Are Those Laser Keyboards Finally Usable When Embedded In An iPhone Case?


Short answer: Nope, still not. If you have even a passing interest in tech you’ve seen these types of contraptions before. A laser is used to project a virtual keyboard onto a flat surface, while a camera detects the position of the typist’s fingers to register keystrokes.

If it worked as awesome as it sounds, laser keyboards would be a fantastic tool for doing long-form writing on a portable device. Particularly when it’s integrated into a $US180-$US190 iPhone case. But the sad reality is that they’re almost unusable for any kind of real work.


Not only is the lack of tactile feedback a huge stumbling block for touch typists, but the hardware used to track your finger motions isn’t accurate enough for any kind of real speed. While playing with the dubiously named Prodigy for a couple of minutes it also made a lot of recognition mistakes, which is an instant dealbreaker. I make enough mistakes myself, I don’t need my keyboard contributing to the problem. [Celluon]


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