In the past, you may have seen gaming specific keyboards use small displays. These displays were often used to display tidbits of information, like the current time or information about the host computer.
These days, the QMK framework also supports OLED displays. While we can't yet display information about the computer on it, it is useful for some other things:
- Layer indication can be used to display what layer is currently active on your keyboard. Do you use a numpad layer, or maybe one for symbols? With the OLED you can know which layer is active easily.
- Personalisation is easy with OLED displays. If you're a little handy with code, you can make your own image and have it show on the display - this is also how the Kyria logo is displayed below. Make your own logo, text or meme and make your keyboard your own!
- Debugging information can be shown on the display if you want to troubleshoot your keyswitches.
- Keylogging is admittedly a bit of a gimmick and I wouldn't use it in an environment where your typed passwords can be looked at, but some people find it fun to use.
Cool Examples
Here are some cool things other people have done by modifying their keymaps using code.
Pong
Some people take it even further, and make games using the Kyria's dual rotary encoders and displays. Someone who goes by the nickname msevilgenius made Pong, for example, which you can see in the video below. Her source code is available on Github.
Words per Minute Counter
Someone else who goes by the name brickbots on Reddit, created a words per minute graph on his Kyria, allowing you to view your typing peformance while you type. You can check out the code in this pull request.
Bongocat Words per Minute Counter
James Incandenza made a WPM calculator based on the popular Bongocat animation, where the cat bongoes faster when you type faster! Here's a link to the relevant commit.