Physical keyboard for android phone?
I have a quandary. Even with a decent android keyboard (Typewise offline keyboard), I still find myself hampered by gettingnanstringnofnwordsnwhereni miss the space bar. Sometimes I miss n "A" key. I am very out put by my likelihood of getting "out" when I meant "put" and vice versa.
I am becoming a part time worker / primary parent while my wife goes back to a full time job, which means I do a lot of waiting in places where I'm typing extended sections of text (like this one) in places where its not really practical or appropriate to pull out a laptop.
What I really want is a physical keyboard for my phone. It seems like there are a lot of folding and non-folding options that are meant to work on a table with the phone as a screen. But if I could do that, I could pull out my laptop.
If I had a wish that could get me anything, I'd like a split thumb keyboard where the two halves sandwich (and grip) the phone the way the joycons go on a Nintendo switch.
The best thing I have found so far is this keyboard puck. I have bought a similar device for HTPC, and it is surprisingly easy to use. This still has the downside of requiring the use of with hands and not having a way to hold the phone. Maybe I could 3D print some kind of mount, but something with a built-in mount would be much better.
I'm wondering how others have solved this problem? I'm open to almost anything that makes me a faster /more accurate typist on the go.
The only thing I could come up with would be an old smartphone that has the slide out qwerty keyboard. I still have an old Samsung that has this but idk how helpful that is seeing as how the older phones are slow and low res. Coincidentally, I'm having the same issue and idk why. I used to be able to type accurately and at blazing speeds on digital keyboards. And then one day I couldn't ever seem to type "the". It always ended up being "tye" or "tue". It literally started happening overnight. Yeah, I'm getting older but I also attribute it to poor keyboard layout. And I'm too stubborn to download a keyboard.
Samsies. I text quite a lot for my job and it's gotten really annoying how much time I have to spend correcting my messages. I chalked it up to always being in a rush, but it happens even when typing casually, like now.
When this starts happening, I reset the autocorrect for the keyboard. For me it was just accidentally typing the wrong thing too much, it'd start autocorrecting to the misspelled word.
I have no keyboard suggestions because I am in the exact same position as you, so I'll be watching this.
I'll also leave my thoughts on the solution I want to try to implement if I can find a bluetooth keyboard small enough: a phone case with the keyboard attached to make an alternative sliding keyboard.
I figured a phone case would be the best way to implement a physical keyboard for years now since smart phone developers are dead-set on just... NOT making them anymore, but previous attempts to find such a case ended in failure. I think the only ones I ever found were for different phone models, or would be stuck onto the bottom of the phone while using it in portrait mode, so half the screen would still be unusable. My most recent attempt was last month, and I gave up when it only turned up phone cases with a keyboard pattern printed on it.
So, a DIY version of a slide-out or fold-out keyboard is the next best option, but none of the keyboards I can find are small enough. They're all larger than the phone itself, which would hinder regular phone usage. So I sincerely hope someone can post one small enough to work!
Yes, that's exactly what I want, so I can have it forever and have a pixel or other thing that gets the latest upgrades and patches.
This fosmon keyboard looks like it is small enough.
I know the mechanical keyboard community has a ton of tech for making custom keyboards. I watched most of this tutorial for making a keyboard PCB in KiCAD. The mx switches are too big for this application, but if I would find the right alternative, spinning a board and a 3d printed case might be feasible. I have some friends who are into this, so I may ask them for guidance.
Realistically, this is probably a long shot, but if I get it nailed down, I will post it back. Maybe an interesting kickstarter.
Personally, if you need an actual separate keyboard I'd recommend a Bluetooth keyboard (the range in size from proper keyboard to smaller-than-your-phone-but-then-questional-useability) but is also then recommend either using SwiftKey because it has the ability to resize/eliminate parts of the keyboard or, shop around for different versions.
If you have IOS, unfortunately your choices are limited but SwiftKey is still an option. If you're on android, you won't be the first one to encounter this problem so try some little-known ones because I would bet someone has made a fully adjustable keyboard for people like you.
I've already run through a lot of android software keyboard options. Typewise is the best option IMO, but none of them are great for bulk text entry, and I am very wordy :/
I wrote more about Typewise in the thread about why mobile editing is so bad if you're interested.
I use a Unihertz Titan Pocket; they're a China-based phone manufacturer that specializes in niche designs. Things like phones with massive flashlights, rugged designs meant to withstand rough daily use, etc era. The Titan Pocket is built like a brick, has a good battery life and a Blackberry-styled design, though even with the built-in compatibility shortcut due to the abnormal screen size there are some few apps that have visual issues. I also tried the Titan Slim, but found the build quality felt too cheap and the speaker was outright terrible.
YMMV considering the manufacturer origins, but I've found it to be exactly what I was looking for as someone else who prefers a physical keyboard on my phone.
That's amazing. Are you still on Android 10 with it? That seems a little on the old side.
Android 11, and I'm assuming that it'll be possible to upgrade to 12 since their previous phones were pushed to 11 from 10. Even if I can't, it's perfectly functional for my purposes (which are relatively basic; in fact I explicitly like the smaller screen because it discourages me from overusing my phone) and I intend to keep using it until it's not feasible. At that point if there aren't any newer models or other alternatives I'll probably return to the slab, but it's been nice being able to touch-type on the go again.
I will say, the keyboard does take some adjusting. It took me about a week to be comfortable with the 'sym' button (which opens a custom on-screen 'keyboard' that holds the various symbols and alt characters you might need to make use of).
Thanks for responding. I've been on older phones before and am cautious about missing security updates. That is one place where the pixel phones shine.
I will keep this in mind, but it seems like the lily go keyboard suggested by @Greg is going to be worth a try first.
Are you against using old phones? I still think the Blackberry KEY2 is the best solution and apparently random people on the internet agreed when I googled it. You can still buy them here for example.
Do you Swype? I also have a problem with putting "V"s when I meant to hit space and I get around this by swiping instead.
Oof, android 8. Not sure about that old.
My problem with swiping is that I find my typing brain is really letter oriented not word oriented, so I find myself having to pause to plan the swipe for longer words. That makes it slow and it takes me out of the flow of whatever I'm writing.
I think part of the problem is the inaccuracy of my thumbs (between size and areas that have too much callous to trigger the touchscreen). I have wished for some kind of thumb stud to make them more accurate, but it seems like a terrible location for a piercing or implant.
Yeah fair. It still works but is from a time where OS updates were not as expected so I don't believe it ever for updated out of 8 according to googling. I guess Blackberry wishes there were more people like you five years ago.
Sorry, I'm out of suggestions. Best of luck!
I had a Key2 and absolutely loved it... while it was still getting software support. I wouldn't recommend buying one now.
I picked up an F(x)tec Pro1 after that, but it ended up not being especially durable.
There are some other options out there for phones with physical keyboards, but not many. I've gone back to fighting with autocorrect.
This isn't actually a suggestion, but Pine64 makes a keyboard case for the PinePhone that looks really cool.
Don't buy a pinephone.
Had an actual lol from this. I did spend some time looking at and discarding the pine phone when looking for phone options. I like the idea in principle of having true Linux on a phone, but given how long it took to get a viable Linux desktop experience, I am not holding my breath.
Sadly it seems like the most promising company making the kind of keyboard case you’re looking for was sued out of existence by Blackberry. And then Blackberry went out of business, so now nobody gets nice things.
There was also a prototype from Punkt that looked perfect (the MC01) but never made it to production. Best I can see that you can actually buy is this 3D printed option that has its own two-line text display and Bluetooth - might be worth a shot for the sake of $20? For text only I feel like the internal display might be just enough to make it usable without needing to prop your phone somewhere you can constantly look at the screen, and if not it seems hackable, so perhaps adding a cheap 4 or 5cm OLED would turn it into a viable handheld typing device that lets you keep your phone in your pocket while you compose something over Bluetooth?
Failing all that, if you did go for an entire phone (seems like Unihertz, very old BlackBerry, or even older Samsung?) it might even be worth having it as a separate “typing phone” alongside your daily use phone. Not super convenient, I know, but perhaps still marginally better to pull one out of your bag when you need to write at length, and the other when you want the whole rest of the user experience to be good for normal daily tasks?
That lilygo keyboard seems perfect. Thank you!
Since the case is already printed, I ought to be able to hack a replacement that can grip the phone if needed, or even see how the keyboard is built (since it is based on an esp32) to develop a split alternative model. Seems like the lilygo folks are open to collaboration.
Paging @CannibalisticApple since this ties into their wishes as well.
Very glad to hear it, and good luck with the hacking - I’ll be particularly interested to hear if you do manage to put together a split keyboard Nokia 6800 for the modern age!
A few years ago Samsung had an keyboard case that clipped onto the phone and gave the keyboard some tactility. When not in use it would clip onto the backside so you'd have to deploy it manually when you wanted to type.
I've heard Google voice dictation is pretty good nowadays so that's probably your best bet at being the most accurate in terms of spelling.
Yeah, the voice keyboard is pretty good, especially for getting the bulk of text down. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well in noisy areas, and it looks weird for me to be dictating into my phone while waiting to pick my kid up.
Watching this as well. And to add, I want an updated LG Rumor. I loved that phone.
Have you tried using swipe to type? It works really well on standard Google keyboard. It learns which words you meant after you make same gestures a few times, it puts spaces automatically after each word as well. It’s basically T9 on old phones but better.
Made by the same guy who created T9. Source: I was on the launch team for Swype.
(Pasting this from a similar comment elsewhere)
My problem with swiping is that I find my typing brain is really letter oriented not word oriented, so I find myself having to pause to plan the swipe for longer words. That makes it slow and it takes me out of the flow of whatever I'm writing.
Just a warning for Rii keyboard, I own a similar model with a scroller that I use for my TV, their quality is really quite bad.
Every glue that used to hold the things that diffuse the led lights inside turned sticky within a few months, had to do some clean up with alcohol to make it usable again.
Battery capacity is really quite low, needs to be charged every 2 days or so, I changed it to one with a higher capacity, and the touchpad started ghost touching, I don't understand why that happened, but it only happen when I use the new battery.
Scroller click broke within a few months.
It is still working after a few years, but it's a bit finnicky, I own a chinese less than 5 bucks mini keyboard that worked a bit better, but it had no scroller.
Maybe something like this or this will work better for you if you want something out of the box.
There’s a company called Planet Computers that makes a few slide out keyboard phones.
This question plagues me! I keep revisiting it periodically. I've diagramed how I would program a braille style one handed input using cherry switches, tried some gestural wearables that are tap based, looked at some of the few phones out there with physical keyboards (add on case for Pinephone, the Cosmo phone, etc), tried out a few of the tiny Bluetooth keyboards, looked at extant pcbs with mini switches for keyboards ... and come up with nothing that is quite what I want.
Maybe some of us could get together to make an open source solution? If we could come up with a sliding mechanism that would hold a PCB, maybe we could figure out how to make that system attachable to standard cases and so, able to work with different phone models. I'm not a super programmer but I'd be interested in collaborating on this if we get a group together. There isn't a market for this it seems, but there is clearly a certain amount of demand - enough that addressing this would be a quality of life improvement for a lot of people.
I ordered one of the LilyGo keyboards from this thread to see if its any good, and I will probably try to hack a sliding case or at least a phone gripping attachment for it.
I still would rather have a split thumb keyboard, so if the lilygo hardware seems good, I may reach out to them to see what's possible in terms of collaboration. I guess their stuff is not open source, so I can post here as well, but it would be great to work with people who already have the board fabbing capability.
Whatever happens, I will post back on my progress later.
Assuming the “not” wasn’t an autocorrect error (irony of ironies, given the topic!), you might be in for a pleasant surprise:
I didn't dig down far enough on their website, but should have. That's great :)
I've seen some folding cases with a physical keyboard, but i don't think there are any really good options.
In terms of alternatives, speech to text has gotten pretty good, so I've been using it more and more. In the past I would give up on it because of the occasional errors, but this is something you can improve on over time. In terms of volume, it can be just above a whisper, not as loud as when you're making a phone call.