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What if we had hexagon keycaps forming a honeycomb design?

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This came to me when I’m looking at honeycomb/bee themed keycaps (carbon im looking at you) and the idea would not leave my brain alone. Im sure such a thing don’t even exit, but my brains like: I bet Planck would be a great layout for that honeycomb kaycap look. I bet a “floating“ case would fit nicely too.
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KavusKazian
4
Feb 12, 2022
I would like to see a keyboard with hexagonal keys, where the entire keyboard is a hexagon. It would have to have a unique key layout, but if done right, it would be more ergonomic as your wrists would be straight. Not sure how well I'm explaining this.
XTaran
361
Oct 20, 2018
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned Lofree keyboards in this thread so far. They already have such a design in production, just with round keycaps, but at least their profiles are overlapping causing ∞-formed shift key caps: https://www.lofree.co/collections/keyboards
naverlands
144
Oct 26, 2018
ok this is interesting, I never noticed the key speacing, I think I have even seen the duck version in my local mall...if I could remember witch mall it was so I can go and have a MUCH closer look.
naverlandsI’ve never seen the duck version, but the Azio typewriter-style board looks like it does have standard spacing. But it looks like the Azio’s case completely covers the top of the switches, and the caps have an extension that pokes through the case to mount to the switch stems.
Here is a stretched hex case with layer keys and three spacebars (or backspace/space/enter, or whatever you'd like). Arrows added on the right and pg up/pg dn/home/end on the left to fill in the empty case space.
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But I prefer a rectangular case for desk space.
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Either way, the vertical switch spacing could remain the standard 1U = 19.05mm. But the horizontal switch spacing would need to be about 10% wider to keep an even gap all around and a regular hex shape (all six sides the same length). So maybe call the width U' instead of U to distinguish between the two.
With a non-sculptured profile only two keycap molds would be needed: 1U' and 2U'. Others might be desirable for spacebar options. The 2U' keycaps would work best POS rather than stabilizer.
That wasn’t an option in 2018, unfortunately.
dvorcolmake this exist please. lol
wtoe
67
Jul 28, 2018
But why add sides when you can remove them?
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On a serious note, I feel like it would be awkward to type on non-square keys. I know round-shaped keys exist but I've never typed on them. Maybe hexagons are close enough to circular to not be too weird.
airstrike
101
Aug 14, 2018
wtoeFrom my experience, round-shaped keys are the absolute worst. I came across one such keyboard at the counter of a cyber cafe in NY and the owner told me that everyone struggles to type in their username on it, even though it's just a few characters long...
naverlands
144
Aug 17, 2018
wtoeim seeing that graph with the sin cosin curves? and its mesmerizing. this is inspiring, I feel like to do something weird like this for my first build.
muni_chang
2709
muni
Jul 23, 2018
I am not sure this shape can use on MX switches or not, but this is the coolest idea I never heard :)
udller
298
Jul 23, 2018
muni_changthers round keycaps used on those typeriter-esc boards so it should probably work.
Survey says this is much better.
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I'm posting again since my original post is buried in an earlier thread.
@alysdexia "True" is not a suffix.
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UltimoKazuma
7
Jul 22, 2018
Seems like an interesting twist on column staggered keyboards.
CydTrevellion
69
Jul 20, 2018
Rotate it so you have rows again, that'd work better
CydTrevellionGonna sketch that tonight. But no matter what it cannot be ortholinear...
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