I love that Nothing is becoming a product aesthetic trend rather than just a tech startup. When you use Nothing as a prefix before a product category, your mind almost gravitates towards two things – firstly, a gorgeous, transparent design, and secondly, the clever use of lights and glyphs to add dynamism and function. This unofficial Nothing Keyboard, dubbed the NK-1, captures both of those characteristics beautifully.
The NK-1 is a stylistic take on wireless keyboards, with a design that drives Nothing’s ethos of wanting to make technology fun. It comes with a transparent chassis, within which sits a 65% keyboard with individually backlit keys that light up the way glyphs do on Nothing’s phones. Don’t worry, the NK-1 has glyphs too, embedded within the plastic housing, which light up sporadically to create the kind of drama you’d expect from a gaming keyboard, except with a pure white allure instead of that signature RGB look.
Designer: Dmitriy Zhdanov
Even the keycaps dare to be different. Rather than your standard Cherry or XDA shaped, these take on a rounded pebble texture that’s still concave on the top, guiding the fingertips but still feeling very soft to type on. Unlike the harsh edges of most mechanical keyboard keycaps, this soft pebble-y shape (dubbed ‘Pudding Keycaps’ by designer Dmitriy Zhdanov) might just appeal to people the way Logitech’s wireless keyboards do. Notably, the keys are lit by individually addressable LEDs that glow as you type (or could be configured to glow all the time), with Nothing’s signature dotted font being the font of choice for the keyboard too. It’s a cross between legible and quirky, which works well for the keyboard’s overall appeal.
Nothing’s tendency to surprise with added delightful features trickles into this fan-made design too, with the presence of a dedicated LED matrix display on the top left corner, right above the Esc button. This tiny display serves as a notification area, letting you know of the NK-1’s different statuses.
The tiny screen provides a wide gamut of visual cues, from telling you when the keyboard’s connected via Bluetooth or WiFi, what the battery status is, what the time is, or even something as simple as visualizations while listening to audio. Dmitriy even hints at touch functionality by displaying playback buttons on the screen, hinting you can use it the way MacBook users relied on the Touch Bar to toggle through features and apps.
Other details include two rather tactile knobs that sit opposite the LED display, allowing you to do things like adjust volume as well as brightness. In what I assume is true Nothing fashion, the knobs can be customized to any system or app control, helping you toggle brush sizes in Photoshop, scroll webpages in Chrome, or even do something zany like toggle a weapon wheel while gaming.
The keyboard concept touts both wired and wireless use, with 2.4Ghz wavelength compatibility for WiFi connectivity. A USB-C port both charges as well as serves as a data connection for wired use, with a 4800mAh battery providing more than enough usage on a full charge. In the interest of intercompatibility, the keyboard even comes with a manual switch for toggling between Win and Mac formats, making it just as appealing to both PC and MacOS users.
Ultimately, the NK-1 is an exercise in visual brilliance. Like I said before, I honestly love how Nothing’s sparked the imagination of people across the world, with their broad yet specific design ethos. In my 10 years of covering design content, never have I seen a new brand gather this much goodwill from young designers who create concepts for the brand. Over the years, we’ve seen Nothing speakers and VR headsets, but we’ve even seen more odd Nothing-branded designs from designers like a Nothing ceiling fan, or a Nothing robot vacuum.
While the NK-1 is just a concept, it’s a sign that Nothing’s done a stellar job with its branding. It’s easy to understand, assimilate, and even reproduce, which means not only do we see a lot of more fun concepts like this one, we even see other brands like Sharge, Xiaomi, and Beats by Dre hopping on the transparent/fun design bandwagon!
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