn’t with with TRS, whereas the opposite is true.

I used to sell dactyl minis like the one you pointed out. What I’ve found from customer feedback was that the thumb cluster needed to be improved. Specifically regarding 4 keys that make a square. Users reported they needed to move their thumbs in an uncomfortable way to avoid hitting the 2 keys that are closer, when reaching for the 2 keys that are further away.

Thanks!

Thank! Glad you like it! Yeah I understand. The mold cost is very high since the geometry is complex.

Yeah track ball would need to be a later addition. Just trying to keep things simple for now to avoid extending the timeline too much. It can take 2-3 months just to manufacture the molds alone nevermind revisions.

Corrected it now. Didn’t realize I needed to put it in the title since I’m used to reddit and it’s has tags for those.

It’s like it’s free advertising? 😅

Thanks!

Wait what, we have that in Canada? They share data with Palantir? Is this for govt agencies?

Wow yeah that lines up. I think at some workplaces they don’t allow Bluetooth gadgets for the same reason.

Thank you for the well wishes! Yep we got a 30 day return policy too so you can always try it to see if you like it first.

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for letting me know.

You’re welcome! I’m just curious but is there a particular reason why no wireless is a selling point?

Expansion port is a possibility, but it would require a redesign. Not something we’d be able to do with this Kickstarter.

Yes it’s hotswap. Not soldered. Yes the keyboard is entirely wired. No wireless mode.

I understand this is a big deal for people who want to keep their desks clean. We’ll release a wireless one later on. We’re just trying to keep it simple and keep risk low right now. We also don’t know whether there’ll be hiccups with doing a wireless version. We plan to use a pre-certified FCC module but the product itself still needs FCC certification (though it should be easier than not using a pre-certified module). It just so happens the US recently changed regulations on certification so Chinese labs cannot be used. But similar to most hardware products, we need to make our PCBs and do our injection molds in China. From what I’m aware, getting FCC certification can take a few iterations. So as you can imagine, if it takes 2 weeks to ship from China to a non-Chinese lab each iteration, it might take longer than we expect. I don’t want to disappoint backers, so that’s why no wireless. Sorry it’s kind of a long answer.

Edit: Forgot to answer the other part of your question.

Haha yes that was originally a typo but I suppose Kinesis Advantage has been around for a while 😅. Thank you for the kind words!

Thank you. In terms of tenting right now it’s up to the end user but we’re planning something afterwards.

Basically we see that some people still want to use a rest of some sort. But because wrist rests increase pressure on the carpal tunnel one of the options we’re exploring is a tenting kit that makes it so you can use a wrist rest without putting pressure on the carpal tunnel (instead the wrist rest would hit the furthest part of the ulna bone, which can be seen here.

Yeah I’ve definitely heard from quite a couple people that they’d like a trackball on one of the thumb cluster. Probably will explore this in the future but not anytime soon.