The latest Freewrite is a premium mechanical keyboard designed with writers in mind

Detroit-based Astrohaus has been making “distraction-free writing instruments” under the Freewrite name for about a decade. So far, that’s been it independent, Single-purpose devices It simply means to formulate textbut Astrohaus is branching out at CES 2025. The company just announced a mechanical keyboard called the Freewrite Wordrunner, a device specifically designed with writers in mind.

This comes more than three years after Astrohaus quietly revealed its intentions to build a keyboard, originally known as the Maestro. But the company eventually shelved its planned launch in 2022, and I haven’t heard anything about it since, and it seems like they’ve been working on it all along. The company has been iterating and developing it for nearly four years, CEO Adam Lieb said in a press release.

Mechanical keyboards have largely become the domain of gamers; The company wanted to build a device for people who make a living writing instead. Without spending some quality time with it, I can’t say if they’ve reached that goal yet, but there are some fun ideas on offer here.

Wordrunner features a keyless design that looks familiar at first glance, but you’ll quickly notice that the function row has been replaced with a dedicated set of keys that will make pressing text documents faster. This includes find, replace, undo, redo, paragraph up and down, as well as the back, forward, and reload keys. I’d be upset about losing the media controls from the function row, but Wordrunner has it covered with the bright red joystick/button. It moves in all four cardinal directions, can be operated like a knob and can also be pressed vertically to skip tracks, change the volume or pause your tunes.

On the other side, you’ll find three customizable macro keys with cute names “zap,” “pow,” and “bam.” They’re programmable for anything you might want, but Strawhouse suggested using them to launch specific writing applications, convert text to title case, or insert a date. I don’t know yet what I’ll be using it for, but having customizable keys is an important feature for most enthusiast keyboards, so I’m glad to see it here.

Perhaps the most eye-catching thing about Wordrunner is the two mechanical counters you’ll see at the top. The first is a timer that you can use to write sprints or stay focused for a while. What’s even more interesting is the Wordometer dead center at the top of the keyboard. It will keep track of your words with its huge eight-digit mechanical counter, and since it saves as many words as you want, you can try to reach the maximum one day. Of course, you can also reset it at any time or pause it if you don’t want to keep it going while chatting with friends or sending emails.

The mechanical keys are backlit and use Kailh switches; The keycaps are replaceable but the keys are not. It also has some built-in volume attenuation so you can use it without subjecting everyone around you to very loud keystrokes (this may be a plus or minus depending on how you like your keyboards). As for connectivity, the Wordrunner uses Bluetooth or USB-C, and you can pair the keyboard with three different devices and quickly switch between them using dedicated hotkeys.

I had the chance to play with a Wordrunner prototype, and my first impressions were “Wow, this is heavy!” It’s a thick slab of brushed aluminum that matches its finish Hemingway’s premium edition of the Intelligent Typewriter. Adam Lieb, founder and CEO of Astrohaus, told me that the company was aiming to make this keyboard feel like a premium, limited edition finish even if they were planning for it to be part of the permanent portfolio.

Although I wasn’t able to try Wordrunner plugged into a computer, I could still see the mechanical word scale flipping over when I started typing. It’s very satisfying to watch it grow while I wrote a fantasy story on it, and there’s a little LED that’s green when the timer is on and red when it’s off. The keys and travel felt great, and the joystick was likewise a great tactile experience – I look forward to using it as a volume knob for media. Leib says this keyboard is still a prototype, but it looks quite polished and almost finished to me.

Finally, there is the question of constant availability. Astrohaus is launching the Wordrunner on Kickstarter, as it has done with most of its other devices over the past 10 years. The campaign is supposed to start in February with an early bird price, but we don’t know what that price is yet. Fortunately, there’s a low-commitment way to get the best price if you’re curious. Astrohaus says you can make a $1 reservation for priority access and the best possible prices, with plans to deliver the first batch of consoles before the end of the year. That’s a long way to go, but the money isn’t a bad investment if you’re interested.

Updated, January 8, 2024, 9:27 PM ET: This article has been updated to include some hands-on impressions and photos of Wordrunner.