Electronic Materials Office's Altar II is a 4.75 mm aluminum keyboard for Mac with a magnetic dial, haptics and a native app. It is on Kickstarter at $299 against a $349 retail price, with delivery expected in early summer 2027. Here is what the maker claims and what still needs testing.
Electronic Materials Office launched the Altar II on Kickstarter on November 10. It is a 75% wireless keyboard for the Mac that the London company lists at 4.75 mm (0.19 in) thick, with what it calls fully mechanical switches. The campaign price is $299 after a 48-hour early-bird price of $279, the retail price will be $349, and delivery is expected in early summer 2027, according to the company’s announcement.
The keyboard is still pre-production. I found no published hands-on testing, and the company’s own footnote says specifications, materials and delivery timelines may change. Everything below is the maker’s claim or the founder’s public answers, plus my read of what matters if you are building a Mac desk.
The problem it targets
Thin Mac keyboards and mechanical keyboards have been separate purchases. Apple’s Magic Keyboard is 10.09 mm tall on the company’s comparison chart. The NuPhy Air75, a low-profile mechanical board, is 21 mm on the same chart. The company argues that a taller front edge bends your wrists back and that a board this thin needs no palm rest.
Founder Andrew Emerson put it this way in the announcement: “Keyboards come in two varieties: thick, ugly, and tactile, or slim, pretty, and mushy-feeling.” Altar II is his attempt at a third option, one that sits flatter than Apple’s keyboard and, he says, types with more travel and a clearer actuation point.
From Altar I to Altar II
Emerson showed his first keyboard, the Altar I, on Hacker News in 2022. He says the response led him to quit his job and build keyboards full time. The company says the Altar I sold out its initial production run and won a Red Dot Design Award.
The Altar I used Choc low-profile switches, and its dial did not detach. Emerson says feedback on that board shaped the new one, including the request for a dial that comes off. He describes Altar II as almost two years of work by a team of one full-time and three part-time people. The hard parts, in his telling, were fitting a usable battery into the chassis and placing every component on the top side of the logic board because there was no room underneath. Even the USB-C port housing is custom, he says, because standard ones were thicker than the keyboard.
How a mechanical switch fits in 4.75 mm
The company’s spec sheet describes the switch as a “dual steel arm scissor switch w/ retention spring” with a 40 gf actuation force. The spring lies on its side instead of standing upright, which is how the mechanism reaches 1.8 mm of travel in a chassis this thin.
That wording matters. “Scissor” is also the name for the mechanism in Apple’s keyboards, so “fully mechanical” here does not mean an MX-style or Choc-style switch. Emerson’s explanation on Hacker News is that each key presses a real switch with a spring and a contact leaf, where laptop-style keys collapse a dome. He compares the feel to an M-series MacBook keyboard with about 0.8 mm more travel and a sharper, more tactile press. Whether that reads as mechanical under your fingers is the first thing a hands-on test has to answer.
What the rest of the hardware does
- M-Dial. A clickable dial that attaches magnetically. Turn for volume, click once for play or pause, twice to skip, three times to go back, hold for Siri. A standard and a low-profile dial ship in the box, and the company says it will publish the 3D files so owners can print their own.
- Haptics and sound. A linear resonant actuator the company calls the Harmonic Synthesiser simulates detents as the dial turns and confirms shortcuts and connection changes. Ordinary keypresses get no haptic feedback, Emerson says. A small built-in speaker plays wake and charging sounds.
- NiteLite backlight. Red-only LEDs that switch on in low light through an ambient light sensor. The company claims the long wavelength protects night vision and sleep. Emerson adds a practical reason: red LEDs draw less power, and the battery is small.
- Battery. Up to 30 days, based on an 8-hour workday with 30 minutes of backlight, and up to two days of use from a two-minute charge over USB-C. Both figures are the company’s estimates.
- Body. A chassis machined from one block of 6061 aluminum, keycaps made from plastic with at least 50% recycled content, and paper and sugarcane-pulp packaging. The footprint is 299 x 116.5 mm (11.8 x 4.6 in). Emerson says the final weight is not set and should land between 300 and 400 g (0.66 to 0.88 lb).
- Connections. Two Bluetooth 5.0 LE channels and USB-C. Black is the only color. Daring Fireball reports a choice of US or UK layout.
Mac first, with limits
The layout puts Command, Option, Control and Function where Apple puts them, and Emerson says firmware makes the globe key behave as it does on a Magic Keyboard. The companion app, EMO Sanctuary, is a native Swift app for remapping keys and the dial, setting haptic, sound and backlight levels, and building per-app shortcuts. It requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later.
Settings are stored on the keyboard, so remaps follow it to another computer. The company lists support for macOS 12 or later, Windows 10 or later, and Linux as a standard keyboard without the app. Haptic taps for Mac notifications need the app running. The firmware is ZMK-based, and Emerson says the source will be published, as it was for the Altar I.
There is no Touch ID. Emerson says a third-party sensor cannot talk to Apple’s Secure Enclave, so it could never handle Apple Pay, and a fingerprint reader that works for some things and fails for others would be worse than none. If you unlock your Mac and approve purchases from a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID all day, that is a real step back. There is also no number pad and none planned for this board.
Price and pre-order status
Altar II is a crowdfunding pledge today and a store purchase later. The tiers, per the company’s announcement:
- $249 for people who paid a $1 reservation before launch. Reservations closed when the campaign opened.
- $279 for the first 48 hours of the campaign.
- $299 for the rest of the campaign.
- $349 at retail, after backer orders are fulfilled.
The campaign runs from November 10 to December 10, according to Kicktraq. Kickstarter’s own counter showed more than 2,200 backers on November 11. The company’s shipping page says the keyboard will ship worldwide, that shipping is charged when the order is ready, and that duties or local taxes are charged before shipping where they apply. Add those to the pledge price before comparing it with $349.
What still needs hands-on testing
These are the claims I would measure before recommending it:
- Switch feel. Whether 1.8 mm of travel and 40 gf feel closer to a mechanical board or to a firmer laptop keyboard, over full workdays and long documents.
- Noise. The company’s typing sample was recorded on pre-production hardware. I would record it on a desk next to a Magic Keyboard and check how it sounds on a call.
- Battery. How close real use gets to 30 days with haptics, the speaker and the backlight at default levels.
- Bluetooth. Wake time, reconnection after sleep, and switching between the two channels.
- Dial and haptics. Whether the magnetic dial stays put in a bag and under a heavy hand, and whether the haptics help or turn into noise after the first week.
- The app. Stability on macOS Tahoe, what works without it, and how per-app shortcuts behave when the app is closed.
- Delivery. Early summer 2027 is a target. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who backed the Altar I, wrote that he will judge the new board “next year” for the same reason.
Who it makes sense for
Back it if you type on a Mac all day, like how flat a Magic Keyboard sits, want more travel and a sharper press, and can wait until at least mid-2027 with the usual crowdfunding risk. The $50 saving against retail is the reward for that wait.
Skip it for now if you depend on Touch ID, need a number pad, split your week between Mac and Windows and want the app on both, or want deep travel. For that last group, a full-height board such as the HHKB Hybrid Type-S is a different kind of typing, and my review of it covers the trade-offs.
I haven’t tested the Altar II. A Magic Keyboard is on my test bench, so that is the comparison I would run first, and I will publish a full review with my own photos and measurements if I get a production unit.
Primary sources: Electronic Materials Office’s Altar II page, its August 6, 2026 announcement and its shipping page; Andrew Emerson’s answers on Hacker News, August 6 to 8, 2026; the Altar II Kickstarter campaign. Reported by Daring Fireball on November 10, 2026. Campaign dates from Kicktraq.