Why are our keyboard not wireless?

I've tried wireless and for me it didn't stick.

I never need my keyboard more than 1m away from my monitor anyway, so the upside is limited.

And I had a succession of mysterious, intermittent, difficult to diagnose problems. OK, so I think I'm getting lag and dropped keystrokes. Is it RF interference on a crowded 2.4GHz band? Is plugging the dongle into the back of my PC's metal case just too challenging? Are the batteries low? Is everything fine, and I was just miskeying my password? Oh, for some reason the problem's gone away... for a few hours.

Switching back to my wired keyboard made the problems disappear.

In 2019 I switched to a wireless headset. This year I switched back to wired. The sound quality is better, the latency is better, the weight is better, and I never need to wonder whether or not the battery is discharged.

Some things just don't need to be wireless.

I love the idea of wireless, but in practice I always find myself reverting back to wired after a while (for keyboard and mouse, headphones is a different story).

The pain of seeing wires is not as bad as the pain of having the battery run out every once in a while, just when you need it, and having to plug it to charge.

Maybe once batteries last for months instead of weeks I'll change my mind.

The only wireless keyboard I have is the one for controlling the media computer from the couch. For everything else, portability is not a benefit, and wireless connection are just another failure mode.

Well, I'm blind and when working from home, wireless keyboards allow for leaving the laptop aside and taking whatever position on the sofa I find the most comfortable at the moment. Not applicable for everyone, ofc.

On the other hand, accessibility sound has very bad latency with all wireless headsets that I've tried so far.

Batteries require special effort to recycle, also a chore to replace them every now and then. It just generates waste for no reason.

I know my contribution is negligible, but I still feel better not buying things that work on batteries, when possible. Quite frustratingly, this turns out to be quite hard / very limited in choice of design options. Here are some things that appeared quite hard to find w/o batteries:

* Alarm clock.

* Cooking thermometer.

* Cooking scales.

Eventually, I did find those, but I had to hunt them down, weeding through countless alternatives with batteries.

Things like angle grinder and impact driver also gave me some headache. Oh, and there's also pulseox and sphygmomanometer. You can sort of see how a version that works on batteries would be useful... but for a lot of people there's no need for the battery-powered version. But those become increasingly hard to find.

Most of these justifications/complaints against wireless don't resonate with me. My wireless keyboard runs on 2 standard batteries (AA or AAA, I can't remember which and am AFK). I must replace them about every year, it's a very short process, and I use rechargeables. I replaced my keyboard earlier this year due to water damage, so the batteries have outlasted the keyboard (which was about 7 years old). I admit, I don't use a mechanical keyboard (I use a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic) but is all of the above simplicity and commodity battery stuff impossible in the mechanical space? I get the impression they're eminently possible, as long as you don't have to power lots of rgb lights, etc.

As for a negative that specifically resonates, but not fundamentally so: AFAIK, I cannot tinker with the firmware on my wireless keyboard. The real negative IMO, is that rarely, keys become unresponsive for 3 seconds (presumably due to wireless connectivity drop). It's annoying, but losing 3 seconds of work is manageable to say the least, and it's not frustrating as long as it's rare -- and I don't use it for gaming.

On the whole, quite positive for wireless keyboards such as mine. A wireless mouse is a similar story. Wireless headsets/microphones are totally different, as low-latency high-quality audio codecs are relatively new in Bluetooth.

Bluetooth and AAA batteries also are industry standard and user replaceable. The 2nd gen Apple Wireless keyboard had a brilliant design to accomodate them (https://tech-rachat.com/1509-large_default/clavier-apple-mag...), and 15 years later you can still see them in the wild, working like day one.

To give a positive response in the sea of negativity, I'm very happy with my all wireless setup. I have a keyboard (Nuphy) and mouse (Razer) that can switch between Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz. I connect to my work laptop via BT and gaming PC via 2.4. No issues with latency for me even in twitchy shooters.

I have a BT headset for work but do wire it in while gaming and have a USB mic.

Really nice to be able to switch between two computers without a KVM.

I am not as opposed to battery power as many people on this thread, but the batteries need to be easily replaced and a standard size. Any device with a non-replaceable internal battery has an expiration date, and if you're bad about remembering to charge it, that date might come soon. A great example is my portable guitar amp, which wouldn't hold a charge. A new battery was $20 and took minutes to replace with no special tools.

Plus, if a device runs on AA or 18650 batteries, I can keep some spare charged ones in a drawer or bag, effectively providing unlimited usage time.

My wired keyboard will last for decades barring physical damage.

One less thing which needs constant charging. Low battery also results in a state where you think everything is working and blame your typing until you realize not every command is received.

Also:

- less waste / power

- cheaper

- higher security

- compability

Why not both, like the Keychron Pro keyboards? You can connect the USB cable, which always works, or use it wirelessly when you want it (or need it).

Furthermore, wouldn't replaceable batteries also fix the durability issue?

I've both the Moonlander which uses QMK and Kinesis Advantage 360 Pro which uses ZMK. The Advantage 360 Pro occasionally has Bluetooth connection problem that drive me crazy, which often requires unpairing and re-pairing. (I've contacted support and they point out a firmware for you to reset stuck light and another for resetting completely, but it just doesn't solve me problem.)

I often thought ZSA chose to not support wireless because of this.

I chose the wireless version of 360Pro not primarily because of wireless, but because of the use of ZMK (which allows similar level of programming comparing to QMK.) eventually, the way I solve the Bluetooth problem is just to use its USB connection.

P.S. I have 2 360Pro, one at work. On top of the connection problem I mentioned above, there's also another pairing problem which I need to switch between them. Often, but not always, I need to unpair and re-pair again. It seems they aren't expecting people to have multiple 360Pro?

Because I found just about the perfect keyboard and it's not wireless:

Steelseries Apex Pro (https://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Apex-Mechanical-Gaming-Ke...)

With some lube, this Hall effect keyboard comes as close as I've found since the Tom Knight MIT AI lab Microswitch keyboards of yore. What it still lacks is the perfect "heft" of the TK keyboards, balanced key weight & springs which gave it a certain "je ne sais quoi" I've never found in 40+ years. (And I've tried dozens of mechanical keyboards.) But it's damned close.

I've tried adding weight to the keys with magnetic putty to mimic the original TK "heft," but the switches aren't up to the weight, nor do they have enough throw. So I gave up and am still very very happy with the lubed Apex Pros.

The title should really be "Why do ZSA keyboards come with cables", or "Why are your (ZSA keyboards) not wireless?"

The current title sounds like it's encouraging wireless and a lot of comments here appear to be responding to that, but the actual article is explaining why their keyboards are wired.

I love my Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard (https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k380-multi...) I've had it for years and even though it is of course battery powered, I haven't needed to change the battery yet.

It's small, inexpensive, comfortable, quiet, and it allows me to easily switch between my work and personal laptop. If only those buttons could switch my mouse at the same time, it'd be perfect.

There's a little bit of a connection delay when I start using it after being away for more than an hour or so, but it just takes a second or two to resolve.

Never understood wireless keyboards and mice. Checking the battery level would drive me crazy, and you’re next to a power source anyway!

I don't use wireless keyboards either. You want your keyboard to be 100% reliable, especially at times you're trying to get into the UEFI bios or something right when the computer is first booting.

And while I have a pair of bluetooth earbuds, I only have one use-case for them: the few hours I spend once a week cleaning the house. At my desk, I use wired (sounds better!) and on airplanes I use wired (they don't fall out if I fall asleep and get lost). I know people that blow a couple hundred buck several times/year on lost AirPods Pro!

Over the years I switched to wireless for most of my peripherals, then back to wired.

When I was switching to wireless, there would be pairing and connection problems. I assumed the technology would get better and I am just paying for being an early adopter. Unfortunately, the technology has never become much better. I changed a dozen mice, half a dozen keyboards, and probably two dozen headphones. Not to mention a lot of other types of peripherals.

Honestly, I have never found A SINGLE device that would work problem free.

I am tired of my mice or keyboard suddenly refusing to work while I am presenting. Or discovering another pair of headphones that the manufacturer (Hi Sony!) decided that it will be a good idea to interrupt me while listening to notify that the battery is low while there is still more than 50% of listening time available.

Or a huge number of other, unexplainable problems. Like my headphones drawing charging current but still being low on charge in the morning. Or my bluetooth headphones cutting out whenever I leave the range of my... wifi (Yes! I carry the phone in my pocket while leaving the house and they reliably stop working about 40m from home).

And I am not buying cheap devices, I am almost always buying new, flagship products for top brands.

Now my working environment is back to wired and is much lower on drama. Still not perfect, but at least I can have meetings without worrying about things breaking at random.

Security and having a fixed location on your desk ;)

I currently use the wireless ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II at work for a few reasons:

- it's compact, and I can get rid of the mouse since I love using the 'erasehead' pointer (others may disagree with this, of course)

- as a firmware developer, I occasionally have to work on two systems: my work laptop and a Raspberry Pi. Since the keyboard supports using Bluetooth and a Wireless dongle, it's easy for me to connect the keyboard to either by toggling the connection (BT for the laptop, dongle for the RaspPi).

- I love the tactile feedback from the Thinkpad keyboard.

As with other wireless keyboards, I'm getting occasional connection dropouts, but those are fixed by turning the keyboard off and on again. I can live with that, for now.

I recently discovered that Lenovo now also sells the equivalent keyboard with a wired USB connector. I may get that in the future to connect to my future desktop PCs.

There must be more to it (even if just he is 'anti-wireless' despite what he writes) - the points in the article would be trivially addressed by a cable fallback option.

Less trivially by using Bluetooth (so standard and built in to many computers, esp. laptops) and AAs (so the optionally rechargeable batteries or also standard and purchasable from 'anyone').

Not that I'm bothered, the keyboard is probably the last thing on my desk besides my monitor that I'd try to ditch the cable from. On the whole I think I prefer them to faffing with Bluetooth, and easier to KVM. (For stuff that's on my desk I mean - I have AirPod-like earphones from Anker (about ⅒ price for no discernible disadvantage) that I wouldn't go back from, and used a Bluetooth receiver with 3.5mm jack before that, in particular to decouple my ears from my legs while cycling.)

Because it makes no sense? That keyboard is in front of a monitor and having it anywhere else would be uncomfortable and unproductive. So because the keyboard is in one place, there is no reason to have it wireless and be exposed to possible loss of functionality at the stupidest time.

Both/and and repairable. I want wireless because of my portable setup, and wired so the thing still works when the battery dies and when Bluetooth doesn't work (e.g. the bios screen).

Ideally it should also use an easy to replace battery.

I've used the Nuphy F1 in my setup for this. It isn't ergonomic but satisfied the wired and wireless desire: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/vzs8mm...

A similar device is the apple magic Trackpad - it works in both wired & wireless which has been helpful when using on test devices and my use case with a portable tablet.

Realistically, my keyboards are not wireless because my rig is not built for BT-enabled devices. However even if I had the option, the only peripheral I can imagine using wirelessly is my gamepad, and that would be rather rare currently.

I prefer PS/2 keyboards and mice, I am unwilling to sacrifice audio input and output quality on my main PC, and unlike a wired port Bluetooth is inconvenient even on Apple devices with AirPods. Not to mention my anxiety of losing track of peripherals is worsened by things that are as small as wireless mice and my AirPods.

However, for maintaining range of motion, and in fields where I am willing to compromise on quality, things like wireless headphones/earbuds make sense. Like my father, who enjoys his wireless headphones as he works outside.

I've got a Moonlander, which I love. But I really do wish it was wireless, the cable the joins the two halves in particular gets in the way and makes it painful to use the space between the halves for a notebook.

I'm kinda hoping that someone will figure out how to jury rig a ESP32 into one of these boards, so it's possible to add wireless capabilities using a screwdriver and a soldering iron. Even better would be is ZSA provided headers (even unpopulated headers) on the boards so that you could strap a co-processor like an ESP32 to it, without having the mess too much with the PCB.

I imagine, with some work and custom firmware, it would be possible to get the power consumption to Logitech levels of efficiency. One AA in each side lasting a year, that would be ideal.

I have an Apple keyboard, which is wireless. Whenever I connect to a Zoom call, which is to say four or five times a day, the keyboard stops working until I reconnect it to a cable. "Stops working" is a euphemism for "freaks the fuck out and starts pressing keys randomly". I can then disconnect it from the cable again and it'll work, but slowly I've been trained to just keep the stupid thing plugged in all the time. Even under ideal circumstances—hardware made to work with well supported software running on an OS made by the keyboard OEM—Wireless keyboards are not a solved problem in 2023, it seems.

The 'battery degrades and you have to throw your keyboard away' argument is poor, but unfortunately all too true these days.

Just make the battery easily replaceable.

The real reason is just that wireless is not that necessary for desktops - the keyboard is always just there. Why bother with flaky wireless, battery anxiety and charging etc, when you can just leave it wired.

Personally I have a wireless keyboard because I use it with my laptop, and I move from place to place with them - having to plug/unplug each time would be even more a pain than the occasional recharging.

I bought a new Kinesis Advantage 360 with wireless because I wanted ZMK.

I freakin HATE it.

The most convenient wireless keyboard I had was a Logitech one with solar panel recharging that would run on office lighting (or ambient light through windows). Eventually the rechargeable cell stopped charging and it's user-replaceable but I hadn't replaced it yet. It also has an HID USB adapter which is great that it kicks in before a bluetooth one which is helpful for doing PC BIOS/CMOS setup on boot or easily catching BIOS boot menu options.

Wireless keyboards solve exactly one problem: needing to type far away from a machine. That problem is extremely narrow and doesn't apply to 99% of cases where you need a keyboard.

My keyboard doesn't move often, and only a few inches across the desk. The wire isn't a problem.

Mice, however, I will always take wireless. You have to drag a wire around, and it always gets snagged on the crap on my desk. Wireless mouse actually solves a real problem you see in most setups.

Bluetooth ususally works pretty reliably for me these days. However, if you connect a larger number of bluetooth devices (headphones, mouse, keyboard, trackpad, etc.) it can become a bit flaky.

Since you don't move keyboards like a mouse or headphones, it helps reduce the number of peripheries connected to your computer, which in turn helps with bluetooth connectivity issues if you have a lot of devices connected.

Oh, and it's one fewer thing to charge.

I've found it much nicer to use a dongled device than a bluetooth device.

With bluetooth, it's super easy to have some combination of devices where something doesn't work. (e.g. with a macbook, leave the bluetooth on & put the laptop away in your bag. Hours later, try and turn on your bluetooth headset, then wonder why the headset won't connect to anything).

Though, I think peripherals should be able to be used with a wired cable.

Neat keyboard. Going through the marketing materials on this site I noticed what appears to be a coffee shop example. I’ve started seeing this type of thing in coffee shops recently along with laptop stands and once even a full monitor setup. This strikes me as incredibly bizarre in what is often an actual restaurant. I have very clicks keys at my desk but that’s in a private office with no one in earshot.

I used to use wireless keyboard/mouse. I switched back to wired for both. Charging them became annoying and wireless offered no effective benefit.

Why would I increase signal congestion the room with a device that is almost never moved? Why would I switch a device that has potentially decades of lifetime to a device that has a soldered battery and thus could die within years because of it (big quality keyboards rarely come with standard tubular batteries). Which on top of that has worse latency and more potential (connection) issues?

This whole article feels very shallow to me. All wireless mechanical keyboards I know of can also work in wired mode, so it negates his entire argument which seems to be longevity...

Just to be clear I'm not arguing for wireless keyboards, just that it feels very forced and they should just say "wireless doesn't fit our vision".

I love my ErgoDox EZ. But I’ve purchased a Dygma Defy in part because I want wireless. It would be so nice to have wireless power built in to my desk so the keyboard could make us of it. But I agree with all the points in the article. Except I still want wireless. If only batteries were still removable like the good ol days…

My MKII Das Keyboard I bought in 2008 is still my daily driver.. It works flawlessly so why would I replace it?

In the same neighborhood, my daily headphones are the wired Beyerdynamic DT770 Pros I bought as a graduation gift to myself from high school.. That was 20 years ago. Again, not broken. Work great. Why do I need anything else?

Mike is. Why isn't yours? To be fair it is wired to one computer and wireless to another. It is wired because it really has no battery life. Unlike my mouse that can last a year or two. The battery life on the keyboard is like one day.

The one time I'll discover a wireless keyboard is out of battery is when I want to use it.

That's the only time this is going to happen to me, and everytime it happens I'll be sitting centimetres away from grid-supplied electricity powering the thing I want to use.

I don't have to change any kind of batteries, charge and they also work flawlessly, as well as weigh less. I get why a wireless mouse is such a great thing, they are fantastic to control, but for a keyboard a thin USB-C wire isn't big of a deal.

I don't care for wireless keyboards, personally, but the idea of a pair of dongles that could make any USB HID device wireless sounds like it would be a fun project to build. I don't know if there would be a market for such a silly thing.

Wired is always more reliable and lower latency than wireless. And not having to deal with batteries is great.

There are some applications where wireless is so much more convenient that it overcomes those trade offs, but a keyboard isn’t one of them.

Why would they be wireless? For a device that stays in one position on my desk all the time that's utterly pointless. There are only downsides - having to charge it, signal issues, potentially lower security.

I have a bluetooth keyboard and I usually use the cabled option. Bluetooth is definitely handy sometimes, but generally cabled is better. Bluetooth has a lag when it's been dormant and you start typing.

Having to recharge batteries is a hassle. The wire never needs recharging.

And in typical HN fasion, the comments are mostly about wireless headsets when the article was specifically about wrireless keyboards.

My keyboard takes two AAA batteries. They need replacing maybe once a year. A keyboard is a large device, space is not at a premium.

I would try wireless, but I switched to tenkeyless a few years ago, and there are no descent tenkeyless wireless keyboards.

WHat a crock.

Wires are a messy, pain in the ass. I switched to a bluetooth keyboard as soon as I could and have never looked back.

Delay. I use the same keyboard for gaming as I do for work, and the wireless keyboards lag too much for me.

Has anyone figured out yet how to get a Bluetooth keyboard to autoconnect on boot with Linux?

I'm on both sides of this fence. I'm currently typing from a wired keyboard connected to my daily driver laptop. In my living room I have a full media PC where a wireless mouse and keyboard make more sense sitting on the couch.

The big reason? I have a love/hate relationship with wires. Wires are simple and work beautifully, but as the number goes up their management becomes necessary. Wireless can free me from this nest, but then it dumps me into managing pairing issues and sometimes sub-par electronics/software to translate between the two devices. In both cases I have to manage something I really don't care much about and would rather forget.

Regarding the article, I also have a suspicious attitude towards storing batteries. I keep all kinds of old electronics around because they come in handy every blue moon. It's much harder to keep batteries stored and useful long term, and many devices don't let you remove or replace the battery. I don't like fire risks in my cabinets.

For now I prefer wires because cable management is (usually) a one-time affair, where it seems wireless requires constant babysitting.

Not to mention eavesdrop risk.

I light bright led keyboards that don't need batteries ;)

Theres a bug in MacOS that sometimes causes delayed input.

Power and latency.

Batteries go bad. Lag They seem flaky.

Same for mouse

Wired keyboards are also harder to spy on, and much harder to interfere with.

because its cheap, uncomplicated and reliable.