Introducing Altar I — A keyboard with a precision machined aluminium monobody, slim mechanical switches, Bluetooth, novel key shape, rotary encoder, USB C, and a bold design.
Hi Product Hunt,
During lockdown I became interested in keyboards but couldn't find anything I liked the aesthetic of. So over the last year or so I set out to design a keyboard from scratch that shunned the gamer look in favour of a more minimal, serious design.
I've built several prototypes but I would love to get some feedback from the PH community before the design is finalised.
***
Altar I is a low-profile, wireless mechanical keyboard with:
✅ A CNC machined and anodised aluminium monobody
✅ Low profile Kailh mechanical switches
✅ Ability to remember 2 Bluetooth devices and easily toggle between them via slide switch
✅ A rotary encoder knob for controlling volume
✅ Plastic composed of 75% post consumer waste
✅ A layout Mac users will be familiar with
✅ USB C
✅ U.S. and European layouts
✅ Open source firmware called ZMK
***
Last week Altar I appeared at the top of Hacker News and the feedback was very useful. So please check out the website and let me know what you think.
Sign up to the waitlist to know when pre-orders open!
Thanks,
Andrew
After spending a couple weeks using the Altar I I struggle with the fact that I hate using it, despite how much I love looking at it.
Starting with the good:
It's an amazing looking design, I collect typing instruments as a hobby from various industrial designers, the inset keys remind me of designs similar to Mario Bellini typing instruments, and some Japanese adding machines from the Showa era.
The rotary encoder is slightly clicked but not audible so it feels satisfying to turn, but it does potrude out much farther than I thought it would from looking at the render. The build quality is very good, and the legends and type choice is superb.
Now for the bad:
The placement of the Bluetooth pairing button on the right side of the keyboard along with the hair trigger it seems to have leads to me almost constantly triggering accidental pairing mode taps. There's no way to back out of this mode, even when switching the device mode toggle between 1 2 and 3, so on Mac OS, this requires me to forget the device and re-pair the keyboard. This happened 6 times accidentally the first day using the keyboard, and happens at least once every day or two since. Even slightly touching it can cause the device to go into pairing mode.
The typing angle at a flat 0 degrees is very difficult ergonomically. At the end of a full day of typing with this keyboard or doing any coding or writing my hands are sore. In addition, the deep inset of the keys into the bezel leads to mis-typed nearby keys.
All in all, it looks amazing, but day-to-day function suffers greatly at the hands of the design.
Electronic Materials Office — Altar I