A T9 Keyboard For Your Smartphone

These days, most of us are fortunate enough to use smartphones with decent touchscreen keyboard capabilities. However, once upon a time, if you wanted to type something on a phone, you had to tap it out on the number keys instead. [Jarrett] is bringing that back with a custom T9 keyboard for modern phones.

The build is designed around the keypad of the Nokia E52, a Symbian smartphone released in 2009, two years after Apple changed the game with the first iPhone. The phone keypad itself is laid over a custom PCB with Alps SKRK tactile switches corresponding to each individual key. Each is wired with a diode and the switches are scanned as a row/column array as is typical for keyboards. Reading the matrix is an ESP32-C6 microcontroller, which counts the keypresses and spits out the right letters over its Bluetooth connection to an attached smartphone or other device. Power is via a small lithium-ion battery, looked after by a TP4200 charger chip.

Overall, the keyboard works as you’d expect, allowing T9-style input to any compatible device that works with Bluetooth keyboards. [Jarrett] does have one regret, with the 0.98 N actuation force switches used leaving he keypad feeling a little mushy. The firmer 1.57 N switches were suspected to give a more satisfying response under thumb, which was a nice upgrade in the second revision build.

We’ve seen other builds in this vein before, too, albeit with bigger keys. If you’re coming up with your own esoteric input methods, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline.