Unless you’re a keyboard enthusiast or a gamer, with custom builds for specific tasks, it’s highly likely you’re using whatever keyboard you saw first on a shelf at Best Buy. You probably know nothing about it, other than the fact that it works and gets you through the day. But a company called Nuio, cofounded by brothers Tom and Greg Wilson, want to up the ante on ordinary keyboards, starting with the Flow Keyboard—a premium, fully wireless, ergonomic, split keyboard.
As an ergonomics accessories company, the Wilson brothers have created an entire ecosystem centered around Flow. In addition to the split keyboard, Niuo offers a whole host of high-end magnetic attachments to pair with it, including a trackpad, deskpad, adjustable stands, and wristpads. All sold separately, you can customize your setup for peak comfort. And since the entire setup is wireless, you can use it virtually anywhere—whether that’s at your desk, on a flight, or even on your lap.
While the Flow Keyboard is, at its core, another split keyboard, Niuo has set out to redefine what it means to have a “standard” keyboard by customizing everything from the shape of the base to the keys themselves. I’ve been using it for only a week, but it’s altered how I think about my own everyday keyboard. It’s available for preorder directly from Nuio’s site starting at $399, and will ship beginning December 1.
Compact and Clean
Nuio was founded by Tom Wilson (CEO) and Greg Wilson (CMO), brothers who both have an extensive background in the design and technology space. Tom Wilson is a former Apple exec who worked on the company’s portable devices like MacBooks. Greg Wilson was formerly a designer at renowned industrial design firm Frog Design (Tom Wilson also worked there at one point) and also had his own consultancy called Wilson & Co.
As the brothers began kicking ideas around for a new company, they wanted to focus on a product that hadn’t been changed in a while. With Tom’s background in hardware components, they landed on the keyboard.
“We wanted to start with the keyboard simply because not only had it not changed, but it’s literally been 40 years since everybody has a rectangular keyboard,” Greg Wilson explained in a virtual briefing. “With all the technology today, why are we doing it that way? It doesn’t really fit anyone. It’s a remnant of how typewriters were built.”
When designing the Flow keyboard, the Wilson brothers made it a point to stay away from that traditional rectangular shape. Instead, they wanted to create a keyboard that contorts to the natural way your hands rest on the keyboard, rather than the other way around. So, they opted for a 3D wave design with contoured keys that are supposed to feel like they’re hugging your fingertips. Both the enclosure and keys are built from scratch and proprietary to Nuio.