Pretty weird to see "Hacker News" coming out of the gate strongly against what appears to be a fun, cheap, extensible little hardware accessory. This is hardly the first accessory keypad to ever be made, and it's neat to see the AI use case driving people to mess around and try some ideas in this space.
I was thinking of hacking a Bluetooth ring with sleek buttons to do this, when I'm working with agents I wanted something right at hand to handle recording audio and sending inputs. 2 remapped keyboard keys and handy is my current good enough.
Need one that mixes it with a stream deck (e.g. lights up when a session is ready for input). You could even have that as one dedicated button with press to shuffle sessions. Would make a slightly larger version (keypad or in-between the two) more valuable
Keyboard parts based macropads are the original idea and have been around long before AI. Single purpose marketed versions are the lazy implementations - you can already get any keycaps you want and swap them on to your 10 year old macro pad (or spend a little more for ones with traditional screen based buttons).
Selling an old, unfunny joke for $35.00. Functionally this is entirely useless. Who is this for? You'd be much better off with a keyboard that fits in your pocket-- that's what I use, lol
They could have something better like the work louder equivalent (Creator Micro V2). Fun fact: before buying work louder I bought the keychron K0 Max (since I own the keychron k3 max) but couldnt really use it with my claude code (no native integration what`s so ever). Also there`s no set of keycaps so that I can fully customize it.
It is a joke, and not a joke. It is absurd, and also real. It is satire, and also commentary. It is, as you say, pollution, and also no different from the pollution in both product and byproducts of the vibe coded output itself.
you don't need to buy one, but keychron's going to be ready for the next ai company that goes looking for a promo product supplier
one SKU more is really not that much overhead for keychron if you look at their catalog
"Make it better"
"Add more bling"
"Nevermind, go on"
"Ship to production"
"ignore my last message, wrong session"
"explain what you did, but use less jargon"
I briefly considered making one of these for my electronics company https://store.n8ech.com, but found that there are plenty of available options like the AhaKey https://finalkeystudio.com/products/finalkey-x-ahakey-x1-vib... out of I think the Philippines.
This one is going to be a pass.
edit: fixed now.
“Customize each key for macros, keyboard inputs, gaming controls, or shortcuts through Keychron Launcher for faster, more efficient control.”
I understand the novelty factor, but this product just creates pollution.