We first had our eyes on the Nemeio e-ink display keyboard at CES last year, with the French company grabbing eyes with their per-key customizable keyboard that implements an e-ink display under each keycap. This allows the 75% form factor keyboard to be easily adaptable across users who want to, say, type in one of the rarely supported languages (think Inuit, for example) by keyboards. By supporting native OS languages on both Windows and MacOS, as well as having software drivers to allow an unlimited number of layouts which can be associated with programs, and also up to four actions per key, the keyboard is finally seeing near-retail specifications in the feature set.

At their booth during CES 2020, the company showed off two versions of the keyboard that are being contemplated for the retail release later this year. These are both clearly more finished samples compared to the prototype from before, and come in a different ID with one going for the more traditional route of a logo and indicator LEDs at the top corners, and the other adding them to the left instead. If you have a preference on either, please vote on them and help the company finalize their plans. As it stands, they are looking to sell the entire unit, which has wireless Bluetooth connectivity and a ~20 hour battery life with lighting off (via LEDs to complement the e-ink) for under $400. Nemeio says they are still working to improve the typing experience, but this is a rare keyboard that will actually help cut down the learning curve associated with smaller form factor keyboards, while making customization easier than other solutions.

French startup Nemeio debuted this CES with its first and namesake product, the Nemeio Keyboard, which the company proudly proclaims the "keyboard of the future." Keyboards with on-the-fly customizable keycaps date back to 2012 with the Art Lebdev keyboard, which uses colorful OLED keycaps so each key can be reprogrammed with a colorful keycap. The Nemeio Keyboard is similar in concept, but implements monochrome E-ink to draw the keycap marking, and common white LED as illumination.

E-ink is the same technology that drives popular e-readers such as Amazon Kindle. One advantage of E-ink over OLED would be persistence. The keyboard also locally stores customization, including keycap designs and their mapping. Nemeio predicts its keyboard will be a hit with multilingual environments, such as airport cafes, hotel business centers, or even large offices with diverse staff that need to use localized keysets; or even the content-creation industry. Nemeio Keyboard isn't yet in production. The company will crowdfund mass-production in 2019. Donors in the 300-500 EUR range could get one first.