We've finished up another HID (hardware interface device) and posted it up on Thingiverse here. This time it's a mini-keyboard used for editing text on a smartphone or tablet computer. It's meant to be used singlehandedly so closely resembles a remote control.
It is driven by an Arduino Pro Micro. These small boards are great for HID projects because the processor supports USB connections. The code uses Arduino's keyboard modifiers.
Once we got the code working for a couple of keys, it was real easy to elaborate and tune the code to do exactly what we wanted.
The keys/code we used include: arrows, shift+left/right arrows (for selecting text), copy/paste, undo/redo, home, select all, and delete.
We can imagine a lot of other possibilities for HIDs in the future after seeing how easy this project was. A previous HID project we worked on was a giant, physical volume knob for one of our desktop computers available here on Thingiverse.
Not only is this a great solution for creating custom HID's to solve specific workflow problems, when coupled with 3D printing it can also be a solution for users who are unable to use common commercially available HIDs (standard keyboards and mice) because of physical limitations.
Follow ProgressTH.org on Instagram here. We also put all of our 3D printed models online for free at Thingiverse.com here.
