Happy? I'll say! Magnificent!
For anyone who hasn't heard my definition of a solid Bluetooth keyboard already:
- Battery lifetime must exceed 24 hours of active use. Ideally measured in days.
- Battery ideally charged via USB.
- The controller should be dual mode—USB and Bluetooth—so it can be used wired whenever desired, especially handy when charging.
- Multi-host Bluetooth (for quick switching between hosts, via keyboard shortcut) gets bonus points. Pairing/disconnecting/repairing is Bluetooth's Achilles heel so we should reduce that pain point.
Tall order! But far from an impossible one. All of these features exist in various commercially available boards (if not usually all together). Essentially what I want is a Bluetooth board that doesn't suck. A high bar!
Power draw is something to keep in mind. We're doing capsense (which draws more power than typical contact switch or membrane boards) and we're using a bit of a "black box" when it comes to Xwhatsit's controller without the man himself. The easiest power savings all come from sleep. You do things like slow down the matrix scan rate when no keys have been pressed in a while. Don't think we can do that with Xwhatsit's controller and current firmware. Not without powering the whole thing down and restarting it every once in a while.
Of course, with enough space available, we could just go the other route and pack in batteries like it's a bloody Tesla! They are heavy, though, and will take longer to charge, as well as being fairly expensive. A bit of power saving goes a long way.
I can make it bigger if needed.. or maybe with some even more grungy terminal font?
