I made a FOSS physical keyboard for my Fairphone 4

Github link: github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry

Here’s a video of it in action: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDb8_ld9gOQ

I’ve been using it for almost two years now, and I’m not going back.

It’s based on a spare Blackberry Q10 keyboard and a custom Arduino-compatible board that reads the keyboard matrix and outputs it as USB HID to the phone. From the viewpoint of the phone, it’s just a regular USB keyboard, so no special software is needed.

But I do use a custom virtual keyboard to have just two rows of symbols that are not natively on the keyboard, as I didn’t want to add another layer of rarely used symbols that I’d have to memorize.

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/e5240b79-0f10-4dfd-9bd6-2833300f49fc.jpeg

(On the image you can see Ubuntu with XFCE4 running on it. I chose Ubuntu because it’s what was easiest to get running in a chroot jail on the phone. I’m using VNC to display the GUI. I even managed to get FEX (x86/x64 emulator) and Wine running, so it runs x86/x64 Linux and Windows apps.)

Franzia,

Awesome OP!!! I am officiallg jealous!

sounddrill, (edited )

How did you do the chroot btw? Could I load phosh for mobile?

squaresinger,

I used LinuxDeploy, which is seriously outdated by now, but it works and it’s easy to use.

You just need to update the chrooted Linux from e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 to something modern. But that’s not too hard.

It could be possible to load phosh. I didn’t manage to get Gnome running (which phosh is based on afaik). But I guess if your Linux-fu is a bit better than mine, you might be able to get it to work.

vox,
@vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

try running chroot in termux with termux-x11

squaresinger,

Does Termux support chroot as well? Afaik it only does proot. Also, I read that Termux isn’t working on Android 12 any more.

vox,
@vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

it works on android 13 (as they’re still targeting android 9, so new limitations don’t apply to them), but you need to disable phantom process killer to make it work in background. (you need android 13 or newer or root to fully disable it, it can only be disabled until reboot on android 12 unless you have root) both chroot (with root) and proot (slow, no root) are supported. Termux-x11 is still kinda experimental though…

squaresinger,

Thanks for the info, that’s good to know!

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

This is beyond awesome! Nice job!!

squaresinger,

Thanks!

Sdnimm543,

I just got a Titan pocket. That’s a really cool alternative!

squaresinger,

Yeah, I wanted a bit more performance than what the Titan provides. I wish there was a decent midrange version of the Titan pocket.

Sdnimm543,

totally fair. I do wish there was more than like, a handful of modern keyboard phones.

squaresinger,

And I wish there were some that are actually good phones. All of them have either really outdated or low-end hardware, bad cameras, bad or no software updates and so on…

sic_semper_tyrannis,

That’s super awesome! Does it feel top heavy when typing as it looks like a really tall phone?

squaresinger,

Surprisingly it’s not too top heavy. It takes a few moments in the beginning to find the right hand posture and then it’s pretty comfortable.

It covers the bottom lip and that allows it to be less top heavy, since part of the phone is stuck into the keyboard.

JudahBenHur,

this is spectacular. I’m typing this on a blackberry key2. I’d buy this in a heartbeat if it were possible. I was reading two days ago about the Titan Slim phone, but reviews are poor. I find it deeply frustrating that no one will buy the rights to, and release a key3. there is 100％ a niche market.

squaresinger,

Yeah, all of the keyboard phones on the market are ancient and/or total crap in every regard but their keyboard and/or super expensive. Some of them are all three at the same time (looking at you Planet Computers and F(x)tec!).

I believe I might have the most up-to-date and highest specced keyboard phone currently on the planet ;)

there is 100％ a niche market.

There totally is, as is proven by Unihertz still existing. But I fear, the keyboard market is a little fragmented, and just a handful of devices won’t really capture it. People like side sliders, top sliders or portrait candy bar,. They might want a large or a small phone. They might like privacy/secure phones or hacker phones, or just cheap phones with a keyboard and nothing else. Or maybe a flagship phone with all bells and whistles and a keyboard…

The Fairberry is adaptable to pretty much any phone on the market (as long as it supports external keyboards). Foldables might be challenging though ;)

But that allows you to use any phone you like with a keyboard that anyone can make for ~€50, or maybe €100 if you get someone to do the soldering/printing for you.

JudahBenHur,

I see you made a reddit post on r/blackberry. so just to say: you’re my fucking hero. please don’t stop developing this… I dont have a 3D printer, but I could use one for the other things I make (animatronics)… so I mean…this is making me think maybe I should pull the trigger

squaresinger,

Thanks! Posts like this one make my day^^

You are the first one who mentioned another post I made. Hopefully I am not spamming too much about this project.

From my point of view, there is hardly a reason not to get a 3D printer. A decent Ender 3 can be had for ~€300, and having one around has so many use cases. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve made so far.

JudahBenHur,

I dont feel you’re spamming. If you go have a look at r/blackberry, I made a post about your project without realizing you had already done so.

You’d recommend the ender 3? The two things that keep me from having a serious look into it are that I dont know anything about what model would be good/right, and I’d be concerned that I’d buy it second hand and it’d be disfunctional.

squaresinger,

Cool! I didn’t see the post of yours. Do you have a link?

I am the goto guy for 3D printer problems in my friend group. Contrary to the other printer models, the guys owning Ender 3 only contact me to show me the cool things they printed. These things just work. I only have one friend who has an Ender 3 who had problems with it, and that was after he upgraded almost every important part at once and had trouble getting it all working again.

There certainly are better (and much more expensive) printers out there, but for the price point it’s absolutely the best. I would recommend getting the newest version.

I would recommend buying a new one, if possible, because there are lots of unobvious ways to break a printer and fixing one if you don’t really know a lot about printers yet (because it’s your first one) is really difficult and frustrating.

JudahBenHur,

reddit.com/…/dude_made_a_q10_keyboard_attachment_…

I’ve had a look around… only finding new ones north of €300…

squaresinger,

Thanks for the link!

On the local Amazon I find it for €273: www.amazon.de/dp/B07PJQNNGP/

Interesting, that there’s such a large regional price difference.

JudahBenHur,

Well, I personally won’t shop on Amazon unless I quite literally cannot find it through any other retailer (this is down to their anti-union stance, and their abhorrant environmental impact- carbon and plastic waste-wise), so I didn’t even look to see what their pricing was as I found it available throgh a bunch of other private retailers and resellers.

Things in Ireland tend to be pretty costly though, I’ll tell ya.

squaresinger,

Understandable.

Over here we got a really handy page to compare prices of online retailers. I couldn’t find anything similar for Ireland, but I found an EU version. It’s for some reason still in German, but I guess it should be easy enough to navigate regardless:

geizhals.eu/creality-3d-ender-3-v2-a2462014.html

JudahBenHur,

Yo that’s super helpful, thank you for that. 200!

squaresinger,

Happy to help! If you need any advice or help, PM me!

JudahBenHur,

will do, thank you :)

Duchess,
@Duchess@yiffit.net avatar

God, I miss physical keys on phones so much. I currently use a z flip 4 but if it was more like an old style flip phone with a keypad on the bottom I’d be so happy.

I_Miss_Daniel,
@I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social avatar

Interesting. But I wonder with the advent of Swype / Swiftkey etc whether a physical keyboard of these dimensions can compete in a speed? I feel like it's not physically possible to match the speed of swyping, but could be wrong.

squaresinger,

I get 55 WPM without errors on the physical keyboard, compared to 45 WPM on the touch keyboard where I also have a significant amount of typos.

But tbh, typing speed is not the main reason. With the physical keyboard, I am much more accurate. I can use key combinations like CTRL+A/X/C/V (the microphone button is mapped to CTRL). There is an alternate mode (activated by pressing both shift keys at the same time) that remaps WASD as cursor keys, which makes e.g. selecting text (SHIFT + Cursor key) much easier. Also I can type while walking and not looking at the phone. And don’t get me started about how much of a difference it is when I use a command line, e.g. with SSH.

pH3ra,
@pH3ra@beehaw.org avatar

I’m sad that I never managed to get used to this kind of keyboards (gigantic fingers), this project looks so interesting

squaresinger,

The shaped keys of the Blackberry Q10 keyboard help a lot. But picking up a physical keyboard after years of touch-only typing does take a few days to get used to it. But once you are used to it, there is no going back.

I have the direct comparison, since I have to take off the keyboard for charging, and if I want to use it while charging I need to use the virtual keyboard. It’s a pain, compared to the physical one.

wrath-sedan,
@wrath-sedan@kbin.social avatar

Wow that's really cool. The hybrid physical/virtual is a great touch, and the ability to customize what's in those top two rows would be amazing. So cool what you can do with modular open design!

squaresinger,

The hybrid physical/virtual is a great touch

The original reason for this was that I didn’t want to spend all that time getting pass-through charging to work, so for charging the keyboard needs to come off.

But this “quick release” design has the advantage that you can use the phone without keyboard when that’s advantageous, e.g. when I want to type really quietly while in bed.

This also gives me a direct comparison between physical and virtual keyboard, that you usually don’t get on a pure keyboard phone. And I have to say, typing on the screen is a PAIN compared to the physical keyboard.

and the ability to customize what’s in those top two rows would be amazing.

For the two virtual rows? Yeah, I’m using the Gr8ly customizable keyboard for that (play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=symbolsshor…) which allows me to put whatever symbols I want on there.

So cool what you can do with modular open design!

Thanks!

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

BEHOLD. The true candy bar phone dimensions.

squaresinger,

It is a looong phone :)

But it still fits into most of my trouser pockets

smeg,

This is the future that was predicted when they made the iPhone 5 like 1cm longer

sag, (edited )

Post this epic thing also in !opensource

squaresinger,

Thanks, will do!

rikonium,

That’s incredible, happy to see the old hardware still kicking!

On a similar note, sometime a year ago I spotted a guy using a Q10 at a shopping center in LA. Had a quick chat which was fun.

squaresinger, (edited )

On a similar note, sometime a year ago I spotted a guy using a Q10 at a shopping center in LA. Had a quick chat which was fun.

As someone who is on the other side of that conversation a lot, I do appreciate it whenever someone asks me about that weird thing I have in my hands ;)

I got this a lot more when I had it in copper/wood (top part was wood filament, bottom part copper filament), but I only have these colors in PLA, which is not durable at all. So I switched to the plain-black PETG and now people don’t notice it any more. I’m considering reprinting it in transparent PETG.

jimmydoreisalefty,

Awesome, let us know when you do it in transparent PETG!

squaresinger,

Will do!

Btw, this is how it looked in copper/wood:

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/8b44e21c-b33b-48ab-a680-e6106bda4ebb.jpeg

jimmydoreisalefty,

Wow, was not expecting it to look that good!

Great work!

squaresinger,

I did like the combination. Sadly, PLA isn’t very sturdy, and wood filled filament is even worse.

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