DIY Mobile Keyboard Workstation

If you already wear glasses, you won't be worried about this kind of setup ruining your eyes

Why I Think this is Awesome

I strongly dislike doing any serious amount of typing on the go because I am much slower without a proper keyboard.  Enter this "mobile keyboard workstation", usable whenever you are sitting down.  Plug it into your phone and then sit your phone *on* the keyboard - and now you have a surprisingly easy-to-use and stable set-up!

Phone Requirements

First of all, ensure your phone is capable of connecting to your selected keyboard!  In my case, I am connecting a USB keyboard to an Android smartphone, so I had to have an "OTG" port on the phone to allow for this.  As it happens, my Samsung Galaxy S2 does have that.  (And unfortunately, my newer & larger Kobo Arc tablet does not.)

Snazzy side view

The Parts I'm Using

• an Android Smartphone
• a USB keyboard
  (mine is a Case Logic; I bought it for under $5 at a local computer store)
• a micro-to-standard USB cable
• 2 large binder clips
• 1 chopstick
• 1 large elastic band
• 2 twist ties
• a bunch of smaller elastic bands

Putting it Together

1. Attach the 2 binder clips on the top left & right sides of the keyboard. Give enough space to fit your smartphone in between.
   Everything else will attach to these 2 clips.
1. Note: these clips will probably scratch your keyboard!  
2. Hook the large elastic band around the top front "feet" of the 2 binder clips.
   This will be used to help secure your phone in place at the bottom.
3. Stick all the small elastic bands on the chopstick.
   My thinking is that these give some added friction to the backrest - dunno if they really work.
4. Secure the chopstick to the binder clips using the twist ties.
   This acts as the backrest for your phone.

Using the Workstation

The chopstick acts as a backrest for the phone.  Flip it up for use, or bring it down for storage.  Place the phone on the keyboard and secure in place using the large elastic band - that should work for gentle to moderate train rocking motions.  Then connect the keyboard to the phone's OTG port and you're in business!

After the initial taste of freedom with the keyboard, you'll discover that apps may not behave as expected.  For example, the up/down/left/right arrow keys don't always do what I think they will in various Google apps.

Some more Android notes

Android users may need to set up some sort of "null keyboard" input to prevent the on-screen keyboard from popping up as it normally does.  If you do need it, the one I've been using is called "Null keyboard" by wParam.

Be sure to enable screen rotation on your phone, so your apps will run in landscape mode.  Also, for total ease of use, try to use a launcher that supports landscape orientation too.  "Nova Launcher" is the one that comes default with my current ROM (OmniROM, in case you were wondering!).

In Closing

Hope this has been helpful for those of you thinking about getting more use out of your phones.  It was certainly a disappointment to find that the arrow keys do not consistently work as expected across all the apps I use. However since I can easily reach the screen to tap on things, learning how to navigate solely with the keyboard is low on my to-do list.

(High on my to-do list is to figure out how to get Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup to recognize the capital letters I try to type in!)

Folded down for storage