It's a Rii Mini Keyboard i4, and my concern is that it's a microphone. I just noticed the hole and think I'm probably wrong in what it is considering how big a deal it would be if it was a mic that isn't advertised.
What could this hole be for or what is it? Thanks in advance, hope this doesn't violate any rules.
Well, you're in luck, as I happen to own this exact model, which has the same hole.
Taking it apart is quite easy, just 6 screws and some plastic tabs hold it together.
Here's the components on the underside of the board beneath the hole (these components face the rear backplate)
And if I pry the case apart a bit, I can't see any components directly beneath the hole, it's just bare PCB.
As far as I can tell, no microphone is present. The hole is likely a product of the injection molding process for the outer case.
One thing to note about this device though; while the ergonomics are great and its been reliable, I notice that my left hand wrapping around the case can sorta block the mouse pad signal to the dongle (about 6 feet away), so I need to hold it in a way that the transmitter isn't blocked by my hand to move the mouse curser smoothly.
One of the best comments I've ever seen on the internet
Youre a motherfuckin real one for pulling yours out and doing a teardown to ease their anxiety
That is such a kind effort to go to for some random person on the internet, thanks for being here ❤️
Dude for real, I literally had my shit sprawled out, taken apart and turned to my gf and showed her the post and said "that looks familiar"
The goat.
I happened to have it and a small enough screwdriver nearby, so figured why not (and I was honestly curious if there was a microphone a myself, that hole was a bit sus, especially after seeing the GN video about LG TVs spying with their mics).
Now this is content that actually belongs on bestoflemmy.
Thank you for going above and beyond in answering this question :)
Love to see it
No prob ^^
I did too, and I couldn't see any sort of reset or anything, and I tried to identify the nearby chips online but couldn't. Injection molding would make sense. Thanks!
I'm curious, is that your first time noticing the hole?
As someone who stumbled on this thread from All,
is fantastic when taken out of context. Amigara fault stuff.
Lmao I hadn't considered that
Yes it is, it never registered with me that it was there until you pointed it out.
Had this thing for months and just noticed myself. A real good oh fuck moment kicked off
This was a great response
Injection mold tooling is expensive ($40k+) and PCB iteration is cheap. Its especially hard to add holes to existing plastic parts as that requires adding material to the tool (as opposed to cutting material away). It's possible a past prototype or future version had/will have a microphone. Or they just wanted to keep their options open.
I do a of lot of sourcing for plastic injection mold tooling. $40k is a pretty high price for this one, but if you are getting out made in the US, then it's not completely unreasonable. Sourcing it from China would be considerably less than half that price.
Assuming they're buying extremely large quantities (likely over 10k), I'd guess that this part (top and bottom shells) cost about $3 to $5 for both, not including shipping costs.
Good to know! I'm an electrical engineer, and $40k was always the generic number we got tossed from the MEs. Not sure if it was for domestic or multi-part molds.
For reference, I'd wager single quantities PCB prototypes at around $100 each and maybe $5 at scale.
I suspect the case is also used for another model that does have a microphone.
Was really hoping some injection molding boys would show up eventually.
The post and it's response is why I'm here. Love this shit
I agree. It's like how cars have blank buttons. It's so they can use the same mold for different feature sets.
Ah, good point.
I'd love to see a community that does breakdowns of all sorts of electronic goods like this. It can be really informative and entertaining.
I also have this exact same device and I also noticed annoying mouse jitter. I tentatively diagnosed it as the dongle itself getting overheated (that PC gets pretty hot and putting on a fan on it seemed to help). I definitely want to try your suggestion now