Something a lot of people don’t realise about modern smartphones is that many of them have fully-featured USB interfaces. Perhaps the best of all is the Pinephone, which is a fully open-source smartphone that gives end users total control over their phone experience. [silver] has such a phone, and set about building himself a neat keyboard setup for the platform.
The build is based around an RCA RKT773P tablet keyboard case, which uses USB to interface with a tablet via pogo pins. [silver] modified this by soldering on a USB cable to the pins, paired with a USB-C host adapter on the Pinephone. Paired with a few 3D printed parts to hold everything in place, it almost turns the assembly into a cute little Pinephone laptop.
It’s a neat build that would likely save a lot of frustration when hacking away at a terminal window on the Pinephone. Parts are available on Thingiverse for those interested in replicating the hack. Those eager to dive into the Pinephone platform may relish the new Pro model that has just dropped, too. Video after the break.
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