Wood Grained Keyboard Offers Ultimate Tactile Satisfaction

Regardless of whether you spend a lot of time typing on a keyboard or not, tactile response should always be a major selling point when it comes to keyboards. A number of mechanical keyboards offer an extremely satisfying tactile feel, but designer Michael Roopenian had something a little more unique in mind.

While designing his Engrain keyboard, he had two major goals in mind. He wanted to make full use of the users' sense of touch in order to maximize key recognition, and he wanted to attune the keyboard to innate human sensitivities. After lots of research and prototypes, Roopenian came up with the final design, a wood grained keyboard with natural textures and ridges that matched patterns of use.

In addition to being visually stimulating, the Engrain prototype offers a tactile connection that is unparalleled to any keyboard currently on the market. It's just a prototype project at the moment, but we definitely wouldn't be opposed to seeing something like this land on Kickstarter. Until then, head on over to Roopenian's webpage to ogle some more and check out other designs.

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Tuan Mai
Tuan Mai is a Los Angeles based writer and marketing manager working within the PC Hardware industry. He has written for Tom's Guide since 2010, with a special interest in the weird and quirky.
  • drwho1
    Roopenian came up with the final design, a wood grained keyboard with natural textures and ridges that matched patterns of use.

    ridges would be very uncomfortable to type on.
    Reply
  • Ragnar-Kon
    So apparently... he website doesn't render correctly in Chrome. But anyway...

    I guess the plan is to make the severity of the ridges inversely proportional to the usage of the key, because that somehow helps the user system input relationship.

    If so, I can't help but notice that there are ridges on the WSAD keys... guess the keyboard was not made for me.
    Reply
  • Ragnar-Kon
    Awesome double-post brought to you in part by Android phone. Android. The proven provider when you want to boast about your double-post. ®
    Reply
  • drwho1
    Roopenian came up with the final design, a wood grained keyboard with natural textures and ridges that matched patterns of use.

    ridges would be very uncomfortable
    Reply
  • RickTacular
    Dude just glued wood to an apple keyboard. Can you imagine how quickly that would get old? Never mind if you get a splinter...
    Reply
  • classzero
    I would be interested, very tired of this plastic world we are in.
    Reply
  • sixdegree
    This wood keyboard goes well with my fermi card.
    Reply
  • classzero
    I am interested, I am very tired of this plastic world we live in.
    Reply
  • classzero
    If there is a double post I apologize. Toms still shows 0 posts
    Reply
  • sixdegree
    This wood keyboard goes well with my Fermi card.
    Reply