alt Hacker NewsShow HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard
Hi HN, today I’m revealing Altar II, an ultra-low profile (4.75mm) mechanical keyboard designed to replace your Magic Keyboard. It’s the keyboard I wish Apple made.
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.
Comments
Hey, hooray! I still have my switch-modded Altar I but it ended up being too tall for me, so this is a surprisingly great discovery for my morning. Looking forward to trying a new keyboard :D
Looks amazing. Would've been crazy good to include a few OLED keys a la Optimus Maximus [0], which has forever been a dream, even with all the negative reviews.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is a "fully mechanical scissor switch"? And is this the first such switch on the market? If I search for other such products I can only find "metal scissor switch over rubber dome" style.
I feel like this is similar to what Work Louder makes? Am I tripping?
Beautiful, would it work on Linux? Btw, the website is really heavy for my connection.
Absolutely love the design, features, website, attention to detail, and just...taste. It's been quite a while since I mashed that reserve button so quickly haha. Hope it lives up to the design and looks!
Looks beautiful, congrats on the launch! I've been looking for a replacement for my Apple Magic keyboard. I would love to buy one, but ISO layout is a must for me, also would like blank or swappable keycaps.
It is time to introduce split space bars in every new keyboard designs.
The single wide space bar is an even worse offender than row staggered or qwerty.
The design is on point and the numbers look great. I want one.
I hate what apple did with the keyboard. They set a bad example with flat keys.
They used to have slightly sculpted keys, where your fingers could find the keys and self-center, leading to accurate typing.
But typical apple - thin is the target - and everyone follows
Sold me one, even though it doesn’t have Touch ID. It can be forgiven given the rest.
The mdial is amazing. The Nixie tube numbers are fun. The sleekness. And this website with all demo’s is really well made. Also the “about” site is cool.
You were not underpromising when stating Apple didn’t spend enough energy here. This is a leap. And I fully trust you’ll deliver.
If anything, why not work at Apple after this adventure and get these things (or another next level keyboard) out at massive scale?
Wow I not expecting to see that! I love it!!! Good work!
With this was more in line with corne style split keyboards and really made for programmers like enthium.
given kickstarter is november, when do you expect to ship?
Reserved! I would have paid the 249 today btw :) she looks beautiful.
Looks beautiful and great presentation of your efforts. Hope it lives up to its expectations. All the best
It would be glorious if there was a split version!
I don't understand the overwhelming praise. This product is just bizarre. Who is this for?
What's with the giant numbers and tiny symbols? I know where the numbers are from muscle memory. I don't have the symbols memorized.
Haptic feedback when you use the command key? Why?
No number pad or page up/page dn, which would be something useful.
This is like The Homer of keyboards. Does it play La Cucaracha out of the speaker if you push the knob four times?
You clearly have the technical capabilities but the product requirements are bonkers.
Beautiful! Looking forward to the Kickstarter. But also, why is it completely flat?
reserved...looking forward to giving this a ride tks for sharing
These switches remind me of the butterfly switches on previous generations of Macbooks....not a great memory
Love it! Can you offer full color lighting instead of just red?
The autoplaying videos make your website unusable on mobile.
What is the weight?
Would be ever so awesome if the keyboard had feet.
As far as ergonomics go, I don't care too much about split layouts and similar nonsense, but my wrists start to hurt really fast when the keyboard is lying flat on the desk.
I've bought adhesive folding feet for my laptops. They are awesome. I used a pair for my B104 (a reproduction of IBM beam spring switches in a modern keyboard). I still wish I didn't have to glue any contraptions to devices I type on.
I like the website more than the keyboard itself
Maybe a bit (a lot) overboard with the marketing snazz on this page.
it's a keyboard
It's not a miracle.
If you're going to have all this 3D imagery, put a glTF model viewer on the page, and let me look at it.
though to be told, I definitely want one. low profile keyboards are indeed my jam. I don't know why the hell keyboards need to have batteries though. No one needs a wireless keyboard. Wires are not that much of a pain in the ass. Coiled, self-retracting keyboard cables are a thing. Keyboards do not need to be wireless. Wires are fine, I promise! Wireless mouse? Sure. Wires make the mouse move when you don't want it to move. Wireless credential entry device? Those should remain wired, I think.
Well, for programming it's not convenient -- no Insert/Pageup/Screenshot buttons.
OK, I want it, but for Linux.
Nice!
The devil is in the details.
Do you have a french version? ...
It. It is real thing? cool.
Cramming the fn key into the sacred ctrl-alt-cmd triumvirate is disagreeable. Would require learning and remapping. I prefer fn to be distant as I have chorded for decades with the said trio.
My dream keyboard, if only it could split down the middle for ergonomics :(
I was really excited about Altar I, but no shipping to Brazil, so I gave up on it. Nice to see the idea continues (consider worldwide shipping would be my only feedback on the idea, I guess).
I now own a Logitech MX Keys S and I'm quite happy with it.
Add a finger print sensor at some point. Lovely design.
Great work! Have you, or do you intend to, write about the process of bringing this to fruition? Would love to learn more about how a polished bit of hardware like this is designed.
Sent to my rich friend. He wants 3 in white!
there is nothing more satisfying than the thickness of the device being the same thickness of the charge cable terminal.
This looks dope, looking forward to ordering in the future.
dang, this seems really amazing
This looks great. Never liked the idea of having to add wrist rests to all these tall bulky mechanical keyboards.
Does it support the globe key without having to use karabiner?
This is very cool and it looks like a lot of effort went into it. Personally, I like the high profile clunky mechanical keyboard experience, so it's probably not for me, but I really hope this does well.
I also really hate Apples decision to put the FN key in the bottom left corner, but I understand following their layout. I always swap the ctrl and fn keys on my Apple devices, so I assume you could do the same thing here.
Wow, beautiful. Both the site and the keyboard. I put a deposit down.
Edit: 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.
Lovely engineering; if you bring it to market(?) I suggest offering if not full customization a range of aesthetics.
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.
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Looks nice. However, 2 years and you still squished the arrow keys into the rest of the keyboard. Unacceptable "design" mate. You need to talk with your customers.
Unfortunately, no numpad is definitely a dealbreaker. Looks like a really cool product, but the numpad is a _must_ for any keyboard you want to do real work on, at least in my opinion.
For Apple folks I guess, but would be nice to see a pointing stick. Trackpoint keyboards are becoming difficult to find and a suitable replacement would be an instant buy.