A Key Cap That Looks Like a Keycap
This single-key keyboard hat that is shaped like a giant keycap is sure to turn heads as it is used to interact with mobile devices.
As our electronic gadgets become increasingly powerful and portable, they are finding more and more ways to integrate into our daily lives. But with the days of big beige boxes that are confined to our desktops in the rearview mirror, we are finding that we need new ways to interact with these portable computing devices.
The old standby — the keyboard — is in many ways the most ideal input device ever developed. And it still is. After all, our computing devices have changed, but our anatomy has not. Carrying around a physical keyboard to interact with our smartphones kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a portable device in the first place, however.
Touchscreens with on-screen keyboards have filled the gap admirably, but the lack of tactile feedback, as well as their diminutive size, leaves them lacking. Typing a short email is easy enough, but I have yet to hear of a novel being penned on a touchscreen.
Wearable input devices offer a tremendous amount of promise. If an input device could be integrated into our clothing, or worn as a piece of jewelry, for example, it could provide us with a transparent way of efficiently interacting with our electronics. But just because wearables can be useful does not mean that all wearable devices are useful.
Case in point, the tongue-in-cheek Gboard CAPS wearable keyboard developed by engineers at Google Japan. This… uhm, innovative… keyboard has a single key that is worn on the head as a hat. As demonstrated, the hat has the appearance of a giant keycap, however, the design can be built into another style of hat to suit each individual’s personal tastes.
To use the Gboard CAPS, the wearer rotates the hat to the left or right on their head. An inertial measurement unit that is onboard an M5StickC Plus ESP32 development board senses these rotations to cycle through keyboard key options. When the correct option has been selected, the hat is pressed down to type that key, with an appropriate clicky sound. This may not be the most efficient way to enter keystrokes, but it is guaranteed to turn heads!
For some unknown reason, Google seems to have gone out of their way to disown the Gboard CAPS hat, making it very clear that you cannot buy one from them. They have, however, open-sourced the design. The build instructions, design files for 3D printing the parts, and Arduino code are all available for download in the GitHub repository.
If using a head-mounted keyboard with an awkward single-key interface is not your idea of a good time, there is still hope next year. Google Japan has a tradition of releasing highly unusual and creative keyboard designs on October 1st annually (101-key keyboards on 10/1, get it?). Personally, I am holding out for a belt keyboard with a big, Texas-sized enter key for a buckle. Google, email me. I have lots of ideas. If you start typing now, I should get it just before next year’s keyboard design is wrapped up.