Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

Smartphone keyboards dynamically adjust the "hitbox" of each key based on what's previously been typed and overall letter frequencies of the language. So when typing "Paris is the capital of Fr..." [*], the A key becomes much easier to hit than its neighbors. Fun fact: back in the day, when this tech was less refined, certain letter contexts made the hitboxes of some keys effectively nonexistent [0].

I wonder if an approach like KKeyboard with larger but statically combined keys leads to faster typing than the current approach with smaller but dynamically "combined" keys.

[*] In reality, the context is modeled using a simple Hidden Markov Model with a much smaller effective context window that could not associate "Paris" and "France." But you get the idea.

[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/impossible-to-type-okee...

Looks nice. Reminds me of MessagEase[1] and clones, such as ThumbKey[2]. I use the latter for my mobile text input needs. However, that method is sometimes prone to typos, since one key may have up to 9 different characters assigned to it, and it is easy to swipe slightly wrong way. QWERTYmini could be better in that aspect, since there are only 2 characters per key.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase

2. https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key

I'm not following.

* Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them need multiple taps?

* Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which letter you meant, and if so why use this instead of taking it one more step and using http://minuum.com/ ?

* Or is it something else?

i tried it and think it needs at least three improvements for me to use it:

normally a sentence starts automatically with a capital but not with this keyboard

double space should result in a dot and a space, to end a sentence. Now I need to switch layout for a dot

automatic suggestions are not enabled (or implemented)

You might want to throw a CDN in front of this -- the site is realllllly struggling and seems very complex under the hood.

Cool idea though.

Just tried it out, how do you accelerate disambiguating a double key 'nn' in 'dinner' vs alternate? This doesn't feel very usable compared to the existing keyboard to me

Do people often thumb letters instead of swiping? And why? Coding or other stuff where you don't have natural language?

For her swiping (or glide typing) is the only thing making mobile phones somewhat usable, but I also encounter people who haven't even heard of that feature.

Hmmm. Cute. I use a Bluehand (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230), which is physical and has... half the keys, but that relies on chording. I might take a look at the idea of doing a 20-key physical keyboard that looks like this.

Were you inspired by thumb key at all? https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key

I noticed "International patent (PCT/KR2025/099177), International Publication "

Are you truly seeking a software patent for this? If so what is the plan for leveraging ownership over the patent?

I don't really understand how people manage to type with two thumbs while holding their phone securely. I use my left thumb and my right index finger, with my right thumb supporting the base of the phone.

Reminds me of the abominable parking ticket machine keyboards in Rome (https://www.wantedinrome.com/i/cover/storage/uploads/2018/12...)

Seems like there's 25% wasted space at the bottom for the language globe icon that could be used for something useful

I really dislike how iOS handles dictation as a keyboard feature.

I want to try this keyboard, but I also don't want to give up dictation. If I have to switch back to the iOS keyboard to enable dictation, that's just enough friction that I'm not going to move to something else.

Site seems down, try https://archive.is/gW1rO

Nice idea, I might try it!

I noticed "copyright info goes here (c) 2025" - which you might want to update!

I like it but I wish I can change the size of the keyboard. Buttons are too small on my phone.

Reminds of T9 texting and I did like T9. I'll have to try this.

Looks nice. Can I swipe write with it?