Lilygo T-Keyboard: An ESP32 Bluetooth Blackberry keyboard(lilygo.cc)
lilygo.cc
Lilygo T-Keyboard: An ESP32 Bluetooth Blackberry keyboard
https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-keyboard
36 comments
Great but Lilygo should dedicate some of their efforts into writing documentation, even it it means dialing down the development of new products. I have several personal projects involving some Lilygo products and they are taking forever simply because I spent 95% of the time reverse engineering whatever examples they have and try to make some sense of what it is I'm actually holding in my hands. In most cases you don't even get a datasheet.
This is 100% true. The documentation isn't great. The code itself isn't great, either and it's the only thing you can go off of.
One thing Lilygo really should do is start merging pull requests. Many of them are fixing the documentation because we love tinkering with their devices and want to pave the way for others.
One thing Lilygo really should do is start merging pull requests. Many of them are fixing the documentation because we love tinkering with their devices and want to pave the way for others.
Thankfully most everything lily-go throws on their boards is pretty generic and generally adafruit has an equivalent feather wing or some such, and you can use their documentation to figure out how to get your lily-go stuff working with a bit of time spent cross referencing schematics and code.
i have the same thought. they are really good at identifying market needs but their documentation is so lacking that it is more rewarding and only slightly slower to design and implement some of their less complicated modules yourself...
Honestly, this isn't the case - at least in my experience - every product I've bought from them has come with a pinout diagram that is also duplicated on github. Sure, getting the hardware up and running is challenging, and sometimes the examples are a bit arcane or have weird omissions in terms of illustrating the device's capabilities, but it's a booster pack compared to designing and programming similar embedded hardware from scratch.
Honestly, it is -- I've a handful of devices and at least 2 needed debug level recovery of the firmware because of board revisions and pinouts for the same product being vastly different.
They should do better, but they're in a fun corner of the industry pushing out a half decent solution, so I accept.
They should do better, but they're in a fun corner of the industry pushing out a half decent solution, so I accept.
After the deep discussions on the Lilygo T-Deck and the Clicks keyboard, I felt like this needed to be shared. I nearly built something like the Clicks for myself but the closer I got the worse it seemed, ergonomically. Not only that the Clicks key layout only has shift on one side and it doesn't have a backlight.
Some background: I have been shopping around for a bluetooth keyboard to use for thumb typing for the last few months. I have a book to edit and a newborn that is always sleeping on my chest. I tried a few bluetooth keyboards from Amazon but they were all garbage.
Eventually I found the T-Keyboard and have been really pleased by it. This is the keyboard from the T-Deck with a little 160x40 screen attached to it. The screen allows you to see what you're typing on the device without looking at your phone. It boots in half a second which means switching back and forth is lightning fast. If I'm typing a few words, I stick to my touchscreen. I'm editing so there's a lot of selecting text to copy / paste / annotate which is also touchscreen work. When I need to add a new paragraph or more, I set my phone down and pick this thing up to type with.
It really is fantastic. If you decide to pick one up, you may want to run my fork which fixes a bunch of the usability issues: https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/tree/bleeding_edge
Some background: I have been shopping around for a bluetooth keyboard to use for thumb typing for the last few months. I have a book to edit and a newborn that is always sleeping on my chest. I tried a few bluetooth keyboards from Amazon but they were all garbage.
Eventually I found the T-Keyboard and have been really pleased by it. This is the keyboard from the T-Deck with a little 160x40 screen attached to it. The screen allows you to see what you're typing on the device without looking at your phone. It boots in half a second which means switching back and forth is lightning fast. If I'm typing a few words, I stick to my touchscreen. I'm editing so there's a lot of selecting text to copy / paste / annotate which is also touchscreen work. When I need to add a new paragraph or more, I set my phone down and pick this thing up to type with.
It really is fantastic. If you decide to pick one up, you may want to run my fork which fixes a bunch of the usability issues: https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/tree/bleeding_edge
The problem I have with the blackberry keyboards is the omission of commonly used linux symbols such as tilde - how do you cope with that? Or perhaps I am missing a trick? I've resorted to salvaging Psion 5 keyboards and rolling my own hardware as the result.
I don't need a tilde but I could add one in about 5 minutes if needed. It would be something like this:
https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/blob/bleeding_edge/ex...
except it would add a ~ rather than trigger an arrow key. I'd likely put it on sym+q so that it is in a similar space to a real keyboard.
I was discussing special characters with someone on github. If the character isn't in the font you'll have to do some extra work that I summarized in this comment: https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T-keyboard/issues/10#issue...
In the comment above it the mapping table that I'm talking about is this one: https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/blob/bleeding_edge/ex... .
https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/blob/bleeding_edge/ex...
except it would add a ~ rather than trigger an arrow key. I'd likely put it on sym+q so that it is in a similar space to a real keyboard.
I was discussing special characters with someone on github. If the character isn't in the font you'll have to do some extra work that I summarized in this comment: https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T-keyboard/issues/10#issue...
In the comment above it the mapping table that I'm talking about is this one: https://github.com/zenkalia/T-keyboard/blob/bleeding_edge/ex... .
> After the deep discussions on the Lilygo T-Deck and the Clicks keyboard
Care to link those? I've been poking around some of this stuff and have a Lilygo T-Display and T-Embed en route, would be nice to see other more knowledgable folks' opinion on the products, dev experience, etc.
(edit, there isnt much in a search for 'lilygo' so I surmise it's this fella https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38862848 )
Care to link those? I've been poking around some of this stuff and have a Lilygo T-Display and T-Embed en route, would be nice to see other more knowledgable folks' opinion on the products, dev experience, etc.
(edit, there isnt much in a search for 'lilygo' so I surmise it's this fella https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38862848 )
That's the one! And this was the Clicks discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38871987
It's not very relevant to Lilygo tinkering but just a deep discussion of physical keyboards for phone use.
It's not very relevant to Lilygo tinkering but just a deep discussion of physical keyboards for phone use.
>layout only has shift on one side
Do people use right shift? Earnest question
Do people use right shift? Earnest question
On a regular keyboard all the time. It's the left shift that gets no love.
(Finnish layout, not sure if that makes a difference)
(Finnish layout, not sure if that makes a difference)
I know this is more of a hacker tool than an end-user product, but I wish more Bluetooth keyboards used their USB port not just to charge, but also to become a wired USB keyboard when plugged in. It's rare to need a wired keyboard, but it's nice for those times when you need to twiddle a BIOS setting or bootstrap a Bluetooth pairing flow.
The Apple Magic keyboard I have does this and thought it was a common feature of Bluetooth keyboards. Apparently not...
Isn't this super common? Pretty much every bluetooth keyboard I've had can do both wired and bluetooth
Even if this keyboard is as good as a real BB back in the golden years
using it on an iPhone is a mess.
BBin the golden years was fully optimized for operating with a keyboard.
iPhone is optimized for being a touch screen driven system. Those conflict.
I tried for a good time to develop something very similar years ago, but 1) I wasn't able to find financing and 2) (more importantly) trying to write a UI Shell for Android that worked like the original BB was perhaps not impossible, but way past my and the people with me skill level.
Now what we need is to find an Android device that can run the classic BB software. (Yeah they made their own Android BB, but it sucked)
iPhone is optimized for being a touch screen driven system. Those conflict.
I tried for a good time to develop something very similar years ago, but 1) I wasn't able to find financing and 2) (more importantly) trying to write a UI Shell for Android that worked like the original BB was perhaps not impossible, but way past my and the people with me skill level.
Now what we need is to find an Android device that can run the classic BB software. (Yeah they made their own Android BB, but it sucked)
lilygo has been killing it for a while now with great small embedded devices.
The keyboard plus ultra small typing screen is a super neat idea.
I do wish the key card here also had the pointer pad too, but still a great offering. seen a bunch of these but usually without case, and the price here (<$19) is pretty fine.
This post also is a sad reminder that I haven't used or been even semi fluent in my Twiddler for nearing a decade now. Now that was the ideal ubiquitous computer keyboard, if you can overcome the arduous learning curve.
The keyboard plus ultra small typing screen is a super neat idea.
I do wish the key card here also had the pointer pad too, but still a great offering. seen a bunch of these but usually without case, and the price here (<$19) is pretty fine.
This post also is a sad reminder that I haven't used or been even semi fluent in my Twiddler for nearing a decade now. Now that was the ideal ubiquitous computer keyboard, if you can overcome the arduous learning curve.
> overcome the arduous learning curve
Oh man. This reminds of the end of my developer career. I moved over to management because of awful RSI but in a desperate attempt to keep typing I learned the AlphaGrip. If I can master that thing, I can master anything!
http://www.alphagrip.com/
Oh man. This reminds of the end of my developer career. I moved over to management because of awful RSI but in a desperate attempt to keep typing I learned the AlphaGrip. If I can master that thing, I can master anything!
http://www.alphagrip.com/
Check out tindie - there is a solder party blackberry keyboard with a track pad. No display. If the display is important to you, then look at the TTGO-deck - a larger device but it has both keyboard & pointer.
These things have unfortunately been sold out for a while. Not only that, if I wanted to use the BBQ20 with my phone I'd have to connect it to a BLE chip and a battery which is way more hacking than I wanted to do on this project.
Or get it on Lectronz, they also feature Solder Party's products.
I can’t see carrying one of these for use with a phone/tablet (at least not with this version’s chunkiness) but something like this with a trackpoint added would make a great companion for a home theater PC. Even better if it had multi-pairing so it could switch between a PC, console, streaming box, etc.
Currently am using a Lenovo ThinkPad Keyboard II for this purpose which is pretty good (dual RF/BT modes let me switch between devices, trackpoint is better than the chintzy integrated trackpads in most couch-keyboards), but something that takes up less coffee table space and is more like a remote would be even better.
Currently am using a Lenovo ThinkPad Keyboard II for this purpose which is pretty good (dual RF/BT modes let me switch between devices, trackpoint is better than the chintzy integrated trackpads in most couch-keyboards), but something that takes up less coffee table space and is more like a remote would be even better.
Have you looked at the handheld keyboard-trackpad units that Rii makes? They don’t quite tick all your boxes, but I think it could still be a step in the right direction.
I am quite happy with my Rii I8X. The trackpad exceeded my expectations—I have no complaints. Having it centred makes a big difference, compared to the wobbly experience with the full-size units where it’s on the side.
My one complaint is that I can’t quite touch-type on it. But that’s probably OK if it’s for occasional use with an HTPC.
I think other brands make similar keyboard units with mini trackballs, but I don’t think I have seen any with trackpoints.
I am quite happy with my Rii I8X. The trackpad exceeded my expectations—I have no complaints. Having it centred makes a big difference, compared to the wobbly experience with the full-size units where it’s on the side.
My one complaint is that I can’t quite touch-type on it. But that’s probably OK if it’s for occasional use with an HTPC.
I think other brands make similar keyboard units with mini trackballs, but I don’t think I have seen any with trackpoints.
There are tons of these devices, I got one for $10 or so, it's the size of a mobile phone and comes with a full keyboard, trackpad, media keys, mouse keys, etc.
I wonder if any of these DIY Blackberry keyboard products (or BB-like such as that recent Clicks case) have the capacitive touchpad feature that later Blackberry had, where you could use the surface of the keyboard itself as a touchpad for scrolling, tapping (without depressing any key), text selection, etc.
Not that I've seen. The Lilygo and BBQ20 keyboards all seem to use surplus Arabic BB keyboards that are made to be used with the little trackpad thing like on the tdeck.
Wow, that's cute! And it has a (weirdly written in the specs, but I'll reinterpret based on images) 160x40 color screen connected over 4-wire SPI. That means it can be fast, and having a full keyboard and a decent CPU means ... there will be games written for this. Cool!
Also check out the so-called M5 Cardputer, which is part of the M5Stack line of products. Has the colour display and super tiny keyboard, but also SD card, mic and speaker and battery. Plus... you can attach it to legos or fridges!
So many amazing little devices like this! I hope we get a proper OS and app management system for this class of device eventually, they could have some really cool applications especially as remote controls.
I would be really into a phone with the double-tap keyboard and rocker of the Blackberry 7100, maybe adding the trackball.
Someone make an E7 type case with a slide under keyboard for Android/USB-C on the bottom right side.
Cute but useless. I am fine using my cellphone.
keep seeing mechanical keyboard addons for phones... are we finally going in the right direction (until they figure out something better)?