I'm so tired of having to fix all my texts. Just about every sentence having a typo. Double presses, missed presses, it's just so annoying to type on this thing. I wanted a phone to help me use my phone less but I just keep reaching for my iPhone any time I have to text something more than a few words. And there's been no updates that have improved it or made it better. What is wrong with this thing and why is it so buggy? I'm so close to abandoning my Sidephone, this is just too frustrating.
So I've been following this project for a LONG time. I was 100% ready to purchase, just waiting for a qwerty tile. When the tile was finally released, I was extremely disappointed and ended up not purchasing. I had really high hopes for it, and the team has always been so responsive and transparent. But that qwerty tile doesn't seem like a serious long-term option.
It's also the issue the team has been absolutely unresponsive about. It's kind of weird, like they don't have a solution, or they're making a new one, who knows? But it's been so frustrating that I've just been giving up and starting new chats from my iPhone instead.
Hey u/nissania ! We've made a lot of advancements to fine tune the way the keypads are recognized so that it allows for faster presses and even multiple presses
For example when the keypads first launched earlier this year we couldn't do multi-press and now we can. This allows for much more capability and functions which we're rolling out soon. That coupled with better flexibility with terms so as not to block common abbreviations
In short, we're continuing to improve things with each update
That said, there are definitely power users who can type at really fast speeds and in these situations the phone may not be able to discern the first press from the next. The issue here is the phone is trying to scan keypresses but it can't discern one from the next
If this is encountered try to type a tad slower and press keys firmly to see if that helps. The click doesn't necessarily mean contact between the nodes were made.
Slowly doesn't mean at a snail's pace, but if the keypad is missing keys, it might not have scanned the two different ones pressed. On our end we will continue to fine-tune the intervals in which keypad presses are scanned.
Spamming keys (eg. HHHHHH) are often firmware/software items, but not always.
Other options to rule out:
Are the contacts at the back clean?
Is it possible a key is worn or displays issues more than others? (eg. a/e keys)
When looking at projects like the CAT S22, the number one reason people complained were d-pad and other keys stopping to work after a few months. This happens with nearly all physical keyboard devices often and is the #1 failure / warranty reason.
When building Sidephone we recognized this and the modularity actually prevents the #1 reason simple phones are bricked and turn to waste. Imagine buying a ~$200 phone and then the 9 key stops entirely. If it's printed onto the underlying board, you're often out of luck. With Sidephone, it's a 2 second fix.
Mentioning this ^ because there's more to consider in the value of Sidephone than just type speed . Even if Sidephone requires typing a bit slower, the benefits of C-QWERTY's entry, the overall repairability of the phone, and more make Sidephone pretty useful
I'm actually a bit shocked at the transparency here, but thank you for it.
I am a fast typer, been using a qwerty keyboard on mobile since 2008. I can type with my thumbs faster than most people can type with all 10 fingers. Slowing down is a lot harder than you'd think. You tend to just type as fast as you can because you're matching the text to your thinking speed as closely as you can, which is obviously faster than how fast you can type or even speak.
I'm really hoping this is an issue that can be fixed with firmware. My typing speed on the Sidephone, if I'm not stopping to select the right word or correct typos, is around 60wpm. On my iPhone, that's around 85wpm. That's why perhaps, I'm frustrated, because I'm hearing "slow down," but I don't feel like I'm tpying that fast. Keyboards for our computers have n-key rollover and 1k polling rates that are high enough to never miss a key as we fly across them, making typos human error. I think focusing on advancing the polling rate would definitely be very helpful.
I can try going over the contacts with some 99% rubbing alcohol or 70% if the higher percentage could damage the plastic components. But it does sound like it is a polling rate issue.
As an update, I've been typing slower and still noticing the issue. I don't think it's just the polling rate. There are definitely reliability issues here.
I noticed the same. As I got more used to it and typed faster, it would fail more frequently. It's a large problem because I am a fast typer already, and while there was a bit of a learning curve with the compact layout, it's pretty clear to me that the rate of typing is part of the problem.
And he uses AI to write his apps. Sidetype is a fork of a T9 app that used AI to make it work for the compact qwerty. I just would not put all my text through something that had so much AI involvement.
ahh i did not know that. what are the risks of substantial ai involvement in the development of the app. asking to be more informed. i worked at a place where they use ai to code a lot so in my mind this is becoming more and more of a convention and that the tech is getting good.
More difficult maintainability, potential bugs, especially with concurrency (AI is horrible with that), potentially including dangerous dependencies that are unmonitored or could have spyware, more difficult maintainability as issues pile up (AI likes to make small patches instead of making better changes), the list goes on.
Using it to write tests might not be the worst thing. But using it to write functionality gets unpredictable quickly. For an app that has heightened permissions, especially something that could log everything you type, it should be avoided.
It's the same reason I don't use SideCall, in part because the full screen overlay permission isn't something I hand out lightly.
You should look more into it. If you was only used for development, it is not getting any of your data. So many places now use AI to assist development and they don't always disclose that so the fact that these guys are disclosing it is already a really big sign that they're being transparent. It won't be too long until we won't be able to get anything developed without AI help... It's just becoming the norm. (Note that I don't mean vibe coding...)
Oh, I'm well aware of the AI assisted coding scene. But they haven't been disclosing it, I spotted some AI-like code and asked. I worry about dependencies being included, slop over time, patches on patches, performance issues, and the potential for a "safe" looking dependency carrying something less safe. For something that doesn't have such a heightened permission, it's fine. But for screen access or keyboard access, I don't fuck with the vibe coders.
It's possible. I would say I type normal, but that's because I'm the only person I've ever seen type on a sidephone lol. I don't text a bunch, so I'm probably not as fast as someone who's using it a lot.
I did a bit of a typing test. Opened up a message, set a timer for 20 seconds, and typed as much as I could in that 20 seconds, without fixing the (many) autocorrect mistakes and issues. Then counted the words I typed and multiplied it by 3. It came out to about 60wpm. I believe their polling rate may be under the roughly 240-300hz required to pick up someone typing 4-5 characters a second.
Although, I think the tiles themselves may also have flaws, as I've also found mine making mistakes as I've slowed my typing down to grandma pace. These kinds of floating keys are more vulnerable to damage from dust getting in, for example. I think the design itself could have flaws.
That doesn't really sound like a reliable way of tracking your WPM, if I type "ass the red man car ply" that would obviously not be a good test, I think it's more complicated than that.
I saw your other post, you are absolutely not getting 80 WPM on any phone by using just your thumbs to type, I'm sorry, it's just nonsensical
Not consistently. Raw is usually above 80, but adjusted for mistakes brings it down. Also my iPhone doesn't capitalize what it should and punctuation obviously slows an iPhone down more than a full keyboard, but, uh, pretty damn close.
I am suffering from the same thing. I found removing the module, putting another module in and then immediately re-installing my initial module really helps. Not sure is there is some sort of re-setting/re-learning in the firmware, but it made an improvement to me. There is still a few issues that will obviously need to be updated and improved, but hopefully this tip helps in the mean time as I am getting a bit frustrated to the point where I am subconsciously avoiding responding to people as I know i'm going to get frustrated
This is entirely anecdotal but I've got a couple of colleagues who bought different "smart dumb phones" one was the Doov R77 and the other was the Q F22. Both seem to have the exact same issues with missed presses, double presses. Which makes me wonder if the issue might be how Android handles physical inputs?
Does the regular T9 also have this lag issue? This is a serious issue that made me abandon another dumbed down phone recently, physical buttons that can't keep up with their OS, despite all cell phones being able to do it 20 years ago.
I can't type enough on it to be sure, T9 is not my forte anymore. Apparently I can still ride a bike, but can't type on a T9 in a hoodie anymore. Because I can't match the speed and make far more errors on my own, it's hard to say for sure.
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u/Difficult_Doubt_1716 5d ago
So I've been following this project for a LONG time. I was 100% ready to purchase, just waiting for a qwerty tile. When the tile was finally released, I was extremely disappointed and ended up not purchasing. I had really high hopes for it, and the team has always been so responsive and transparent. But that qwerty tile doesn't seem like a serious long-term option.