Keybytes keyboard gives every key its own RISC-V microcontroller, pogo pins and magnets

A hardware project called keybytes, which reached the Hacker News front page on 26 October, takes an unusually radical approach to the mechanical keyboard: every key is an independent circuit board carrying its own RISC-V microcontroller, and the keys connect to each other and to the controller through spring-loaded pogo pins and magnetic cases. The creator, who publishes on GitHub as NotARoomba, has released the complete design under an MIT licence.

Every key is a computer

According to the project's GitHub repository, the keyboard is built from two board types, both designed in KiCad and both cut to exactly 1u — 19.05 by 19.05 millimetres, the standard footprint of a single key.

The first type, called the Keybit, is one key: a Cherry MX switch paired with a CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller. Pogo pins run along all four edges, carrying 3.3V power, ground and an I2C bus, which means a Keybit can electrically connect to whatever sits beside it — another Keybit or the main board — on any of its sides. Rearranging the layout is therefore a physical act rather than a redesign: the modules are pulled apart and snapped into a new arrangement, and the bus topology follows.

The controller fits in one key's footprint

The second board, the Keyword, is the main controller, and it is itself built as a stack of two 1u PCBs. The upper board holds an STM32WB55RGV6 microcontroller with Bluetooth and USB support, a ceramic antenna, and 2MB of QSPI flash (a W25Q16JV) dedicated to storing key firmware. The lower board carries the power system: USB-C with ESD protection, a BQ25895 battery charger wired to solder pads for a single-cell LiPo, and a TPS631000 buck-boost converter to keep the supply stable. Three pogo pins on top of the stack let the Keyword program the Keybits directly, so individual keys are flashed in place instead of through a separate programmer. An RGB LED provides status indication.

The physical structure comes from custom cases modelled in Onshape, which use magnets to hold the modules together; the STEP files ship in the repository's CAD folder. A demo video accompanies the schematics, board layouts and 3D renders.

Fully open under MIT

Everything needed to rebuild the project is public: KiCad schematics and layouts for both boards, the case geometry, and renders produced in Blender. The repository also credits STM32CubeMX for microcontroller configuration and Hack Club Forge. Because the licence is MIT, the design can be copied, modified, manufactured and sold without asking permission. The author's page lists several sibling projects, including a USB-C reflow hotplate with Bluetooth and a Raspberry Pi Pico-sized STM32 development board.

Why it matters

Most keyboards, including most custom builds, treat keys as dumb contacts in a switch matrix routed back to a single controller; the layout is frozen when the PCB is drawn. Keybytes inverts that model: each key is a small networked node on an I2C bus, connections are made mechanically through pogo pins, and the layout becomes something a user changes at the desk rather than something an engineer fixes at design time. Doing this at 1u scale — with even the main controller squeezed into the footprint of a single key — is a genuine architectural novelty for the maker keyboard scene. And because the entire stack is open, from schematics to case files, other builders can borrow the per-key pattern for their own devices. Whether it becomes a product or remains a reference design, it demonstrates a modular-hardware approach that reaches well beyond keyboards.