Question Is there such thing as a full touch keyboard?

[barled1]

So I was watching YouTube videos on "low profile" keyboards and it got me wondering if there was any keyboards that you don't even press down on, just one where it feels your finger on it and it types on-screen. Imagine the keys like the power button on the Xbox One console where you don't even have to press down, it just senses your finger is there. If anyone has any links to these types of keyboards please reply to this with the link. Thanks!

 

[COLGeek]

They don't exist yet...but, Apple just patented such a device.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/apple-glass-keyboard-patent

 

[Solandri]

People have been trying to avoid making a keyboard like this. The reason is that you need to be able to tell that your fingers are positioned properly over the keys. Have you noticed the bumps on the f and j keys (d and k for a Mac keyboard)? They're there so you know your hands are resting in the proper position above the keyboard. Without them you'd constantly have to look down at the keyboard every time you moved your hand to the mouse, then back to the keyboard. You wouldn't be sure if your other fingers were resting on top of a key, or in between keys, or hitting two keys. And you'd accidentally type wrong letters as your fingers unintentionally touched other keys as you reached for things like ctrl or page up/down.

Try typing on your phone's on-screen keyboard without looking at it. Hold the phone behind something so the keyboard and your fingers are blocked from view. Then try to type something. You'll quickly discover why a touch-only keyboard is such a terrible idea, only used when there's no alternative.

The only way I can see a touch-only keyboard working is if it's a chorded keyboard. Those only assign one key to each finger, so (assuming some other mechanism positions your fingers properly) you could type on those via touch-only without errors. Mind you, I think they're difficult to use, and I play the piano. Maybe the woodwind instrument players will find them easier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

 

[hang-the-9]

So I was watching YouTube videos on "low profile" keyboards and it got me wondering if there was any keyboards that you don't even press down on, just one where it feels your finger on it and it types on-screen. Imagine the keys like the power button on the Xbox One console where you don't even have to press down, it just senses your finger is there. If anyone has any links to these types of keyboards please reply to this with the link. Thanks!

This would be really bad for most things, pretty much like typing on a phone/tablet but you would have to keep your eyes on the keyboard the whole time. They made a few virtual keyboards that projected a keyboard on the table, but those were not popular either.