this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Thumb-Key

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About

Thumb-Key is a privacy-conscious smart keyboard, made specifically for your thumbs.

It features a 3x3 grid layout, as many older phones had, and uses swipes for the less common letters. Initial testing shows that you can reach ~25 words per minute after a day of use.

Instead of relying on profit-driven, privacy-offending word and sentence prediction for accuracy, as do most popular phone keyboards like Gboard and Swiftkey, Thumb-Key uses large keys with predictable positions, to prevent your eyes from hunting and pecking for letters.

As the key positions get ingrained into your muscle memory, eventually you'll be able to appromixate the fast speeds of touch-typing, your eyes never having to leave the text edit area.

This project is a follow-up to the now unmaintained (and closed-source) MessageEase Keyboard, which is its main inspiration.

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The current layout seems to be designed for optimal use with two thumbs. However, I use only one thumb when typing on mobile. Would it be possible to design a layout that's optimized for one thumb?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

MessagEase designed it's layout with one thumb in mind, go for the og

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any layout can work with one thumb, you just might need to make the keyboard smaller.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, but the ThumbKey layouts are specifically designed to alternate sides, which is precisely what you want to avoid when using only one thumb.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I haven't tried all of the available layouts but I thought at least one of them was for one thumb