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Building Open Keyboards with ZMK & Zephyr

By January 25, 2024January 26th, 2024No Comments

Mechanical keyboards have become increasingly popular, and keyboard enthusiasts all over the world are leveraging open source to build the perfect keyboard that does exactly what they want. ZMK is an open-source firmware for custom keyboards that is built on Zephyr RTOS. From USB and Bluetooth connectivity, to power management, to the handling of input keys (of course!), there is a lot that goes into controlling a keyboard. We’ll discuss the challenges of building a keyboard firmware, and dive into some of the Zephyr features that help address them.

On Wednesday, January 24, Peter Johanson, creator and project lead of the ZMK project, joined Benjamin Cabe in the latest Zephyr Tech Talk. If you missed it, watch the video below or on Youtube or LinkedIn:

Don’t miss the next Tech Talk on Wednesday, February 7 at 6 am PT/9 am ET. Dave Rensberger from Beechwoods Software Inc, to talk about all things robotics and Zephyr. Dave and his team recently looked into using micro-ROS on Zephyr and since they got to play with quite a few neat Zephyr features, they are sharing the insight. We’ll look at the Raspberry Pi PicoW specifically, from how to use PIO/SPI to interface with sensors, to a preview of upcoming Wi-Fi support, to integration as part of a complete ROS 2 setup, with a Linux-based agent in charge of the higher-level processing. Subscribe to the livestream here.

About Tech Talks:

Zephyr Tech Talks are live streams organized Benjamin Cabé, Zephyr Developer Advocate,  for the community. Sign up to be featured here. Watch past Tech Talks on the Zephyr Tech Talk Youtube Playlist.

Resources:

 

Zephyr Project