this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I made a FOSS physical keyboard for my Fairphone 4 (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by squaresinger@feddit.de to c/foss@beehaw.org
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Github link: https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry

Here's a video of it in action: https://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.

(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.)

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[–] Sdnimm543@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

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 All of them have either really outdated or low-end hardware, bad cameras, bad or no software updates and so on...

[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackberry/comments/166bzv5/dude_made_a_q10_keyboard_attachment_for_a/

I've had a look around.. only finding new ones north of €300..

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the link!

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

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

[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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:

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

[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

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

[–] pH3ra@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] sag@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Post this epic thing also in !opensource@lemmy.ml

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Thanks, will do!

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is beyond awesome! Nice job!!

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Thanks!

[–] rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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@lemmus.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Will do!

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

[–] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, was not expecting it to look that good!

Great work!

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

BEHOLD. The true candy bar phone dimensions.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

It is a looong phone :)

But it still fits into most of my trouser pockets