HN Debrief

Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

  • Hardware
  • Design
  • Open Source
  • Apple
  • Developer Tools

The post introduced Altar II, a very thin mechanical keyboard designed as a premium Mac-first alternative to Apple’s Magic Keyboard. The pitch is simple: keep the slim footprint and fast, laptop-like feel Apple users like, then add the things Apple does not offer, including fully mechanical switches, a detachable dial, haptics, backlighting, and on-device configurability. The creator said the hardest part was fitting the battery and electronics into a 4.75mm chassis, and several answers filled in the product shape: the keys have 1.8mm travel with very little pre-travel, the switch feel is closer to an M-series MacBook than to Choc switches, USB can be used wired while charging, the device stores mappings itself, and the firmware will be open sourced later on GitHub as with the earlier Altar I, built on ZMK.

If you build hardware for a platform with locked-down system features, expect the missing proprietary piece to dominate buyer decisions no matter how strong the rest of the product is. For premium peripherals, layout options, ergonomics, repairability, and visual restraint matter almost as much as the flagship feature set.

Discussion mood

Strongly positive about the craft, ambition, and industrial design, with repeated frustration about Apple’s closed Touch ID stack and a steady stream of practical objections on layout, tilt, international variants, and the oversized number row. Even critics mostly treated it as serious work aimed at a narrow audience rather than vaporware.

Key insights

  1. 01

    Touch ID is a platform lock problem

    The missing biometric sensor is not really a keyboard-design failure. It is Apple keeping the only fully integrated path to Mac authentication and Apple Pay behind its own hardware. People pointed to hacks like TinyTouch and smart-card emulation, but those only prove the gap between “can read a fingerprint” and “behaves like Touch ID everywhere that matters.” That reframes the omission as a platform constraint that third-party accessory makers cannot product-design their way around.

    If your product depends on matching a first-party workflow, map the locked system APIs and hardware attestation rules before you promise parity. Customers judge against the native experience, not against what is technically possible with a workaround.

      Attribution:
    • aemerson_ #1 #2
    • xp84 #1
    • satvikpendem #1
  2. 02

    Core behavior lives on the keyboard

    The durability story here is better than the glossy launch page suggests. The creator said mappings and core behavior are stored on-device, the board works as a normal keyboard on Linux, and the macOS app is mostly a configurator plus extras like notification-driven haptics. Combined with planned firmware source release and a ZMK base, that makes this feel more like a serious programmable keyboard than a dependent app accessory.

    For premium peripherals, insist on local configuration and sane fallback behavior. Companion apps break, operating systems change, and products last longer when their essential features do not depend on middleware.

      Attribution:
    • aemerson_ #1 #2 #3
    • ebastler #1
  3. 03

    Altar I buyers gave this credibility

    Past delivery changed how people read the preorder pitch. Owners of Altar I said it shipped on time by Kickstarter standards, worked well, and had its firmware open sourced as promised. That kind of track record is rare in hardware threads and it softened the usual skepticism around price, manufacturability, and future support.

    If you are asking customers to pre-fund hardware, your last ship is part of this ship. Preserve public proof that you fulfilled earlier promises, because references from existing customers do more than polished renders ever will.

      Attribution:
    • doublerebel #1
    • n-barraclough #1
    • aemerson_ #1 #2
  4. 04

    The legends undermine an otherwise premium design

    The loudest design criticism was not that the keyboard looks weird overall. It was that the giant number legends and diminished shifted symbols break usability and visual coherence at the exact point where people look most. Several people said they could accept the quirk, but not on a backlit board where symbol visibility in low light is part of the value proposition. That is a reminder that small typography choices can dominate perception of a high-end object.

    When you are selling design taste, test the one or two visual choices that users cannot unsee. A single polarizing detail can become the product for a lot of buyers, even when the engineering is excellent.

      Attribution:
    • swingboy #1
    • d3Xt3r #1
    • LoganDark #1
    • waffletower #1
    • canada_dry #1
  5. 05

    The real target is Magic Keyboard users

    People who already type fastest on Apple’s flat keyboards immediately understood the appeal. The creator’s switch descriptions kept coming back to the same goal: preserve the low pre-travel, quick actuation feel, and slim posture of a MacBook or Magic Keyboard, then add more tactility and a little more travel. That places Altar II in a much narrower category than “mechanical keyboard.” It is chasing users who like Apple’s typing speed and form factor but want better feel, not enthusiasts chasing maximum travel or loud switches.

    Position low-profile hardware against the habit it replaces, not the broad category it technically belongs to. The winning comparison here is Apple keyboard users who want more tactility, not general mechanical keyboard fans.

Against the grain

  1. 01

    The price still looks hard to justify

    A lot of enthusiasm did not erase sticker shock. Even with the early reservation price, some people compared it to keyboards from Keychron or Keyboardio and saw a premium that only enthusiasts will swallow. The creator’s defense was materials, custom parts, and small-scale production, which may all be true, but the objection stands: the market for a $349 keyboard gets small fast once buyers do not care about ultra-thin mechanics or Mac-specific polish.

    Do not read praise for craftsmanship as proof of demand at your target price. Premium hardware needs a very crisp story about who pays for the extra engineering and who will rationally choose a cheaper substitute.

      Attribution:
    • Henchman21 #1
    • bsoles #1
    • Tepix #1
    • dmhmr #1
  2. 02

    The website oversold the product for some people

    The launch page impressed many readers, but it also pushed others away with heavy motion, autoplaying video, and a sluggish feel on weaker connections or mobile. For a product aimed at detail-oriented buyers, that created an odd mismatch: the presentation signaled obsessive polish, yet the browsing experience felt physically unpleasant or impractical for some visitors. That criticism hit because the website is such a central part of the pitch.

    Treat motion and media weight as product decisions, not marketing garnish. A launch page for a premium device should still work cleanly on mobile, low bandwidth, and for people sensitive to visual motion.

      Attribution:
    • dmhmr #1
    • alt227 #1
    • hack1312 #1
    • edumucelli #1
  3. 03

    Ergonomics are not solved by being thin

    Several people liked the thinness and still rejected the keyboard on ergonomic grounds. They wanted split layouts, ortholinear columns, thumb clusters, or simply a bit of tilt, and some said a flat board hurts their wrists fast no matter how slim it is. That pushes back on the idea that low profile alone makes a keyboard comfortable. For many serious keyboard users, geometry beats thickness.

    If you market comfort, separate “slim” from “ergonomic” in your own thinking. A thin board may help one audience, but another will immediately ask about tenting, tilt, split layout, and thumb reach.

      Attribution:
    • j_aime #1
    • ChaseRensberger #1
    • jerlam #1
    • WesolyKubeczek #1
    • StilesCrisis #1
    • handfuloflight #1

In plain english

Apple Pay ↩
Apple’s payment system for making purchases using stored cards and device-based authentication.
Choc ↩
A family of low-profile mechanical keyboard switches made by Kailh, often used in thin custom keyboards.
GitHub ↩
A code hosting platform commonly used to publish and collaborate on software and firmware source code.
Magic Keyboard ↩
Apple’s slim wireless keyboard for Mac devices.
ortholinear ↩
A keyboard layout where keys are arranged in straight columns and rows instead of the usual staggered pattern.
pre-travel ↩
The distance a key moves before it actuates and sends a keypress to the computer.
Secure Enclave ↩
A protected security processor in Apple devices that stores sensitive data like biometric credentials and performs secure authentication.
Touch ID ↩
Apple’s fingerprint authentication system used to unlock devices, approve password fills, and authorize purchases like Apple Pay.
ZMK ↩
An open-source firmware platform for wireless mechanical keyboards that handles key mapping, layers, and device behavior.

Reference links

Touch ID workarounds and hacks

Firmware and keyboard tooling

  • Altar I firmware repository
    Used to support the claim that the company open-sourced earlier keyboard firmware and plans to do the same again.
  • ZMK
    Open-source firmware platform Altar keyboards are based on.
  • ZMK latency comparison video
    Referenced for background on wireless and wired keyboard latency in ZMK-based boards.

Comparable keyboards and layouts

Design and visual references