[slg]

With the popularity of these devices, I am surprised no one has taken a swing at producing a new keyboard in the spirit of the old Optimus Maximus[1]. I would love to see how the tech improvements of the last decade and a half could help improve that design.

[1] - https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/

[iforgetmypass]

It should be noted that there's not much fancy tech in a streamdeck, it's just clever use of pretty old tech.

It's an LCD and touchscreen with a mask and the buttons are optical-grade-ish plastic with a pad that triggers the touchscreen when the button is pressed. Ford uses something similar in some of their center console screens; there's a wiper under a dial glued to the screen.

They do not use individual screens, despite the author's claim (which is common so they can be forgiven for it.)

[slg]

Interesting, I had no idea they were so simple. That could help explain why they haven't produced bigger devices like a full keyboard. The costs likely don't scale as well when you need a screen the size and shape of a keyboard as opposed to the commoditized screens they are using in the smaller devices.

[iforgetmypass]

Yep! Very simple and absurdly cheap to make and program. There are ton of display controllers that have more than enough capability to handle to do this all without needing a separate uC, even.

I think what you're really paying for is the software on the host computer side, and how many companies they've gotten to interface with them.

I'd be willing to bet that streamdeck makes a lot of money off sale of metrics they collect - what programs are running, what games people are playing, what they're streaming, and probably more.

[scrollaway]

Waaaah! I remember the Optimus Maximus. I never got one but I was drooling over it as a kid.

It made a lot of sense to me that a keyboard should be configurable to display what's expected on which keys. Switching between different layouts but also quick actions, video game inputs, etc. The macOS touchbar sort of does that.

I frankly would like to see it, even if I suspect that, if it could be done (without expending millions in R&D), it would have been done by now.

[FractalParadigm]

The Optimus Maximus felt like the future of keyboards when I was a kid and it first released. Hold shift and all the letters go from lower-case to upper, hold control/command and the keys change into their modifiers, telling you exactly what it does. Play World of Warcraft and instead of a number row your action bars with appropriate icons is there.

I'm a little surprised Elgato hasn't tried. I wonder if the original creators have some kind of a patent on ANSI/ISO keyboards with displays under the keys?

[slg]

Wikipedia[1] says the patent for this expired in 2016. Interesting enough, it also mentions that Apple filed a similar patent for a "dynamically changing OLED keyboard" in 2007. I wonder if that project was abandoned or eventually morphed into the Touchbar. Personally, I think having the screen(s) be individual keys would be a huge usability improvement over the Touchbar which doesn't have the same tactile feedback.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

[cronix]

I've always been curious as to how many patents exist where the holder actually had no intention of building the thing, for whatever reason, but didn't want anyone else to either.