[HN Gopher] Show HN: Clawtype v2.1 - a one-hand chorded USB keyb...
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Show HN: Clawtype v2.1 - a one-hand chorded USB keyboard and mouse
[video]
Written in Rust (embassy), running on a SparkFun ProMicro RP2040
board, with an MPU6050 gyroscope. Based on the Chordite idea from
John W. McKown
(https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c...).
Intended for use with XR glasses I recently bought. Currently my
typing speed is still rather slow, but my skill is graduably
improving and at a noticeable pace, and I can and do some vim
coding in my hobby time. I plan to try and do a wireless (BLE)
version next, hopefully running off a single AA NiMH battery. The
code is at: https://github.com/akavel/clawtype
Author : akavel
Score : 90 points
Date : 2025-04-04 22:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| jonquark wrote:
| I'm not a hardware tinkerer - but if there was a production
| version of this, I would buy it. But I guess I'm a niche market.
| akavel wrote:
| I'm not aware of any production version of Chordite (that this
| design is based on) as of now; but in the wider family of
| chorded keyboards, the one with a production version that I'm
| aware of is the Twiddler.
| mcshicks wrote:
| I was going to say I have a old twiddler 2 (wired usb). There
| was this program I used to learn called "twidor" that was
| like a type tutor but had graphic that showed you the chords.
| Really helpful. I didn't see anything like that in the github
| repository linked in the video. I guess they are up to
| twiddler 4 now. I read the linked chordite page and I agree
| that a problem with the twiddler is you are kind of trying to
| hold the thing steady so you can chord with the same fingers
| you chording with.
|
| https://wearables.cc.gatech.edu/projects/twidor/screens.html
| akavel wrote:
| I don't have a program at the moment. The layout I
| currently use is in the codebase, starts here: https://gith
| ub.com/akavel/clawtype/blob/96980f68427eb1089112...
| Personally, I just edited this layout description into a
| more compact form and printed it on a sheet of A4 paper as
| a cheatsheet. I do intend to make this aspect more
| scriptable, but didn't get to it yet.
|
| For learning, I personally just try to slowly code simple
| hobby things in vim, with the cheatsheet in the other
| hand... I tried to make the layout relatively intuitive
| wherever I could. I also patiently went through all the
| possible combinations of presses, and tried to group them
| into categories of easy<->medium<->hard<->impossible, then
| tried to put esp. the more frequently used keys on the
| easier combinations/chords.
| Sn0wCoder wrote:
| Watched the video and super excited to see where tech like this
| ends up in a few years. Was on the quest to find a split
| keyboard last week and ran across this. Ended up with a UHK,
| but man I thought hard about buying one (pair) of these. I was
| just worried about dust, dirt and overall longevity. Seems like
| something that would need to be worked on every month or two.
| The kit is reasonable and might be a fun (next) project.
|
| https://svalboard.com/
|
| Would be interested to hear about anyone's experience that owns
| one of these. How do they hold up? How long did it take to get
| used to using? Would you recommend to a friend?
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| This would be good for trying to get something done on the
| computer while managing a toddler
| rendaw wrote:
| This is awesome! Is there any support beyond the wrist, or how
| resistive is it when you press the buttons? Have you considered 2
| hands too? Do you feel like you've maxed out the number of
| comfortably reachable keys? I guess you can't have keys off to
| the side since you can't move your hand relative to the keyboard.
| Does the thumb do anything currently?
|
| I'm in this niche market too... although I don't really have an
| immediate use case beyond someday being more portable. Also had
| some issues with XR glasses and fov being reduced further by eye-
| glass distance.
| akavel wrote:
| No more physical support for the hand than what's seen in the
| vid. You can check more info in the github repo
| (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) and on printables
| (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype). The strap
| and the plate under the wrist seem enough that I'm not looking
| to improve on that at the moment; but I still need to test this
| version on some longer usage sessions. Interestingly, the
| original inventor and patent owner (https://web.archive.org/web
| /20220201061603/http://chordite.c...) has a design that doesn't
| even use a strap, but I didn't explore this direction yet (and
| honestly not yet even sure how to crack it). I know of another
| designer who's trying to iterate in that space:
| http://blog.russnelson.com/chordite
|
| As to resistance, there's a balance to be adjusted between
| having the buttons too easy or to hard. This seems in main part
| to need to be adjusted by their positioning though. If too
| easy, you'll press combinations/chords accidentally too often.
| If too hard, it gets tiresome and annoying. Maybe there's some
| better placement possible, haven't found it yet. The switches
| currently used are Alps; they have dimensions which make them a
| good fit for this particular design; Cherry MX are a tiny bit
| too big and would require some rethinking.
|
| As to 2 hands, the whole point for me is to have my main
| (right) hand available for other use, like drinking water, or
| otherwise supporting myself in the physical environment around.
| So I'm not currently interested in two-handed.
|
| As to the number of keys - the four fingers seem busy enough;
| on the other hand, if you could fit smaller switches around (as
| in the DataHand design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand -
| see also 3d-printed clones on the internet - _edit:_ e.g. the
| https://svalboard.com, as mentioned by someone else, and
| lalboard https://hackaday.io/project/178232-lalboard-ergonomic-
| keyboa... as respectfully linked from therein), maybe you could
| try working with that. The obvious extra possibility is the
| thumb as you mention - it does feel like something could be
| added there, though it also sometimes helps a bit in holding
| the device. The original Chordite designer managed to somehow
| do it without a strap, but his reasons to not use the thumb are
| somewhat confusing to me.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| This is really cool, is it OK if we iterate on the design?
| akavel wrote:
| Which part specifically are you asking about? To summarize as
| of now:
|
| - the code in the repo (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) is
| under AGPL-v3, so you're totally fine to iterate on this part,
| as long as you keep the license and it terms - which means you
| should be able to sell it all fine, just also providing users
| the iterated code, so they can further iterate on their own; -
| the 3d-printed parts & structure design
| (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype) is CC BY-
| NC-SA, so you can iterate on that part as long as you keep
| those terms - let me know (https://merveilles.town/@akavel/) if
| you want to negotiate the terms with the designer, or just
| reach out to him by yourself; - in the US, some aspects of the
| design are covered by A PATENT by the original inventor &
| designer John W. McKown, as explained on the original Chordite
| page:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c...
| with an exception for personal use - the patent is
| http://www.google.com/patents/US6429854 - though IIUC the
| google page seems to claim it's expired, whatever this means in
| the legal system, and google claim IANAL on the page too. - or
| do you mean some other aspect?
| runsonrum wrote:
| Other one-handed keyboards with different input methods. All
| sorts of interesting custom keyboards as well.
|
| https://kbd.news/tag/one-handed/
| fsiefken wrote:
| An alternative one-handed keyboard design I like is the half
| keyboard by Edgar Matias. Personally I am not sure which one is
| better for typing half-dvorak or half-qwerty.
|
| http://edgarmatias.com/papers/hci96/
| https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-...
| akavel wrote:
| It's not wearable though, no? or is it?
| kimos wrote:
| I used autohotkey for about half a year when I injured my
| shoulder. With the time to practice I got most of the way back
| to my typing speed with one hand. It's really a viable solution
| that wasn't too hard to learn.
| HellsMaddy wrote:
| Is this by chance inspired by the one handed keyboard from
| Children of Men?
|
| https://youtu.be/sJO0n6kvPRU at around 2:05
|
| One of my favorite scenes, by the way.
| akavel wrote:
| The patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6429854) was
| filed in 2000, and the movie seems to be from 2006, so possibly
| it was actually the other way around?
| Karliss wrote:
| I doubt there was a direct inspiration in either direction
| beside contributing to overall pool of ideas around wearable
| input devices. Only commonality I see is that they are both
| handheld/glove like computer input devices. Nerds and sci-fi
| authors have been dreaming about stuff like that since the
| beginning of personal computers in ~1970s-1980s if not
| earlier. There are plenty of other examples which could have
| been inspiration. Even the 2000 patent, references dozen
| older patents for handheld or glove like input devices some
| of which are much closer to the 2006 movie.
|
| Looking at the history of wearable electronics can't forget
| about Steve Mann and all his crazy prototypes long before
| 2000.
|
| Most well known movie examples are probably Minority
| report(2002) and The Wizard(1989) which showed Nintendo power
| glove.
| yencabulator wrote:
| The history of that base design goes back to the 70s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyer#Computer_interface_keyer...
| barriteau wrote:
| I'm an early adopter and long time user of the Tap Strap [1] and
| the TapXR [2], they solved for me the same OP's aspirations ;)
|
| There is some room for improvement, but it really works,
| flawlessly [3].
|
| [1] https://www.tapwithus.com/how-tapxr-works/
|
| [2] https://www.tapwithus.com/product/tap-xr/
|
| [3] https://www.tapwithus.com/how-tapxr-works/
| ics wrote:
| Learning about this for the first time, do you use the TapXR or
| the Tap Strap? Are there any tasks you do/not use it for, or
| environments where it functions better or worse? Can it work
| single hand or with both hands (and a second device)?
| barriteau wrote:
| I have both, they work pretty well, TapXR looks nicer but has
| one drawback: doesn't do very well in low light conditions
| and doesn't work at all in the dark; the old Strap doesn't
| have this problem, its only drawbacks are the extra seconds
| it takes to wear it and the weirder aesthetics.
|
| I've only used them as keyboards, so I'm not very familiar
| with the media controller options, but as far as I can see
| it's a very easy mode to use.
|
| You can use two of them at the same time, one in each hand,
| but it probably won't be necessary, you can get to type very
| fast with one hand.
|
| They are very well supported on iOS. I once plugged one into
| Windows and it seemed to work fine, but I have not tested it
| extensively.
| ics wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks. I a word and meant to ask which
| you use _more_ , oops. The strap says that it works better
| on hard surfaces which makes me wonder about how it fares
| on say, a leg, stiff cushion, or things like that. Also if
| it's not using an optical sensor, I wonder what happens
| when you try playing an instrument with it on. Might have
| to give it a try.
| barriteau wrote:
| The TapXR I use the most ;)
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(page generated 2025-04-05 23:01 UTC)