Hi Kaitlyn,

We don't usually announce upcoming products and plans, but this can be confusing. So I wrote a little blog post about my hopes for 2025 — if you're curious about how I see the year ahead, it's linked below.

Earlier this month, we closed out the application period for our developer role. The response was overwhelming: We got over 2,000 applications, and the average time to complete the form was over 90 minutes. We went over each application carefully (by hand, no AI) and there were some great ones. Thank you for sharing the job with your friends!

Last month I wrote all about my favorite pressure cooker and what makes it so great — and this month, Robin wrote a love letter to a rice cooker. Even if you're not considering a rice cooker, this post is just beautiful and I recommend it. It shows how objects weave themselves into our lives, sometimes serving as "emotional bookmarks".

This month's interview is amazing. I always enjoy these interviews, and Cynthia's really stands out. She previously used two fascinating input devices, and now does everything with just one half of a Voyager.

Finally, if you scroll all the way down and click Steve's name under the animated GIF, you'll see a new video we created for the Voyager. I could not be happier with how it came out.

As always, thank you for reading!

All the best,
Erez

“Really they are just amazing keyboards, and they are comfortable, and I love them.”

- Sherry Sontag, NYT bestselling author

ZSA Cards: Premium Edition

Taking the Cards to new heights

It's been so fun to see the Cards coming into their own and getting used by so many people. Just the other week I got an email from a school buying several decks to use with the kids. And now we've published an all-new Premium version that will look amazing on your shelf. Check it out.

Hopes and Dreams for 2025

A new keyboard?

I don't like hyping things before they happen, so I tend to keep quiet about our plans. At the same time, I recognize there is such a thing as being too quiet, to the point that people aren't sure if now is the time to buy or if things might be changing. This post helps. The only thing I'll add is that since we ship from Taiwan (not China), we are not currently affected by any tariffs when shipping to the US.

Featured User Interview

Cynthia Zujko

Full Stack Senior Software Engineer

Cynthia's interview has it all: from fascinating input devices like the Tap Strap and the Twiddler all the way to poetry and knitting (and a site she made for each hobby). She uses just one half of a Voyager to control three different machines.

"I use nine keys on three layers under my three strongest fingers for letters of the alphabet. I rarely use my pinkie."

Layout of the month

ColemakDH [programmer]

I've made over 60 iterations of this layout over a year of owning the Voyager. I value the simplicity of this layout, ease to learn, and ergonomics. Hopefully you incorporate some things into your layout!

Things we liked

Hey, That's My Fish! →

An online open-source version of a great game

Hey, That's My Fish is one of my favorite abstract strategy games. It’s multiplayer, simple, and fun. You can play it with young kids or with adults. This is an online version with a simple AI to play against. Free and clean, Web-based.

Summrize →

Blinkist, but for free

Summrize offers entirely free book summaries of popular nonfiction books (think Atomic Habits, The Checklist Manifesto and so on). I'm ambivalent about services like this, but it is clean and free, and the summaries look reasonable. I'd use it to decide whether or not to read a book, not instead of the book. Check out the summary for Same As Ever (Morgan Housel) — such a great book.

There →

Timezones in your menubar

This free tool does one thing: Lets you see the current time wherever your teammates (or friends, or family) are. You can add people and specify the nearest major city for each person. Then you get a nice list on our menubar showing what's the time for each person. I was surprised by how useful this was for me, even though I "know" the timezones for the folks I work with.

Fuss Free French →

Not a language-learning website

This is a nicely presented list of tips for people who want to learn French (though many are applicable to any other language). It could have been a series of blog posts, but instead it's a beautifully presented site (one page per stage of learning). Some lovely suggestions here, such as changing the default language of your devices.

Glicol →

Code some music

Glicol is a free and open-source music-making environment that lives in your browser. It’s not a DAW: It's closer to an old-school synthesizer, but you’re writing code rather than plugging cables in. There's a nice tutorial, too.