pogo contacts for usb

[ecloud]

I want to try to use it as a laptop: I could probably make a mechanical ergo keyboard with some sort of hinge mechanism to prop up the tablet.  So probably the easiest way to connect is if it has USB contacts on the side (host mode USB) which can sit onto pogo pins on the keyboard.  Of course those are often held in place with magnets...

[Gribouille]

Pogo ? Keyboard ?

Does the work to create a keyboard for the PinePhone could be used ?
A simple cable between the PinePhone's keyboard and the PineNote could be adequate. A modification of the keyboard could be necessary.

You could choose to use the Keyboard with the PinePhone or with the PineNote after removed the PinePhone from the keyboard's case. Not needed to have a third device.
The keyboard could be used as external power for the PineNote.

Like this you could use everywhere your PineNote and the Keyboard.
I'm using my Onyx Max2 like this in the train. The Max2 put on the shelf and I use a very small keyboard.
It's a efficient combination.

[ecloud]

> Pogo ? Keyboard ?

Yeah like many thin tablet keyboard covers.  My Eve V has that kind of keyboard (and the keyboard itself is infamously poor quality, but I think the pogo flex-circuit connector design is OK), my Acer Switch 7 has one, pretty sure it's common on Windows tablets.  I wish the pinouts were standardized and I could make a nice keyboard that would work with all these devices.  Here's one... maybe there is some sort of ad-hoc standard since they aren't advertising which device it's for, it just says 5-pin USB:  https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/P...62798.html  another one like that: https://www.ecvv.com/product/4843197.html  "Windows Pogo 5 Pin" as if it's a standard.  But the Acer has 5, the Eve has 6.  The first device I found that had pogo contacts was the Nexus 7 2012; but they used them for power and audio I think, not USB, which was silly.  I never got the overpriced dock for it.

> Does the work to create a keyboard for the PinePhone could be used ?

Probably, but isn't that a tiny keyboard?  I want something like an Atreus or Lily58 layout.  I will make a laptop-sized board that has a good angle for each half of the keys, as if it was a split keyboard.  Will use choc switches probably.

> A simple cable between the PinePhone's keyboard and the PineNote could be adequate. A modification of the keyboard could be necessary.

No that's probably what we will end up with, because the current design has only a USB port and nothing else.  But cables stick out and tend to get bumped, stressing the connector each time.  So then you end up wanting the lowest-profile right-angle USB type C connector that you can find, and that's also hard to find.

Or Bluetooth, of course, that's another fallback, but somewhat less reliable than a wired connection.  I sometimes use a BT keyboard with my Eve because the original keyboard is so bad.