Seneca Keyboard Unveiled for the Price of Three MacBooks – Will Open the Door to a “World of Sensual Luxury and Crazy Engineering”

Norbauer’s Seneca mechanical keyboard goes on sale today for a whopping $3,600. That’s enough to buy more than three MacBook Airs or a Vision Pro headset. Founder Ryan Norbauer admits that “on paper, it doesn’t make sense, it’s overkill, it’s wasteful, it’s irrational,” but he’s confident the device will find its way into the hands of consumers.

Image source: Norbauer

Keyboards are not traditionally considered particularly expensive devices – the simplest one can be purchased for a few dollars, a decent mechanical keyboard with replaceable switches and keycaps costs $50, and the traditionally overpriced Apple Magic Keyboard will cost $129. But the Seneca keyboard presented today is priced by the manufacturer at a monstrous $3,600.

«If you’re looking for a keyboard that only addresses mundane practical needs, the Seneca may admittedly not be for you […] It’s meant to be a sentimental escape hatch to a beautiful and better place – a world of sensual luxury, crazy engineering and forgotten visions of a shimmering future,” says Norbauer.

The keyboard switches are designed and manufactured by Norbauer themselves, and are not the traditional mechanical switches found in many premium keyboards. Norbauer describes them this way: “The elastomer domes of the capacitive keyboards use controlled compression at a predetermined flex point when pressed, providing a tactile click. The unusual physical design of the key system (a freely sliding linear resin bearing that presses the coil coil against the touchpad) creates a distinctive and satisfying sound – a deep, yet quiet, acoustic profile.”

According to the manufacturer, all the parts and mechanisms of the new product are “assembled and adjusted only by human hands, in hours of skilled work – as a rule, each keyboard is assembled by one master, from start to finish.” Each component is designed for maximum acoustic, artistic and tactile sophistication, regardless of cost, and is made to order (right down to the individually machined screws). The design of the keyboard refers to the second half of the 20th century, which became an era of incredible achievements in aerospace engineering, energy, computing and communications technology.

According to Norbauer, this approach has resulted in a keyboard with a “fundamentally vintage character,” but optimized for the high demands of 21st-century computer enthusiasts.