Github link: https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry
Here’s a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDb8_ld9gOQ
I’ve been using it for almost two years now, and I’m not going back.
It’s based on a spare Blackberry Q10 keyboard and a custom Arduino-compatible board that reads the keyboard matrix and outputs it as USB HID to the phone. From the viewpoint of the phone, it’s just a regular USB keyboard, so no special software is needed.
But I do use a custom virtual keyboard to have just two rows of symbols that are not natively on the keyboard, as I didn’t want to add another layer of rarely used symbols that I’d have to memorize.
(On the image you can see Ubuntu with XFCE4 running on it. I chose Ubuntu because it’s what was easiest to get running in a chroot jail on the phone. I’m using VNC to display the GUI. I even managed to get FEX (x86/x64 emulator) and Wine running, so it runs x86/x64 Linux and Windows apps.)
Yeah, all of the keyboard phones on the market are ancient and/or total crap in every regard but their keyboard and/or super expensive. Some of them are all three at the same time (looking at you Planet Computers and F(x)tec!).
I believe I might have the most up-to-date and highest specced keyboard phone currently on the planet ;)
There totally is, as is proven by Unihertz still existing. But I fear, the keyboard market is a little fragmented, and just a handful of devices won’t really capture it. People like side sliders, top sliders or portrait candy bar,. They might want a large or a small phone. They might like privacy/secure phones or hacker phones, or just cheap phones with a keyboard and nothing else. Or maybe a flagship phone with all bells and whistles and a keyboard…
The Fairberry is adaptable to pretty much any phone on the market (as long as it supports external keyboards). Foldables might be challenging though ;)
But that allows you to use any phone you like with a keyboard that anyone can make for ~€50, or maybe €100 if you get someone to do the soldering/printing for you.