Dial a Character with the Oddball Gboard Dial Computer Keyboard

The typical QWERTY keyboard layout isn’t exactly arbitrary, but it is a holdover from the days of mechanical typewriters and is only still in use because of established convention. Many people have recognized that and created alternative layouts, but most of them still rely on keys or buttons that you press to enter a character. And we have to wonder if that is just another convention that we can ignore. The folks at the Google Japan office think so and believe that rotary motion is the future, which is why they released Gboard Dial Version.

It seems that all of the serious work is being done at the Mountain View campus, because the Google Japan office in Tokyo has the time to build wacky stuff like this “keyboard.” Except it isn’t really a keyboard, because it doesn’t have any keys. Rather, it has a several rotary dials (nine for the full keyboard), similar to what you’d see on an old telephone. There is a big set of three concentric dials containing all of the alpha characters and a bit of punctuation, plus a handful of auxiliary dials with numeric characters, control keys, and more. There is even a large “return” key that stands alone in a way that is somehow adorable.

Gboard Dial Version is absolutely a tongue-in-cheek device built for giggles and publicity, with obvious humor throughout the demonstration video. For instance, the video narration says “someday we’d like to utilize all rotating objects for input.” But Gboard Dial Version is also a real device that you can build yourself using the files uploaded to the GitHub repository under the official Google account.

All of the mechanical parts, including the rotary dials and the enclosure, can be 3D-printed using the provided STL files. A Raspberry Pi Pico development board monitors all of the dials and sends characters over USB to the connected PCB, just like a conventional keyboard. The Pico counts “pulses” of the dials using modules with reflective photosensors and can spin the dials back into the resting position using small stepper motors (rather than springs, like traditional telephone rotary dials). In theory, that means the Gboard Dial Version could also dial itself automatically, which is a fun idea — though one without any obvious utility.

We aren’t sure exactly why Google Japan designed and built the Gboard Dial Version. It is probably just one of those “hey, we exist” endeavors. But we’re glad they did. After all, we’ll utilize all rotating objects for input in the future.