Electronic Materials Office

The number Altar II leads with is 4.75mm. That is the thickness of a 75% mechanical keyboard from Electronic Materials Office, a London hardware company, and the comparison chart on its site puts it beside an Apple Magic Keyboard at 10.09mm. A tension spring laid sideways rather than upright, preloaded, is what fits full mechanical actuation into 1.8mm of travel, carried on a steel mechanism.

The parts around it are unusual for the category. M-Dial is a magnetically detachable knob that twists for volume and clicks for playback, and the company says it will publish 3D files so owners can print their own. Haptics tap out notifications and modifier-key states, and an amber-red backlight wakes only in low light. A native macOS app written in Swift handles key bindings and per-app shortcuts, but the settings live on the board itself, so they travel to a machine without the app. EMO lists it at $349 with $100 off for reservations, and states at least 50% recycled content in the plastics, an aluminium chassis and plastic-free packaging.