Okay, hear me out. Would it be feasible at all to create a Framework 16 keyboard which has a tiny OLED display in EVERY key? Imagine program-dependent keyboard symbols. Or different keyboard layouts (languages) on the fly. Endless possibilities. Maybe someone with more expertise could chime in — would you be able to address the displays quickly? How would you address them? It would probably have to be multiplexed somehow, but I don’t know how that would work. Maybe via I2C or something. Looking forward to ideas from you guys!
I can’t image there would be enough depth for a display ??
The closet would be a touchscreen keyboard.
But not a display and a key press ability
Some decades ago, Artemy Lebedev’s studio produced just that keyboard, Optimus Maximus. An OLED display in every key. It was expensive, and it was crap.
There are three elephants in this room that somehow get overlooked: those things get hot, they consume quite a bit of energy (Optimus Maximus required an external power supply!), and they are very finicky and unreliable. It’s 80 teeny tiny displays, after all.
Oh and they would be expensive. Expensive as hell on a low margin.
There is this Nemeio thing that promises an eink keyboard some day, but they haven’t got past the vapourware stage for quite a while, and it doesn’t look like their thing is going to have good tactile characteristics. And it’s too bulky to fit in a laptop.
Overall, the idea is quite overrated. It’s not hard to remember shortcuts if your bread and butter depends on you remembering them. And emoji typing is too low a value for such an expense.
On the other hand, relegendable clip-on keycaps… Finicky too, but you can probably buy spares for pennies.
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But it was a thing of beauty.
Even the 3 key, iirc, keyboard was expensive.
I’ve seen that in the 16 inch laptop you will be able to put the touchpad at the right or at the left. But I would really love to see a bigger touchpad. I don’t know if this could be made but it would be really cool…
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Hi and welcome to the forum
I’ve seen asks for a smaller touch pad but never a bigger one.
Framework won’t do that 
so you would have to find a third party to do it. Anything is possible.
The thing about trackpads is that they’re really, really annoying to engineer correctly. That being said, the only presently existing trackpad I’ve seen that’s bigger than Framework’s current offering is a MacBook, and given the input modules’s USB connectivity I’m pretty confident someone will find a way to rig up an MBP trackpad to the 16” at some point.
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Framework has never said that they WONT make a larger trackpad, but they also haven’t stated that they will. the good news for the 16" laptop is that all the keyboard modules are based on the RP2040 processor, and use qmk firmware, so there is a good chance that a community-made trackpad module could be made that is bigger than the standard module.
As for the Framework 13, the trackpad is integrated into the keyboard cover, which means it will be a lot harder to fit a larger trackpad into that device.
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There’s pretty zero chance for that. Trackpads require very delicate electronics with very sensitive capacitive sensors, fragile materials and lots of manufacturing experience.
You could maybe repurpose an existing trackpad like the Apple one into the Framework but even that will require precision machining and figuring out the electronics and won’t make much sense financially.
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If someone by chance does end up developing novel trackpad tech that’s both hackable for framework and economically viable, I have an unreasonable ask of a surface that takes up the entire input module bay. 3:2 old school drawing tablet!
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Shame though. I got spoiled by gloriously large Macbook trackpads (I got into Macs back when they were… repairable, and it took a while to shake the habit). It’s just about the only thing that I miss.
If someone [Framework or 3rd party] were to release a larger trackpad module for the 16–or even better, a large trackpad that you can click anywhere and not just on the bottom, I would happily pay a significant amount of money for that.
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I would add my voice to the chorus.
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Apple really hits it out of the park on the touch pad and it would be great if framework could reach out to apples supplier to see what’s possible.
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As an interim measure it would be nice if they could sell a module that the cover element is as wide as the laptop 16 inch laptop, I would give up the flexibility to get rid of the two side modules.
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If not 2, then maybe on double wide side module replace two narrow ones eliminating one of the lines.
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if not 3 or 2 then at least improve the fitment and color match of the side modules, the silver is very different from the touchpad color.
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if not 2 ,3 or 4 get @dbrand to produce a skin that is one piece for that area.
Lastly, all that said I’m loving the laptop, Its not quite as polished as my 2019 MBP but at least it has a future. Fedora 40 and windows 11 are solid on the laptop.
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It would also be great to get a click anywhere trackpad. It doesn’t need to be like a MacBook where it is all done through a haptic motor underneath it, because there’s not enough room for it. However, I do think that there’s opportunity for a click anywhere touchpad similar to the iPad Smart Keyboard Cover. It is a physical click anywhere trackpad that fits in a slimmer package. If they could increase the size of the trackpad while making it click anywhere it would really be perfect.
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I think a replacement touchpad is in some ways easier than a replacement keyboard, assuming you’re sourcing the actual touchpad module from synoptics or one of the other large vendors. As long as it has an I2C interface the FW16 should be able to talk to it.
Hey, so in theory it would be possible to implement a drawing tablet module? Could be handy for artists or something. Maybe make a module compatible with wacom pens or apple pencil (I’m still learning about those things so idk). But I think the concept would be cool. (Being a college student I believe this would be epic for note taking)
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I’m personally a screen tablet user BUT I do think some kind of pen interface would be awesome. An open-source screen tablet based on the FW16 LCD perhaps???
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Do you mean an alternative to the “touchpad” module with a small drawing input surface on it? Sounds cool, and if the touchpad uses USB protocol, i dont see why not…
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Is there any news for that?
I’m not working on it ATM as I wouldn’t have much time. But maybe someone else. When I get a bit of time I’ll try and research how to do this.
But as for updates I can’t add anything.