Is This Gripster Cyberdeck-y Enough?
▲ 21 r/phonedeck+1 crossposts

Is This Gripster Cyberdeck-y Enough?

This little project has come a long way since my first post a few weeks ago. It now includes a hall-effect thinkpad nub style pointer stick, the back now expands to accommodate most modern phones (or phone sized computing devices).

My big question is: Is this thing cyberdeck-y enough? I started this project because I wanted to build myself a deck with a split keyboard and didn't find any suitable solutions. I Have been very inspired by cardkb. The idea here is to bite off one piece at a time: first just a BT keyboard, probably next an iteration that acts as a USB-C hub with thumb-drive sized expansion ports along the back, video out, etc. The last iteration possibly being a separate pi-based compute pack which rests where the phone is today. Are others in the community interested in using this device (either with or without the shell) as a launching off point for their own decks? What features would you want? (pogo pins, power management, something else?) The whole repo is open so you can dig into how i'm working on this and thinking about it here: https://github.com/neuman/gripster

Community Ask!

  1. This is my first time doing a PCB design and I am using a lot of AI to help me. Everything seems legit but I would really love to get another human who knows what they are doing to take a peek before I send several hundred dollars to the fab to send me a set of prototypes.
neuman.github.io
u/soloptimus — 13 days ago
▲ 66 r/ClicksKeyboard+2 crossposts

Something I've Been Working On...

Like many people, I loved the slide-out keyboards of the sidekick era. Many attempts have been made to recreate the physical keyboard experience with modern smartphones but the problem is always the same: the phone is too heavy. The Sidekick form-factor worked because the battery, compute and keys were on the bottom and just the light screen flipped or slid up, if you slap a keyboard on the bottom/side of a 2026 smartphone it's just no good.

Luckily, we solved this exact problem in the game controller experience about a decade ago with Backbone style controllers. Why has no one brought that innovation to phones yet, I do not know, but the wait is over!

Introducing..... this thing! (it needs a name still)

The intent here is to create something that gets the weight in the middle for writing/coding/etc on your phone or a raspberry pi compute+screen set up. This is my first attempt at a custom PCB (would love tips or reviewers before I order, PM me for kicad files). The intent is to create something that can be used in many project types and come up with a hackable 3d printable shell. This version is chipped up with built in bluetooth but it could be done for GPIO etc next.

So, is this interesting to anyone else or just my personal obsession?

u/soloptimus — 1 month ago