KLARIS keycap night light

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Tips & Tricks

KLARIS keycap night light

Sneakbox designed a decorative keycap-shaped night light: KLARIS.

KBD.news
Published April 28, 2023

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The KLARIS night light, designed by Sneakbox, is rechargeable, has multiple light modes, and comes in various flavors – Esc, B, ? at the moment.

KLARIS is a soft night light / desk light designed to be as decorative as it is functional – Sneakbox.

I've reached out to Muji for some behind-the-scenes info on the inception of this idea and the design process, so let's pass the mic to the creator himself:

Klaris' design came about primarily as a result of my love for Kailh Big Switches, in particular a community build turning a Big Switch into a click lamp. Coincidentally, my nieces and nephews became enamored with soft-touch silicone lights. From this point I literally had my own lightbulb moment. To date, it's been almost a year since I partnered with a veteran manufacturer, designed the mold, iterated the details, obtained FCC clearance, and completed the first run of manufacturing. This process was neither cheap nor quick, but Sneakbox is about blazing new trails and having fun along the way – Muji.

Pic:

Klaris now sits on both my work desk as well as my family's night stands. It looks whimsical and is fun to mash. Even a little tap or squeeze is enough to cycle through the light programs. Klaris has both color and warm white light modes – Muji.

Specs

Easy soft-touch control.
Two selectable light modes: Warm white and Color.
Multiple key legend options, more to come.
USB-C Rechargeable Li-ion Battery, comes with USB cable. (Power brick not included.)
100mm x 100 mm x 55mm (4" x 4" x 2.25") OEM-profile keycap.
Fully assembled.
Designed by and exclusively for Sneakbox, manufactured in China.

Pic:

Despite the Klaris has just been announced, the family is already poised to grow:

The first three Klaris variants are the Escape key, the Question Mark (a nod to a more well-known smashable "question block"), and of course the extra B key. I'm already receiving requests to make an 'F' key, so that's next – Muji.

Resources

Klaris product page at Sneakbox.com. (You also support kbd.news if you make a purchase via clicking this link.)
And for the more DIY-minded there are similar projects out there, based on the Kailh Big Switch. This one was probably the mother of all big switch lamps, and inspired this other one which has a build guide (although it's five years old and may be quite outdated here and there).

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Published on Fri 28th Apr 2023. Featured in KBD #121 (source).