Tiny 59-Key Keyboard Created Using a Raspberry Pi Pico

Last week we saw a giant Raspberry Pi board that actually works, now the smallest of the Pi boards has been used to make an absolutely tiny, yet fully-functional keyboard.

Hackaday user TEC.IST couldn't find a keyboard small enough to use with extremely small PCs or wearables, so he decided to make one to fit the bill. The end result is a keyboard that's roughly the same size as three pennies lined up in a row.

It uses a PCB placed directly on top of a Raspberry Pi Pico, which allows for a 59-key keyboard in an area measuring just 51-by-21mm with the letters printed directly on the PCB for each key. There's no space for keycaps, and typing is done using your fingernails on the tiny tactile switches. The Pico handles the key matrix decoding and offers a USB interface.

While you wouldn't want to type for extended periods of time on this keyboard, it could prove to be useful under the right circumstances and can easily be carried around in a pocket. The cost isn't high, either, with TEC.IST stating if you include the Pico then each completed keyboard ends up costing around $20.

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All the required files and a component list are available on the Hackaday page for this project and there's also a video walkthrough of the CircuitPython code used to make the keyboard functional.

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