We’ve been super excited by the reception that Altair and Altair-X have received from those who joined the first group buy. Most extras have been sold, so Altairs are really only available aftermarket now.
We’ve heard from a lot of people that there might be enough interest for a second round of Altair and Altair-X. A bunch of round 1 participants who bought an Altair now want to try an Altair-X, or buy some extra foams, PCBs, etc. And there’s an even larger group of people who missed out on round 1.
So we are considering an Altair / Altair-X round 2. There is one caveat, though.
ai03 is pretty busy. He’s been working hard on a new design, and won’t really have time to make any further changes to Altair, as he is still heads down on this new design. That new design probably won’t be revealed until next year. I’ve been able to see some sneak peeks, and everyone is in for a treat. We don’t want to ask him to stop work on that design.
But this means an Altair round 2 will be identical in design to round 1.
Personally - I don’t think this should be a blocker for a potential round 2. The feedback we’ve received about Altair and Altair-X has been overwhelmingly positive. This makes sense since ai03 had worked on it in some form for 5+ years when it initially went on sale for round 1’s group buy in 2024.
Round 2 Changes
There are some things we will make sure to focus and fix in round 2, though. In round 1, we encountered one issue with the threads for the daughterboards due to a manufacturing error. It wasn’t a major issue, as longer screws would fix the problem, but it didn’t technically match the design. This will be fixed in round 2.
Because the design will be the same, we’ll plan on offering Altair and Altair-X in new colors for round 2. I’ve already shown a couple of the potential colors in the IC, but we want to offer colors that weren’t present in R1. Some colors we’re thinking about are e-beige, red, lilac, navy, silver, forest green, burgundy, and black.
And while we aren’t changing the design, we can offer some other addons. Some ideas we’re playing with for new extras are a more portable carrying sleeve, PBS keycap set, solderable PCBs, and fancier USB cable to connect the two halves. If you do have any ideas of what else you’d want to see offered in a round 2 - please let us know in the IC form!
I know that in round 1, a common request was to add wireless to Altair/Altair-X. Altair/ Altair-X was designed to be a wired board. Without any design changes, this isn’t really possible as there is no space for a battery.
And while ai03 does want a wireless Altair sometime in the future, as mentioned earlier, ai03 is currently busy with a separate project to make any design changes, so this current round 2 will remain wired-only.
Pricing
Pricing will depend on interest, but despite new tariffs, we hope we can match pricing from R1. As a refresher, that would be $300 for Altair-X and $315 for Altair. The default kit would also be the same, unless IC feedback shows that we should make some changes.
We need your feedback!
Ultimately, this is an interest check in the truest sense of the words - to gauge interest in a round 2 and see if it’s worth pursuing. The design has already been tested, we know it will all work, so as soon as we have enough interest, we can schedule and get going on a round 2 group buy - even as soon as next month.
