agent

New Agent release and module progress

2019-10-11

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update!

TL;DR: We’ve released a new Agent version after a long time without changes. We’ve made a functional key cluster module, and made progress with the trackpoint module.

New Agent release

It’s been a whopping ten months since we released the latest Agent version. We’ve actually been working on Agent since the latest release quite consistently, but weren’t able to publish a release due to the lack of a valid Windows Authenticode certificate. Long story short, we finally have a certificate, and recently released new Agent versions.

Feel free to check out the changelog on the GitHub Agent releases page. We’ve mostly fixed and polished a number of issues. A particularly useful feature is a dedicated Mac pointer speed preset which you should try out if the UHK mouse pointer movement feels slow on your Mac.

We’ve also implemented the fanciest UHK feature to this day: Agent shows whether the UHK is split or merged, and displays whether the left half is connected. Obligatory demo follows:

(UHKs are not backlit yet. We'll release a backlight upgrade kit at some point, and future UHK hardware versions will be backlit.)

Admittedly, this feature is pretty useless in itself, but it’ll actually be useful in the future. The same mechanism will be used to show the modules. Imagine connecting your modules, seeing them show up, and be able to configure them with a click of a button. And talking about modules...

Functional key cluster module

After a fair deal of prototyping, the key cluster module actually works. Again, obligatory demo follows:

You probably noticed the little thingie at the bottom of the key cluster module.

As you can see, it’s an FFC cable. Our current FFC cable manufacturer couldn’t make a cable of merely 13 mm length, so we used a much longer off-the-shelf cable for the time being. I actually doubt whether an FFC cable of such short length can be made, but an FPC (flexible printed circuit) can surely be made. But we’ll probably end up using a rigid-flex board as the best solution.

Apart from the above slight change, there’s another issue. I noticed that the responsiveness of the trackball is lacking compared to the previous prototype. The new, smaller hall-effect sensors are probably not sufficiently sensitive to pick up all the magnetic state changes of the mini trackball.

I wired the old mini trackball breakout board to the key cluster trackball board to be able to test it with the key cluster module, and the change in responsiveness was immediately apparent. The right board is super responsive, and the left one skips the beat very often, especially when moving it quickly.

I think we’ll revert to the previous hall-effect sensor, and try to pack them tighter to be able to fit them on the board.

Trackpoint module

We’ve made progress regarding the interconnection of the top and bottom trackpoint boards. There isn’t enough space for an FFC connector on the top trackpoint board which contains the actual trackball sensor, so the cable needs to be directly soldered to it. I designed an FPC for this purpose, and we plan to use hot bar soldering to affix it to the top board.

I used a soldering iron for prototyping purposes. So far, so good!

This module should work well, and I’m excited to write firmware for it, and for the rest of the modules.

UHK unboxing video

ShopzadaPH has made an awesome unboxing video of the UHK which you’re welcome to watch:

Your tweets

You guys keep sending your awesome tweets, and we’re always eager to read and feature them! If you got your UHK, please share your love!

We’ll be keeping you updated on all things UHK, and are looking forward to talking to you on 2019-11-11.

How to use macros on the UHK?

2019-07-17

Once in a while, we get emails asking how to use macros on the UHK, so let's see how.

First up, the macro has to be created. You can see some default macros under the Macro section of the sidebar. You can add new macros with the plus button.

Second, you have to assign the macro. You can assign a macro to any key of any layer of any keymap. Let's say you want to assign the "Go to UHK site in browser" macro to the Q key of the Fn layer of the "QWERTY for PC" keymap. This way, the macro can be triggered via Fn+Q.

To assign the macro, simply go to the target keymap, choose the target layer, and click on the target key. Then the key action popover will appear. Click on the Macro tab, choose the desired macro, click on the "Remap key" button, and finally click on the "Save to keyboard" button that appears in the bottom right corner.

You've made it! Happy macroing!

Mapping a virtual numpad on the UHK

2019-06-06

People ask from time to time whether we provide a numeric keypad. The answer is no, but one can create a virtual numpad very easily in Agent, the configurator application of the UHK.

See the following screenshot. The numpad is mapped to the Fn layer, and its keys are laid out in a familiar fashion.

The big advantage of a virtual numpad is that one doesn't have to reach out all the way to the other side of the keyboard. This results in increased productivity, and the mouse is much closer, too. That is, if you even use a mouse after mastering the UHK mouse layer.

As a last word, make sure you have Num Lock enabled, otherwise your numpad keys will function according to their bottom function, like Home instead of 7 and such. You can map Num Lock to any key of your UHK.

Shipping is about to resume

2019-02-14

TL;DR: Delivery temporarily stopped due to the shortage of packaging material which should resume around February 20. We expect to ship every non-module preorder by the end of March. Regarding the ETA of your order, please check out the delivery status page, including its FAQ section.

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update! Let’s get right to it!

Manufacturing progress

Since our previous monthly update, we’ve built plenty of UHKs, but we couldn’t ship most of them due to a temporary shortage of packaging boxes.

It’s taken more time for the printing factory to get up to speed after new year, and they expect to deliver the packaging boxes to us on February 20. We’ll make quick progress once the boxes arrive, and expect to deliver every non-module preorder by the end of March.

We didn’t simply ask for another batch of packaging material to be honest. We redesigned the boxes because they weren’t sufficiently robust. The new boxes are not only fancy, but more robust (and more expensive).

I added a news section to the top of the delivery status page which you’re welcome to check any time. This way, you can keep informed about delivery status the easiest way possible.

DeveloperWeek cancelled

In our previous monthly update, we told you that the we’ll exhibit at DeveloperWeek in the Bay Area on February 21-22. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to make it.

The reason is that our marketing contractor was fired, because I found his work ethics to be poor. Without him, we can’t staff our booth, so I ended up cancelling the event.

With the event cancelled, we won’t be able to give away the free passes offered in our previous monthly update. I’m sorry about this, but now that we have cancelled the event, we can’t do anything. I’ll email all of you who asked for free passes shortly after publishing this update.

As far as the project is considered, I think not attending to DeveloperWeek is actually a good thing. We should fully focus on the delivery of preorders at this point. We’ll have plenty of time to do expos later.

Module progress

Robi has implemented the kboot bootloader protocol natively in Agent. Previously, Agent used the external blhost command line utility which was unreliable. This will make firmware updates more reliable which is very important because the modules will require a new firmware version flashed to your UHKs. We have yet to release a new Agent version that contains this improvement.

In the meantime, András advanced the mechanical design of the key cluster module, so it’s closer to the final design to be mass produced.

As stated in earlier updates, we can’t fully focus on the modules yet. Only after shipping every non-module preorder and transitioning to on-demand manufacturing will be able to make heavier progress regarding the modules.

Your feedback

Mikko Ahlroth wrote a very nice UHK review on his blog. I love reviews like his which go into details and capture many facets of the UHK.

In the meantime, Brett Terpstra has been exploring the wonderful world of custom keycap sets. He pimped up his UHK, and wrote a blog post titled The addictive hobby of customizing mechanical keyboards.

We’ll be keeping you updated on all things UHK, and we’re looking forward to talking to you on 2019-03-14.

Shipping UHK webshop orders

2018-12-13

Any questions, please search our knowledgebase.

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update! Let’s get right to it!

Crowd Supply order delivery progress

Just as promised in our previous newsletter, and according to our delivery status page, we’ve shipped every non-module Crowd Supply order. If you haven’t received yours, Crowd Supply has yet to forward it to you which might take days to weeks. You should be good to go, but any questions, feel free to contact Crowd Supply for support.

Speaking of Crowd Supply, they’re in the process of transitioning their support system, and as a result, your recent emails destined to crowdsupply.com might have been lost. If you haven’t received a reply from them in two business days, then ping them again.

UHK webshop order delivery progress

The assembly of UHK webshop orders is well underway. The reason we haven’t yet shipped any UGL webshop orders is because I haven’t yet finished overhauling our order fulfillment system which is necessary for shipping UHK webshop orders.

I’m nearly ready, we’ll start to ship UHK webshop orders within days, and we’ll ship about 200 orders before the holiday season kicks in.

Estimated delivery dates

As you may already know, we have a delivery status page which contains the estimated delivery dates of pre-orders.

I must emphasize that despite our best effort, these delivery dates are fundamentally inaccurate because numerous factors affect production. There are two main factors we’re already aware of which will affect upcoming delivery dates.

First, our factory will be shut down during the holiday season. The delivery estimation algorithm assumes a constant manufacturing pace, so the estimations will move forward during the holiday season. I’m sorry about this, but I won’t dedicate any more time to tweak the estimation algorithm because I have to focus on more important issues, and we’ll deliver every pre-order soon anyways at which point the delivery page won’t be useful anymore.

Second, a temporary shortage of various components are expected including product boxes and plastic cases. Admittedly, we should have managed inventory better, and we’ll do better going forward, but this will probably delay the delivery of pre-orders in January. We’ll do our best to mitigate the situation.

All things considered, we expect to deliver every non-module UHK webshop pre-order in January to February. Thank you for your continued patience and support!

New Agent feature

The “double tap to lock layer” feature of the UHK is a blessing for most, and a curse for some. Some of you told us that sometimes you accidentally toggle layers (most notably the frequently used Mod layer) due to this feature.

Fear not! The most recently released Agent 1.2.12 is here for the rescue, as it allows you to disable this feature on a per-key basis according to the following screenshot.

Unchecking the “Lock layer when double tapping this key” checkbox will magically disable this feature for the relevant key. Just to clean up any confusion, this feature is only available for layer switcher keys (Mod, Fn, and Mouse) as it wouldn’t make sense for other keys.

This Agent version also makes the warnings that told you that macro support is not yet available disappear. If you still see this message, update your UHK to the latest firmware in Agent, and the macro warning should disappear.

On a somewhat related note, I have written an article titled “How can I type accented characters with my UHK?”. The title gives you a good idea whether it’s for you. It’s also worth reading if you’re interested about the difference between USB scancodes and characters, or if you want to know more about Alt codes.

Pimped UHKs

Some of you keep pimping your UHKs, and we’re always glad to feature your beautiful creations!

A very fancy UHK by @menyao. See Twitter thread.
A runic UHK by @ElDanDanito. See Twitter thread.

Your feedback

The feedback you keep giving us is nothing short of amazing. Sometimes we shake our heads in disbelief when we see loads of enthusiastic tweets pouring in. These are some of the many recent tweets we got from you.

As a closing word, we wish you a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! 2018 was quite a year for us, and we’re just getting started! Thank you so much for believing in us and supporting us!

We’ll be keeping you updated on all things UHK, and we’re looking forward to talking to you on 2019-01-17.

Remapping keys in Agent

2018-09-17

Although we did our best to make Agent as intuitive as possible, we get questions from time to time. By far, the most usual question is how to exchange the keys of the bottom row.

Let's say you want to exchange Alt and Fn.

Now select the base layer of your default keymap in Agent. You should see something like this:

The important thing to understand is that each key has an associated action. Let's click on Alt.

A popover appears that contains the type and properties of the action. The Keypress tab is active, so this is a keypress action (type) featuring no scancode and the left Alt modifier (properties).

Now let's see the action of the Fn key by clicking on it.

Now the Layer tab is active, which means that it's a layer switch action that activates the Fn layer while holding this key.

You simply have to exchange the actions of the Alt and Fn keys by clicking on them and setting their action type and properties. Make sure to check the "Remap on all layers" checkbox for modifier keys before clicking on the "Remap key" button.

Lastly, click on the "Save to keyboard" button in the bottom right corner.

Last but not least, you can play with the web demo of Agent in the browser without installing it on your computer. Give it a try!

That's about it! Happy remapping!

Lunar UHKs, Unicorns, and the Freeze bug

2018-09-13

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update!

TL;DR: Please update to the latest UHK firmware for macro support, and to help us fix the freeze bug that plagues recent firmware versions. Agent now visualizes secondary roles. We’ve churned out 6 mini batches since our last update. The development of the modules is going slowly while delivering the pre-orders, but we’ll switch to high-gear afterwards.

Update to the latest firmware!

If you’re reading this and already have your UHK, please flash the latest 8.4.5 firmware by selecting the .tar.bz2 file from the "Choose firmware and flash it" option in Agent > Firmware. This will result in many goodies over the factory-flashed 8.2.5 firmware, including macro support and numerous bug fixes.

The only gotcha is the freeze bug. Recent firmware versions cause occasional freezes on some UHKs. This is a longstanding bug, and the only reason we haven’t yet fixed it is because we can’t reproduce it. That’s why we need your help! The more people who use the most recent firmware, the easier we can fix the freeze bug based on your feedback.

If your UHK freezes, please be sure to report it according to the freeze bug issue. No worries, you can always downgrade to 8.2.5 to regain stability.

Fancy UHKs

If you’re a regular reader of our monthly updates then Max is no stranger to you, as he’s on a never ending quest to pimp his UHK. This time, he used the Godspeed Cockpit keycap set to customize his UHK and in his true style, he shared the gory details on Reddit.

In the same spirit, Richard was also busy, and ended up creating the most unicornish UHK with extra rainbow flavour!

Secondary role visualization in Agent

Dual-role keys are powerful. When tapping them they trigger their primary role. While holding them and pressing other keys, the secondary role kicks in. The UHK has always supported dual-role keys, but Agent hadn’t visualized them. Thankfully, this has just changed with Agent version 1.2.9.

Now Agent can render quite complex scenarios, such as a scancode featuring modifiers and a secondary role. This makes the rendering engine of Agent complete, so you can take a look at any layer and know exactly what each key does based on its visual representation.

As an added bonus, we’ve made modifiers show up according to your OS, so for example, Super is Command on OSX and it’s the Windows key on Windows.

Production progress

The 6 mini batches we have produced over the last month have not constituted our fastest pace, but they’re in line with our recent progress. Manufacturing progress occasionally suffers a bit due to a number of factors. For example, our palm rest supplier was on vacation recently, and had to catch up with production. Such cases only cause temporary hiccups, and they can occasionally affect the sizes of mini batches positively or negatively, but we always manage them quite well.

In the meantime, we’ve already pre-ordered the parts of the second large batch of UHKs. The first large batch contained 2,000 UHKs, and the second large batch contains 1,000 UHKs. We’re not VC-funded and fully rely on your support, so being able to pre-order the parts of a large batch is a big achievement for us. This means that production will be uninterrupted in the future, even after delivering the pre-orders. A sincere thank you to every one of our backers for making this huge milestone possible!

Development progress

As you can see, we keep pushing Agent and the firmware, but it’s quite a challenge to do heavy R&D these days because production and related tasks are so demanding.

Customer support is time consuming, as well as developing and fine-tuning backend systems. These tasks are not visible from the outside, but they’re absolutely necessary to keep things going.

Transitioning to our own webshop did end up heavily affecting our backend systems, including the integration and implementation of the webshop, factory automation, order fulfillment, and invoicing systems. Pre-ordering the parts of the second large batch also called for a procurement system which is up and running, but it has taken quite some time to set up.

Due to the above, we could only make a little progress with the modules. András has further refined their mechanical design, and will hand them off to a mold designer to finalize their mechanical features. I figured out how to optimally panelize their PCBs and factory-flash their firmware the most efficient way. We’re mindful about the modules, and will switch to high-gear once the delivery of the pre-orders is over.

Thank you for reading this update! We’ll be keeping you updated on all things UHK, and we’re looking forward to talking with you on 2018-10-12.

Knee-deep in production

2018-07-12

Important: Please make sure that your shipping address is up to date! You can change it on your Crowd Supply account page. Please also check out the delivery status page.

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update!

TL;DR: Since our last update, we’ve sent out mini batches 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, which is, yet again, the highest volume batch we’ve produced so far, but not as high as we aim for. We had to allow a week of vacation for our staff in the middle of summer. Without the vacation, we’d have likely hit our target volume, so the ramp-up is still not over. Apart from manufacturing, Agent and the firmware keep advancing, and some major progress is expected soon.

Your recent feedback

A monthly UHK update wouldn’t be complete without featuring your awesome feedback.

Our first English review is out on Reddit, which you’re welcome to read! As creators, reading such nice words is all we can wish for.

But Max, the writer of this review didn’t stop there, and pimped his UHK with the third-party Canvas XDA keycap set.

And Max still couldn’t get enough, so he ended up writing a full-blown UHK keycap replacement guide on Reddit! Thanks so much for the great work, Max!

Third-party keycap sets are clearly in the vogue nowadays. We believe the following picture is quite a sight!

And you keep sending us your nice tweets:

Last but not least, even Michael Bolton approves the UHK.

Please keep it up! We love hearing from you.

Agent and firmware progress

We keep pushing Agent and the firmware at a steady pace. Most of these improvements come in small increments, and many of them are under the hood changes, so it’s hard to notice them. But they add up in a big way over time, and every now and then some user-facing changes are committed.

Some of you found it cumbersome to remap keys on all keymaps and/or layers, so we extended the UI of Agent accordingly. The tooltip should speak for itself.

We also added a separator line between the halves, so it’s easier to locate keys.

The above are frontend changes, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface.

Recently, we’ve been working hard on fixing a Windows-specific firmware bug that is responsible for media key repetition, and not letting your computer go to sleep on Windows. We’ve managed to fix this bug, but then a nondeterministic bug emerged which made the UHK hang sometimes only after hours, which turned out to be very problematic to fix. We believe that we did fix it, but I want to test it thoroughly before releasing a new firmware version.

The new firmware release will also contain a major feature: the macro engine! We promised macro support a long time ago, so we’re super excited to make it happen. Agent is already capable of editing macros, but the macro engine of the firmware is a critical piece of the puzzle to make macros actually work on your UHKs.

Let me just say that we’re super focused on implementing the promised features, and even more so on fixing bugs. One reason is that they directly translate to a great user experience. The other reason is that as more and more UHKs make their way to you, we keep getting a lot of reports of the same issues, so fixed bugs directly translate to lower overhead. Please do keep reporting bugs, but always use the latest Agent and latest stable firmware versions.

Running production, developing Agent and the firmware, and answering messages is a lot to deal with at the same time, and as a result, we couldn’t devote time for the modules over the last month. We’re asking for your patience, as we’re rather overloaded nowadays.

Thank you for reading this update! We’ll be keeping you updated on all things UHK, and we’re looking forward to talking with you on 2018-08-16.

How can I type accented characters with my UHK?

2018-06-23

We get this question from time to time, and the answer is not as obvious as one might think. I'm about to explain it in-depth, but first, I'll give you a short answer in case you're in a hurry. Please consider the relevant tooltip of Agent:

Hopefully, this explains what to do. You're welcome to suggest better phrasing in the comments, but this is the short and sweet version. And now on to the more detailed explanation.

Characters vs Scancodes

The most important thing to understand is that USB keyboards (the UHK included) do not send characters to your computer. No, Sir. They send scancodes. When you press a key, a scancode of 1 to 255 gets sent to the computer. It's not a character but a number!

Now think about this: There are 255 different scancodes that must be mapped to more than 100,000 characters that are used on planet Earth! How so? This is how:

Your operating system translates scancodes to characters based on your actual operating system keyboard layout.

Let me give you an example to make you realize the crucial role of your OS layout. Let's say that an American, a German, and a Russian user purchase USB keyboards of the same physical layout. Now let's take the semicolon key according to the American layout. On all three keyboards, when pressing this key, the scancode 51 gets sent to the computer, yet, the character ";", "ö", and "ж" appear on the screen of the American, German, and Russian users, respectively, merely because they use different OS keymaps.

When it comes to mapping scancodes to characters, the situation is actually slightly more nuanced because modifiers also affect the mapped characters. For example, on the US layout, Shift + 4 produces "$", and on the Hungarian layout, AltGr + U produces "€", but this doesn't alter the nature of the beast.

Alt codes

There's a mechanism called "Alt codes", which allows users to produce various accented characters in a way that is (mostly) independent of the current OS keymap.

  • On Linux, press Shift+Ctrl+U, which prefixes your cursor with an "u", indicating that a Unicode number is now expected. At this point, enter "2764" followed by Enter, and ❤ will magically get inserted. Linux Alt codes are the most powerful and standard, given that they're backed by Unicode numbers.
  • On Windows, first, you have to have Num Lock enabled. Then, hold an Alt key and press a Windows-specific numeric code, and finally release the Alt key, at which point the relevant character will be included. 375 different characters can be included this way, but there is a way to unlock additional Alt codes to be able to access otherwise non-typeable Unicode characters
  • On Macintosh, there's also a similar mechanism that is better called Accent Codes. Let's say you want to put an accent to the "o" letter. You press Option+E, then press "o," which results in "ó". The set of characters that can be produced this way is similarly limited as on Windows, although in true Mac fashion, the implementation is much more intuitive.

Alt codes provide a way to output various characters in a way that is mostly independent of the current OS keymap, but they're OS-specific, and they don't work in every environment. For example, let's say that your hard drive is encrypted, and you have to type a password before the OS boots up. Depending on your OS, Alt codes may not be available at this point. On Linux, they also can't be used in terminals outside of the X server, so you can't rely on them in every environment.

Alt codes on the UHK

Given that Alt codes are sequences of keystrokes, they're ideally suited to be assigned to keys using UHK macros. For example, you can bind the Alt code of "é" to Mod+e. UHK macros are very handy since they're saved to the on-board memory of your UHK and always available without running special software once you set them up via Agent. I'm about to elaborate on implementing Alt codes on your UHK.

The macro editor of Agent is very intuitive to use, and based on the above, one should be able to create macros that implement Alt codes. There are some gotchas, though.

First up, Alt codes are OS-specific which will pose a problem if you use multiple OSes. If so, you'll have to create all your Alt code macros for every OS you use, and then create OS-specific keymaps in Agent and bind the macros of the respective OSes. This is clearly laborious, but there's no way around it. We won't implement USB fingerprinting in the UHK firmware to detect OSes because it's fundamentally unreliable.

The second gotcha is that you won't be able to compose Alt codes with modifiers. Imagine holding Shift, then typing Alt code key sequences, then releasing Shift. Modifiers clearly mess with Alt codes.

Third, some Alt codes are dependent on the state of your OS. You have to have NumLock enabled for Windows Alt codes, and Mac accent codes are dependent on the OS keymap in use.

Accented characters in Agent

Some of you were wondering why Agent doesn't offer or display accented characters. This is one of those features that seem like a no-brainer from a user perspective, but in practice, it's not only incredibly hard to implement but cannot be implemented properly. Let me tell you why.

In order for Agent to expose accented characters, it must be aware of the current OS keymap. Being a cross-platform application, it'd have to query the actual keymap on Linux, Mac, and Windows. A quick search reveals ways to query this information (often rather obscure ways) via OS-specific APIs, but I have found no way to query the actual mappings between scancodes and characters, which is critical.

Without the exact per-key mappings, Agent would have to have a database of every single OS-specific layout, such as "French (Bepo, ergonomic, Dvorak way, Latin-9 only)" or "Russian (Ukraine, standard RSTU)". We could extract such a database from the relevant Linux packages, but these layout names are not standardized, so they're inconsistent across OSes, and the mappings surely differ in some ways.

The bottom line is that it'd take huge resources to implement the above, and we'd end up with a half-assed implementation, given that a perfect implementation is practically infeasible. Even if we were able to implement this perfectly, I don't think it would be a good idea. I can foresee users complaining that they set up the é key in Agent, then plugged their UHK into another machine (featuring a different OS keymap), and the é key suddenly became a semicolon. Users should actually understand how things work when it comes to this topic.

Scancodes vs Characters in the UHK

When remapping UHK keys, you should keep in mind that:

  • Agent accepts characters:
    • In regular actions, Agent implicitly translates characters to scancodes according to the en-US mapping (and also back whenever it needs to show the corresponding label).  (So the saved configuration contains scancodes.)
    • In macros (the Text and Command action), Agent just leaves characters for the firmware to interpret. (So the saved configuration contains characters.)
  • Internally, the UHK works with the macro Text and Command actions as with regular text (i.e., characters).
  • However, the UHK always produces scancodes.
    • For regular actions, the configuration already contains scancodes, so the UHK just sends them to the computer.
    • If the UHK produces scancodes based on macro text (i.e., based on characters), the UHK translates them back to scancodes according to en-US mapping.
  • The OS transforms scancodes (received from the UHK) back to characters according to its current language keymap.

That's it, folks! If you're still reading, then you're truly one of the brave few. Any questions, feel free to shoot them in the comments.

Custom scancodes

You can specify custom scancodes on the UHK. See how.

Pilot run success and what’s next

2018-01-19

Hi there, and welcome to our monthly status update!

TL;DR: The first 50 UHKs and palm rests of the pilot run were delivered, and according to the feedback we received it was a huge success! The recipients of the pilot run gave us a ton of feedback, so we’ll go over the issues they encountered, and tell you how we’ll fix them in upcoming batches. We’re raising the price of the palm rest to $55, and we’ll raise the rest of the items by 10% soon. We plan to deliver the remaining 1,950 UHKs of the first batch from February to April. We’re putting an increasingly heavy emphasis on finalizing and manufacturing the modules.

The Pilot Run Was a Huge Success

It’s one thing to design a product, and another to ship it to all over the world. András and I poured our hearts and souls into this project, we obsessed about the smallest of details, and even though we were definitely hoping for the best, we couldn’t know for sure how much you’d like the end product, so it’s safe to say that we were excited.

I’m happy to say that the feedback we received from the recipients of the pilot run was absolutely fantastic! You praised the overall build quality, the nice packaging, the onboarding experience, and the ease of use of Agent among other things.

Let me feature a couple of your tweets:

Thanks so much for the posts, everyone! Your enthusiasm and support have been overwhelming!

Pilot Run Issues

Despite its success, the pilot run wasn’t without issues. In the spirit of transparency, we’ll go through all of the issues you encountered.

Smashed Boxes

There are two small boxes within the main UHK box which got smashed on four occasions out of the fifty pilot run units. We believe that some of these occurrences went unreported, and there may be more. This is what a smashed box looks like:

We spent a ton of time and a fortune on packaging, so this is a big deal. Even worse, on one occasion, even the case of a keyboard snapped apart. Luckily, the owner managed to snap it back with a bit of pressure, but this doesn’t make the issue any more acceptable.

According to the reports we received, only USPS-shipped UHKs were affected. We’re not sure whether it was due to the holiday madness, or if it’s a general issue, but we reinforced the boxes, which will hopefully resolve this issue in the long run.

Sharp USB Cable Recess

There are two recesses in the case which hold the USB cable and they’re way too sharp and chew up the USB cable quickly.

The mold has already been modified, so the edges should be smooth going forward. A backer reported that he easily managed to sand down the sharp edge, resolving the issue in no time. If you’re affected, you might want to do the same, but if you want a replacement case, please just let us know.

Loosely Connected LED Display

Some of you reported strange artifacts appearing on your LED display, which is a sure sign of a loose FFC cable.

The FFC cable connects the display with the left main board. Apparently, we could have done a better job connecting them during the assembly process. As a result, the cables of two UHKs got loose during shipping. We’ll try our best to more thoroughly assemble future batches.

This issue called for our first ever repair guide. We have already emphasized the importance of repair before, and this was the golden opportunity to follow our words up with action. Both affected backers were able to fix the issue using the guide and they even contributed to it. Thanks so much!

Just to get things straight, we don’t expect anybody to repair his/her UHK, but the opportunity is there, and we encourage repair in general. It’s certainly much faster than sending it back and forth to the other side of the world, and especially useful after the warranty period is over.

Feet Molding Issues

On two occasions, visible artifacts were noticeable on some feet.

This is clearly an injection molding issue. We’ll do heavier QA in this respect.

Software and Firmware Issues

A number of issues have been reported recently in the firmware and agent repos. The vast majority of these issues are not critical, but they affect usability in one way or another.

Understandably, we’ve been mostly busy with the critical issues. The most critical was a firmware issue that made the UHK freeze after a while. This was really annoying because it was super hard to find the root cause of it. Luckily, it looks like we’ve been able to resolve this, and it shouldn’t affect more people.

There was another critical issue in which the left keyboard half got bricked during the firmware update process. I’ve made the update process more robust, and improved the update script, which unbricked the unit. This script feature will be integrated into Agent soon. The UHK should very rarely get bricked, and when it happens it should always be unbrickable.

Going forward, we’ll be addressing all of the issues of the agent and firmware repos, but there’s a lot on our plate nowadays, so some may take a while. We’re doing our best.

All Hail Our Contributors

Mikko Lakomaa, an early contributor of ours, switched into high gear after receiving his UHK, and implemented two much-welcomed issues. Thanks to the fruits of his labor, now we can adjust mouse speed and LED brightness via Agent.

Thanks so much for your contributions, Mikko! It’s nice to see Agent improving so rapidly.

Price Increases

Effective immediately, we’re raising the price of the palm rest to $55, and we’ll raise the rest of the items by 10% soon. Let me explain why.

When we originally envisioned the UHK palm rest, its design wasn’t finalized, and we weren’t sure about the materials and technologies we’d ultimately use to craft it. We were also unfamiliar with the costs involved. As the design progressed, we were consistently moving toward an increasingly high-end, premium product which inevitably added to its cost, so much so that up until this point we haven’t had any profit on the palm rests when selling them for $30.

For what the palm rest is worth, $55 is still a bargain considering the market prices. If you search for “wooden wrist rest”, $40 is a usual price tag, but those palm rests are made of one wood piece, not two pieces, don’t feature powder coated black plates, and their geometry is less ergonomical (simpler, thus cheaper to machine) than the UHK palm rest.

Eventually, we’ll further raise the price of the current wooden UHK palm rest to about $80 which is a reasonable market price, but before doing so, we plan to offer a less premium, and more affordable palm rest in addition to the current wooden palm rest.

We’ll also soon raise the price of the other items by about 10%, including the UHK, extra keycap sets, extra cases, and the modules. This is justified by the heavy weakening of the US dollar during 2017. We pay our suppliers primarily in Hungarian forint, so this very much affects us. 10% is actually less than the weakening of the dollar which is about 15%, so we’re trying to not raise prices too heavily.

Nobody likes price increases, but we’d much rather take this route than sacrificing quality, or allocating less funding for R&D. We hope you understand and resonate with our mindset.

Expected Delivery and What’s Next

Going forward, our most immediate goal is to deliver the remaining 1,950 UHKs and accessories (everything but the modules) of the first batch. We expect to deliver these items from February to April, and then the second batch will closely follow.

Our assembly operation is admittedly micro-scale compared to the assembly lines of China. As we previously stated, instead of hiring a Chinese OEM for assembly, we opted to set up our own assembly line in Hungary and operate it in the long term. This has numerous benefits, like rigorous QA and direct control, but the downside is that the throughput of this line is rather low.

It wouldn’t make sense to massively scale up production because the accumulated preorders translate to a huge peak regarding assembly. It’ll considerably settle down after delivering the pre-orders, so hiring a bunch of people only to fire them soon afterwards doesn’t seem like a good idea.

We plan to keep assembly going continuously, and ship so-called mini batches on a weekly basis. We’ll remind you in a future update to change your shipping address before orders start going out, but please do check/change your current address by going to your Crowd Supply account.

As for the modules, fear not, we didn’t forget about them. We’ll be allocating more and more resources to finalize and manufacture them. András has been working on them recently, and this is the latest, and probably final design of the trackball module.

I think András did a great job designing this module. I cannot wait to see it work and give it a whirl (pun clearly intended).

Thank you for reading this update! We hope you enjoyed it, and we’re excited to talk to you on 2018-02-15.

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