Owning a mechanical keyboard makes you a better person. It puts you above everyone else. Of course, owning a mechanical keyboard does come with some downsides. Carrying a mechanical keyboard around all the time to tell everyone else you’re better than them is usually impractical, but [ cahbtexhuk Joric] has come up with a solution. It’s a miniature Bluetooth mechanical keyboard that’s also a keychain.

Mechanical keyboard keychains are nothing new – they’re really just a piece of injection molded plastic meant to fit a single Cherry MX keyswitch. Usually, though, these are just trinkets — think of them as a fidget spinner for someone who types. The real trick here is putting electronics and a battery in this piece of plastic to turn it into a working keyboard.

The solution to this problem comes in the form of a TI CC2540 module [ cahbtexhuk Joric] found on AliExpress. This is a complete low-power microcontroller with Bluetooth in a tiny, tiny package. Add a small coin cell and you have the tiniest Internet of Things thing you can build for less than five dollars.

[ cahbtexhuk Joric] programmed this tiny Bluetooth module with the relevant TI tools, an Arduino, and a neat programming clip. After that, it was just a matter of soldering the keyswitch to the module and wiring up a battery. The result is the cutest mechanical keyboard ever. Right now, [cahbtexhuk] has this keyboard programmed to map to his Windows key. That makes for a great demonstration (video below), but this mini keyboard could be programmed to type anything when it’s pressed.

Thanks [cahbtexhuk] for the tip!