Project Kickoff & Tooling Update

The thinnest possible EU version, tooling next steps

Thank you to everyone who backed the Kickstarter! We raised the money we needed for the project within 8 hours of launching. I had no idea there would be that much interest and I’m glad to see the design resonated with so many people.

Here’s a brief update on what has happened and what to expect next.

Funding the Tooling

Kickstarter took ~3 weeks to validate the pledged money before releasing it to us. In the meantime, I negotiated the tooling quotes to make sure we were getting the best possible deal. Once I received the funding from Kickstarter, I wired over the deposit to our manufacturer to kick things off.

EU Regulation & Explorations

Once I wired over the money, we began deeper discussions with the manufacturer. During these we realized there’s an upcoming EU regulation (Article 11 of 2023/1542) taking effect February 18, 2027 which requires all products with portable batteries to be designed so that they are “readily removable and replaceable.”

Some of our backers are from the EU so I wanted to explore designs that’d work with the regulation to figure proof it. I also figured it’d be easier to make changes now before the tooling is set.

So we explored a few design iterations over the last few weeks. First, our manufacturer proposed adding a battery compartment to the bottom of the product.

Ignore the green color it’s just for rendering visibility

Although this design satisfies the EU regulation, it makes the bottom of the product look bad. Even though you never look at the bottom, this product needs to look sleek from all angles to keep it’s cohesive, premium feel. So this adjustment wasn’t going to work.

Then we proposed making the entire bottom panel removable with screws. This design satisfies the regulation and looks reasonable with some refinements. For instance, we played around with the screw hole positions and considered different options to find one that looked solid.

Torx screw looks best. Exposed silver compliments the aluminum top case. Silicone cover may not color match exactly and would be less durable.

However, the biggest issue with this design is that we’d need to make the product 1mm thicker so the screws wouldn’t hit the existing internals.

1mm doesn’t sound like a lot until you look closely at the design. The thinnest part of the product is only 4.6mm thick. Making it ~22% thicker fundamentally changes how the product feels in your hand.

Throughout working on the project, there were many times where we did things the hard way to keep the product thin. It’d be a shame to relax that requirement after all that work.

After these design explorations, we decided we’re going to move forward with the original design so there are no compromises. We’ll ship the EU keyboards before the regulation lands in Feb. If you live in the EU and want one of these keyboards, these will be the only ones that’ll ever be allowed in that market that can be this thin.

Next steps

We’re now moving on to tooling kickoff and our manufacturer has put together a detailed project schedule for us. Here are the milestones to expect:

1. Trial run produced through initial molds (T0 assembly) - These will arrive early August and are a major step forward since the prototypes we’ve produced so far were made by hand.

2. Mold iteration and refinement (T1 assembly) - We’ll finish this by the beginning of Sept. I expect a lot of adjustments and refinements required to meet the bar we’re aiming for.

3. Production assembly and finalized molds (PVT assembly) - This should complete by end of Sept. From this, the manufacturer will produce a “golden sample” for us to inspect.

4. Mass production (MP) - Once approved, the manufacturer will begin mass production using the finalized molds. This will finish around end of October.

Compared to our initial rough estimates, this project plan finishes faster by ~1 month but it also assumes only one mold iteration. That sounds optimistic so I wouldn’t be surprised if we run later than the project estimates we have, but I still feel good about shipping before our original February timeline given we have some buffer.

I’ll provide an update each time we hit one of these major milestones or if something interesting happens along the way. If you ever have a question you can drop a comment here or on the Kickstarter. It’s pretty easy for me to fire off a quick comment if you’re curious about anything.

Excited to make this project happen, I can’t wait to have one of these on my desk from the production line!

Thanks for reading,
Ryan Peterman