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Comment by hamburglar | Hacker News Reader

This looks incredible but I’m skeptical you can actually produce it for $250 and maintain the level of quality and features that you claim. And it appears you’re offering $100 off of that (or is that the post discount price? It’s hard to tell). I guess I will wait and see.

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We have spent a lot of time and effort finding manufacturing partners and ensuring they can produce Altar II at the scale and quality we require. In fact we have delayed announcing Altar II for a long time because we wanted to be absolutely certain it was manufacturable and shippable at our price points.

Do also bear in mind the final retail price is $349. the $249 price is for early pre-orders only.

I am sure there are afficionados of these things, but $349 for a keyboard is crazy. I am not sure what you get in return for such a price..

It's a luxury product. People spend tens of thousands on a watch, what's a few hundred for a keyboard? In this hobby people are more than happy to pay that much for a second-hand semi-mass-produced TKL, provided it has the right switches and keycaps!

I know probably 10+ people who have paid more than $500 for a mouse.

That‘s the same price as a Keyboardio Model 100 which is split, wooden and has sculpted RGB backlit keys. Whoah.

That said, big fan of that volume button!

From what I can see it doesn't look too crazy at first glance. It doesn't seem to have any especially rare or expensive parts or features. A few complications, but that's about it. Very rough guess: $100 BOM for a few thousand units?

I reckon it's doable, but very risky. There's clearly an awful lot of work in this, so the engineering costs aren't going to be trivial. You need to sell a few thousand of them at that $250 price point to break even. On top of that, at this price point it is a luxury product. This means customers expect perfection. You can't afford any kind of QA whoopsies, and especially with a machined metal case it is a recipe for disaster.

Small DIY keebs are quite doable. Mass-produced keebs are quite doable. Boutique designer ones? Cutthroat market with zero room for errors. Stay tiny, grow huge, or go bust.

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