Australian electronics agency Zoid Expertise has designed a “rugged” macropad which provides a per-key customizable RGB LED backlighting system for jogging your reminiscence as to which of the 4 buttons does what: the Matrix.

“A rugged macropad with a per-key customizable ultra-bright RGB backlight, Matrix is a strong instrument for streamlining repetitive duties with pre-programmed keystroke sequences,” Zoid Expertise writes of its machine, which provides a easy 2×2 key structure. “Matrix can also be excellent for these events whenever you want just some further buttons.”

When the corporate says “rugged,” it means it: the Matrix’s enclosure is machined from aluminum and anodized in black, whereas the buttons themselves are constituted of sturdy translucent silicone — permitting the RGB LEDs situated beneath to shine up by means of the entire of the important thing cap, moderately than merely round it as with conventional plastic caps.

The pad is constructed round a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller with 2MB of QSPI flash, and comes pre-programmed with a fork of the open-source QMK firmware — which means it may be configured for single-key operation, macros, emulate a joystick or mouse, or act as a MIDI controller. The firmware additionally contains what the corporate calls an “intensive library of lighting results” for the per-key RGB LEDs.

Extra data on the pad is obtainable on the Zoid Expertise web site, whereas fully-assembled Matrix pads could be bought from the Seven Crumbs Tindie retailer for $85 every. The QMK fork’s supply code, in the meantime, is on GitHub beneath the reciprocal GNU Normal Public License 2.