AZIO found a market segment all to themselves with their Retro peripheral lineup, which took the typewriter-style keyboard design and ran with it using rarely seen higher-end materials for the keyboard and mice including leather and wood. We saw also at Computex last year that the company wanted to make a new series of peripherals inspired by retro cameras, with the then-called Iris K-Pad being the first entry and based on the Leica analog camera design. Our coverage led to them being contacted by another entity that used the Iris name in this category already, so we feel somewhat responsible for AZIO having renamed it to the Fokal. We met AZIO at CES this past week, and they spoke more about the Fokal, including letting us know that the crowd-funding campaign is underway and already successful.

The Fokal moves away from the typewriter-style keycaps in favor of more traditional, and comfortable, keycaps and promises a fully customizable control knob which can be used for multimedia and lighting (RGB) controls by default, as well as being a joystick too. There is also full software support for more utility, with up to seven profiles on board for various use cases. The base unit is a 75% form factor keyboard as with their R.C.K. we saw recently, and there is a separate number pad unit for those who need it which is further built to suit number crunching with extra keys as seen below. The units can connect wirelessly over Bluetooth or RF, with a massive 5000 mAh battery for the primary unit promising weeks of use on a single cycle. The Indiegogo campaign, still going for another 24 days as of this post, has already hit ~400% of the goal, and units are expected to ship in April. Pricing with the current discounts range from $184/246, with MSRP going from $230/330 for the base unit/combo with number pad.