Keyboard for writers has word-count odometer, sprint timer
The market is flooded with mechanical keyboards that are focused on gaming, but there aren't enough that are made specifically for writers. Enter the Freewrite Wordrunner, an upcoming wireless keyboard that's designed to help those of us who write for a living.
The 88-key, tenkeyless Wordrunner has a raft of unique, writer-friendly features including a electromechanical "wordometer" that counts your words like your car's odometer counts miles (or km). There's also an electromechanical timer for writing sprints, a set of dedicated macro keys and a function row that's been redefined specifically to do things that writers need.
Set to launch as a Kickstarter campaign in February, the Wordrunner is made by Freewrite, a company known for making word processors (aka smart typewriters), small devices with just LCD screens and keyboards that are meant to help writers ply their trade without the distraction of using full-fledged computers. This is the company's first standalone keyboard and it's meant to connect to a PC or Mac using either Bluetooth, for which it can support 3x profiles, or USB-C wired mode. Its all-metal body and plain white backlight have a writer's aesthetic rather than a gamer's.
I had a chance to see and touch a prototype of the Wordrunner at Kickstarter's CES 2025 booth. I loved the premium aluminum chassis and the old-fashioned mechanical look of the wordometer and the timer. The unit I touched was not plugged in so I didn't get to see all the features in action, but I did feel the keys, which were using Kailh Box Brown switches and they felt pretty snappy.
