You spend your days at a keyboard. It is among the most universal of tools in our modern world. No matter what you make, your keyboard is an integral part of how you practice your craft. You deserve a good keyboard.

The Keyboardio Model 100 is a customizable ergonomic mechanical keyboard designed from the ground up to work the way you do. It features 64 hot-swappable mechanical keyswitches, individually addressable RGB LEDs under each custom-sculpted keycap, and open source firmware, all housed in a precision-milled hardwood enclosure.

When you’re at your desk for hours at a time, absolutely nothing beats the warm, rich feeling of wood under your palms.

 We’ve been making wooden keyboards since some of our earliest prototypes nearly a decade ago. While they’re certainly eye-catching, what really matters to us is just how comfortable they feel. We’ve built keyboards out of metal. We’ve built keyboards out of plastic. But, wood has character, texture, and luster that you can’t get from any other material.  

Whether you prefer the rich mid-century styling of walnut or the clean modern look of maple hardwood, the natural variation in grain will ensure that each and every Model 100 will have a gorgeous and unique personality.

From the positions of the keys to the shapes of the keycaps to the shape of the enclosure, we built the Model 100 to give you the best possible typing experience.

 A key layout based on your hands

 We’ve aligned the Model 100’s keys in columns so they’re easier to reach without having to contort your fingers. The keys are angled to help you keep your wrists in a natural, neutral position.

To make it as easy as possible for new typists to get started, the Model 100’s default layout is based on QWERTY. Since the physical shape of the keyboard isn’t limited by the traditional shape of a typewriter, we’ve been able to make some important improvements that make the Model 100 a dream to type on without having to learn to type all over again. (Of course, the Model 100 supports custom layouts, too—every single key is fully programmable.)

When we built the Model 01, one of the most controversial layout choices we made was replacing the spacebar with a space key. Again and again, our customers have told us that this is one of their favorite things about our layout. By making space a reasonable size, we’re able to move some of the most frequently chorded keys away from your poor, overworked pinkie fingers to easy to reach arcs right under your thumbs.

Underneath the thumb arcs, you’ll find one of the Model 100’s most unique features: the palm key. It works like a special Shift or Function key to give you the full power of a 104 key keyboard in just 64 easy to reach keys. Dropping the base of your thumb onto the palm key turns H, J, K, and L into arrow keys, turns the number keys into F-keys and even turns the WASD keys into a high-precision mouse.

You can, of course, fully customize the Model 100’s key layout with our graphical configuration tool.

The Model 100’s generous curved palm rests help support your palms and wrists and gently encourage you to hold your hands in a relaxed, neutral position, rather than bending your wrists while typing.

Most keyboard manufacturers buy their keycaps from one of a handful of keycap factories in one of a half-dozen generic shapes. We wanted something better, so we designed our own. It took hundreds of hours of engineering, but we’ve made keycaps that actually help you type better. 

The Model 100’s keycaps are individually sculpted to gently guide your fingers to the right places, following the natural curve of your hands. This makes it just that little bit easier to hit the right key with the right finger. It feels great if you already touch-type. (And it also dramatically reduces the learning curve for those of us who never learned “proper” typing.)

The Keyboardio Model 100 features high-quality hot-swappable MX-compatible mechanical keyswitches. Mechanical switches just feel better to type on than the cheap rubber domes, or low-profile scissor switches you’ll find on most modern keyboards and laptops. We’ve been researching and testing and building keyboards with mechanical switches for nearly a decade and have picked out some of our favorites for the Model 100.

Kickstarter edition Model 100 keyboards will ship with your choice of three keyswitch options from Kailh, each nestled in a hot-swap socket: Clicky BOX White switches, Tactile BOX Silent Brown switches, or Linear BOX Silent Pink switches.

The keyboard industry is in the middle of a Cambrian explosion of keyswitch options. New switches are becoming available all the time. Some are extra-clicky. Some are whisper-silent. Some new switches are made from self-lubricating POM. Others are built out of crystal-clear plastic designed to accentuate under-key LEDs. Since the switches aren’t soldered into the circuit board, you’re free to experiment with them all, to find the perfect switch for you.

Programmable RGB LEDs under each key 

We’ve placed an independently programmable RGB LED underneath each and every key on the keyboard. Out of the box, the Model 100 can breathe, glow and do cute rainbow fade animations with the best of them, but the neat part is that each and every one of those LEDs is end-user controllable.

With just a few lines of code, you can completely customize the light show. Want your keyboard to start flashing red when you’ve been typing too long? There’s a plugin for that! Want a key to light up when you’ve got mail? That’s just a few lines of code.