🎉  Happy 13th Birthday Raspberry Pi!   🎂   1,000+ deals in store!   🥳
🎉  Happy 13th Birthday Raspberry Pi!   🎂   1,000+ deals in store!   🥳

Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH

by Pimoroni

Keybow is an easy-to-build, solderless, DIY mini mechanical keyboard. It's Raspberry Pi-powered, with twelve illuminated keys, hot-swap clicky or linear switches, clear keycaps, and awesome customisable layouts and macros. It's the ultimate macro pad.

This kit has everything you need* to build your own mini mechanical keyboard. It's a fun, affordable, first step into the world of mechanical keyboards, with high-quality clicky (Gold) or linear (Silver) Kailh Speed switches and clear DSA-profile key caps that look incredible when lit up with the per-key RGB lighting. The fancy hot-swap Kailh sockets mean that there's absolutely no soldering required!

Kit includes*

  • Raspberry Pi Zero WH
  • Keybow PCB
  • Switch plate
  • Twelve Kailh Speed switches (Gold or Silver)
  • Twelve clear DSA-profile key caps
  • Acrylic baseplate
  • Fixings and feet
  • Micro-USB cable
  • Comes in a reusable kit box
  • Pinout

*Just add your own micro-SD card

Use Keybow as a hotkey pad for your favourite program like Adobe Lightroom, a custom games controller, to trigger clips, tracks, or effects in Ableton Live, or to paste frequently-used text or code snippets. So, if you want to open your web browser and search for cat GIFs all with a single keypress, we've got you covered. Because all your key and lighting customisation is stored on the device, it's completely portable too, meaning you can switch your setups between any machine you like.

Keybow is powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero WH (with pre-soldered header), and uses the Zero's USB HID gadget mode so that it appears as a real keyboard when plugged into your computer with the included USB cable. We've built a completely custom, stripped-down, RAM-disk-based Keybow OS with a Lua interface to customise the layout and lighting on your Keybow. It's Windows, Mac, and Linux-compatible.

Keybow features

  • Per-key RGB LEDs (APA102)
  • Kailh hot-swap switch sockets (for Cherry MX-compatible switches)
  • 40-pin female header
  • I2C breakout header for add-ons
  • Custom Keybow OS
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi 4, 3B+, 3, 2, B+, A+, Zero, and Zero W
  • Assembled size: 85x56.5x38mm

Construction

The Keybow PCB has a 40-pin female header, like a regular Pi HAT, that plugs onto the 40-pin male header on the included Raspberry Pi Zero WH. The Pi is attached to the acrylic baseplate and shim, and the whole thing is rigidly held together by metal standoffs. Rubber feet on the baseplate stop Keybow from slipping around on your desk.

We've got a full tutorial on how to assemble your Keybow here.

Mechanical switches

Keybow comes with your choice of Kailh Speed Gold (clicky) or Silver (linear, non-clicky) switches. Both switches are light and smooth, and the gold switches have a satisying click when pressed.

We've chosen clear DSA key caps for Keybow, as they show off the per-key RGB LEDs really well. The slightly frosted finish on the clear key caps diffuses the light beautifully. Being DSA, the caps have a flat profile that suits small size of Keybow.

The switches slot into the PCB switch plate to hold them securely, and then push into the Kailh hot-swap sockets on the Keybow PCB. This means that there's no soldering required, and you can easily change out the switches in the future, if you wish.

Note that if you want to use different switches with Keybow, then you'll need to ensure that they have a recess on the underside for surface-mount LEDs.

Lighting

We've used the same tiny APA102 RGB LEDs that we use on our Picade Plasma PCBs, and there's one under each of the twelve keys. The LEDs sit in the cavity on the underside of the switch and shine up through, into the key cap.

There's a nifty way to light and animate the LEDs on Keybow. You can create a PNG file with a coloured gradient or pattern, and it will be animated across the LEDs from the top of the image to the bottom. The width of the PNG determines how it's displayed.

You can also manually set the LEDs on one or more keys, overriding the animation, or have them only light up when pressed.

There's a bunch of example animations to use, or you can create your own in your favourite graphics program.

Key mappings and layouts

The power of Keybow is in how customisable it is. You can map each of the twelve keys to whichever keyboard keys you want, or even have them trigger a whole series of keypresses or strings of text to be entered.

Our Keybow software uses the on-the-go micro-USB port on the Raspberry Pi Zero WH and USB HID gadget mode, so that it appears as a regular USB keyboard device when plugged into a computer.

The custom, stripped-down OS runs on a RAM-disk, meaning that it boots and runs quickly, it's robust against being unplugged, and there's no risk of SD card corruption.

To customise your Keybow layout and lighting, just pop the micro-SD card out and edit the keys.lua file on your computer.

We've included a bunch of useful code snippets and helper functions for Windows and Mac that can be used in your Keybow layouts, as well as whole example layouts to turn your Keybow into things like an Adobe Lightroom hotkey pad, a Pico-8 games controller, or just a regular numberpad.

You can read how to set up the Keybow OS and how to create your own macros and key layouts here on our learning portal.

55 customer reviews

3 years ago
Absolutely brilliant kit that my 12 year old built using the online instructions. Worked perfectly first time and a great little extra keyboard that he is really proud of. Well packaged quality parts and really good online instructions.
by Cat about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Excellent little keyboard! Works great and assembly and programming were easy and fun! Using it as a traditional 10-kay at the moment but excited to set up some macros on it at some point. :)
by Jack about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Arrived on schedule with all parts nicely protected in anti-static wrapping, enclosed in a plastic case for shipping. Pretty easy to assemble. I made a couple mistakes and had to back-track, but everything fits together nicely if you do it correctly. The language to write macros is fairly easy to comprehend and I had a functional keyboard in no time.
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Great little kit, which provides a fun way to learn a little about mechanical keyboards and creating macros without getting onto an intimidating and potentially expensive learning curve, and the glowy lights provide a soothing desk companion after dark. That said, I may never figure out how to realise the potential of the Keybow in ways suited to my needs - the documentation is relatively sparse, and there aren't many projects on Github from other users, with the most comprehensive of those having been archived, so if programming isn't your forte you might struggle a bit. I'll continue to chip away at it, but suspect that ultimately I'll use the Pi Zero WH for other things.
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
For a keyboard to have a startup time of up to a minute is a bit much. I think it would be nicer if there was a pinout and we could choose what kind of board to attach. I love the contruction and it works very well. LUA is also super easy to get used to and modifying the demo is not hard at all.
by Quintin about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Pretty easy to build- great guide/documentation for that. The one issue I had was the super-thin plastic spacer piece came broken in one place and broke again in another place when I took the protective film off of it but turns out it doesn't really matter that it's broken once the screws are in. Hardware feels pretty solid overall. The plate is fiberglass I think and felt a little flimsy during the build but feels totally solid during use. The only thing I was slightly disappointed by is that the RGB lighting seems kinda budget- the lights look nice but the color differentiation is not great- you need the colors to be pretty different from one another to register visually as separate colors. This was not a huge deal for me. Programming the board in Lua is great! I really enjoyed that part and even was able to do some more advanced stuff not in the documentation. The code package supplied is very comprehensive- a ton of helper functions to make creating your layout easier and the example layouts included made it super easy for me (a self-taught developer by trade) to create my own custom macro pad layout to do different tasks on my Macbook. I recently also built a keyboard that I could program using QMK/VIA and you get all the same functionality and more with this board. My only feedback for programming is that it would nice to have a debugging tool so it wasn't so much trial and error. All in all a really fun project/tool and if you don't end up using it as a macro pad long term you still have a sweet mini PI to use for other things!
by Michael about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Bought this for my boyfriend and he was really excited about this! He’s wanted one for a while. He was able to build this really quickly. The keys can be programmed for lots of different functionalities. Recommend this as a gift for tech savvy/gamer loved ones.
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Really easy to put together! Especially liked the professional looking box it all came in. It'd be nice to have QMK firmware for this or slightly more frequently updated s/w on GitHub, but hacking away at it is all part of the fun!
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Assembling the kit was a lot of fun. Programming the keys could be improved if there was a way to adjust the layout while the PI is connected. One of the keys was not working initially. Turned out that I bent one of the pins, was easy to fix - now everything works like a charme. I have so far put some app shortcuts on the keys and I use it to more easily manage my video calls. Need to come up with additional use cases also looking forward to playing with the MIDI functionality.
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
This doesn't work properly for Norwegian language keyboards. If I want to use it I need to change keyboard input language every time I want to input something from my keybow. That's somewhat of a dissappointment.
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
I am having some serious issues with programming this thing. It supposes that I'm using an international English keyboard (I think?), which I'm not. I understand that the local KEYCODES in the keybow.lua file configures the keys on the input keyboard. But how the logic works is not explained anywhere. So far, the keybow is useless to me. I've spent hours testing different ways of trying to just type a litteral backslash, but am now close to giving up. Documentation please!
by Anonymous about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Bought two of these for my kids to use to make the remote learning setup easier (quick mute/unmute, turn camera on/off, launch school website, etc). It was SO easy to configure - less than an hour. The hardest part was just deciding *what* we wanted the keys to do! We liked it so much, I bought another one for me and a few more for other family members.
by Ashley about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Looks really nice, I had a plastic key missing but it got fixed almost immediately by the lovely folk as pimoroni. I'm really happy with how it's working so far. Currently, I'm using it as a (very fancy) universal remote control. It controls a radio via Chromecast, which is really convenient.
by Oliver about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
The hardware is top quality. Easy and simple to put together. The OS is also easy to get started with. The only downside here is that you have to take the SD card out every time any minor correction has to be made. It could be nice to access the card directly over USB.
by Tom about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Fantastic product! Very simple to assemble, and with the pre-written layouts available via the software it was super easy to program the keys to do exactly what I was after. Everything was delivered safely and the product is really attractive once assembled. The only issue I have encountered is that the spacer plate is extremely thin, and can crack easily. I was able to install everything perfectly, but ended up breaking a small portion by unplugging the supplied micro USB cable. This is no fault of Keybow or Pimoroni, but just be wary. Additionally the space for a micro USB cable is limited so do check before ordering a fancier cable if desired. For me the supplied cable is perfect and works great!
by Matthew about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
I have been using this and has been great, using it to auto type functions in python and also been using it as a fun little controller for vintage games. Feels nice to press find myself pressing the buttons when I am just sat there thinking.
by Christopher about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
The 12 key keybow is a really nice little device. The assembly instructions are clear and the build was pretty easy. The clicky switches are really nice and tactile and make a nice noise. The only thing that could be improved is the documentation for programming the thing, but you can figure out a lot of stuff from reading the pre-installed examples and the source code on GitHub.
by Sam about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Great little kit. Very easy to assemble - I didn't need any tools - thanks to the clear instructions on the website and the kit's design. I went for the clicky gold keys, which are superb. The initial 10-15 second delay when you first turn it on is a bit nerve-wracking while you wait to see if you've borked anything, but when it springs to life it'll make you smile. I'm really looking forward to digging into the Lua configuration!
by Oliver about Keybow Kit (12-key) with Pi Zero WH via REVIEWS.io

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