One2Touch out of Norway recently unveiled a new product: Keyboards for smartphones and tablets that are water resistant and foldable to pocket size. Theres plenty of products like that out on the market, but the kicker is that One2Touch’s keyboards don’t require any batteries or charging, and communicate to supported phones and tablets by NFC.
Looking at the spec sheet, the keyboards will be manufactured out of rubbery silicon and offer more than I thought was available from NFC. The keyboard will support multiple key presses at the same time, and will offer the opportunity for the device’s OS to support repeated characters when a key is held down. There is a small battery in there, but One2Touch predicts that the device should work for many years before it drains all the power.
Right now One2Touch is only mentioning Android compatibility, but I’m sure that will change if Apple devices ever get around to supporting NFC, and as NFC on Nokia phones become more prevalent.
