A Geek Goes Flying

NuPhy Air75 v2 Basalt Black NuPhy has upgraded the Air75, a keyboard I’ve been futzing around with for about two years , recently releasing the Air75 v2 . In so doing, they appear to have addressed my critiques, including: Compatibility with the newer MacBooks with “Airfeet v3” ... These are foldable, too, not the easily lost magnetic risers from the earlier Air 75. (To their credit, NuPhy sold me several for a reasonable sum, like $8?, when I asked. But I’d much rather not have to even worry about losing feet.) VIA programmable, important as I’ve gotten very used to the HHKB layout, but the boards aren’t that portable. I can at least approximate it with VIA mapping, without having to deal with the kludge that is Karabiner on every machine I might use with it. New switches. I already swapped my Air75 to Wisteria switches , which were better, but now there’s a Moss option (60gf operating force), which might be even better still: “Taking a page from Gateron’s Baby Kangaroo, Moss is the ...

Continuing my practice of distilling my stream of consciousness rambling down to the nuts and bolts of where I ended up... I was one of the early buyers of the NuPhy Air 75 (also available through Amazon , with prime shipping), and I opted for the brown switches. Didn’t love ’em. When they upgraded the logic board I asked and they sent me the revised board, gratis. When they released the shine-through keycaps , I bought them for $19. When they came out with new low profile Gateron switches, I picked up a set of the 55g Wisterias , and so far, I like them a lot more than the v1 browns (50g). They’re a bit stiffer, and I find I don’t have miskeys nearly as often, while the switches are still relatively quiet and not fatiguing. I dig this setup, both with MacBooks and with an iPad using the NuFolio V2 ( Amazon ) case. (I also picked up a set of Gateron blues , before the Wisterias were in stock; I wasn’t wild about putting clicky switches in this board (which, being so portable, I wa...

Okay, so, I have this working - not 100% seamlessly and not quite as it should, but it does work. I had do download Bluetooth Explorer for Mac OS 10.7 (linked from the Hideez documentation ), and go into Utilities → HCI Controller Selection and manually specify the Cambridge Radio device: Once that was done, I could go into the Bluetooth Setup Assistant and pair the Air 75 with the MacBook as normal (hold down Fn-1, Fn-2, or Fn-3 to select a Bluetooth profile; the left side light will blink blue when the keyboard is ready to connect, and the blinking will be faster when it’s ready to pair). A stumbling block: I’ve punched in the below terminal command multiple times and the switch to the USB Bluetooth adapter never “sticks” across reboots. Option-clicking the Bluetooth menu item shows the address 00-1B-63-47-6A-4D, which comes up as an Apple device when I search . After I switch using Bluetooth Explorer, it lists 00-1A-7D-DA-71-03, which shows up as “cyber-blue(HK)Ltd.” $ sudo nvram bl...

Epomaker NT68 First, the one I was the most excited about, the Epomaker NT68. This one isn’t low profile, and uses standard MX style switches (which can be hot swapped). The one I ordered came with Epomaker’s Chocolate Rose switches, which have a nice feel to them - nicely tactile, with the bump at the very top. But they’re loud - thoccy - and not the best choice for a portable board I’ll want to use anywhere. So I’m going to swap it to Boba U4 switches. Anyway. My two gripes: It took me a minute to figure out how to fold the case to support an iPad (and even then, the 9.7 Pro can best be used only in landscape mode; portrait mode is usable but not very stable), and, the backlighting, in addition to being a battery drain, is aesthetic only; the keycaps (which use the relatively rare DSA profile) are Properly folded, the NT68 case supports an iPad not shine-through, so the back lighting doesn’t really help with low light usability. (At least one review suggests that Cherry p...