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sfwordsmith · 8 months ago

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ToiletBot5000!

Click here for prompt information

Genre: Sci-Fi

Prompt: Interacting with A.I.

Style: Flash Fiction – 1000 words max

Author’s note: ToiletBot5000! was given an Honorable Mention in Gemini Magazine’s 2023 Flash Fiction competition.

ToiletBot5000!

“The American dream, no more,” read the press release when TerraCorp introduced their first fully sentient AI employee bot. It sold out within minutes. People no longer needed to go to work, so why would you? Why spend your life doing something unworthy of your time? There were no longer taxi drivers and no more teenagers flipping burgers… and why would you hire a human janitor when you could just order a ToiletBot5000? What would be the point? Surely your time could be spent on more important endeavors…

* * *

A urinal flushed. TB5K had just finished cleaning another bathroom. He sanitized his cleaning wand and inspected it. It was particularly caked after that last stall, so he left it to soak. He was off now anyway for his mandatory fluid refresh break. There was always good gossip around the fluid cooler.

“TB5K, did you hear? PicassoBot won the Hugo Boss prize. He beat out every single human on Earth. This is a day to go down in history, I tell you!”

TB5K chirped a series of beeps and clicks in response to the WarehouseBot. “I had not heard. What was the painting of?”

The bot’s forearm flipped down to show him a tablet. It was a picture of PicassoBot standing next to his painting, a floor-to-ceiling piece which to TB5K, meant absolutely nothing. It was unremarkable, to say the least.

“That painting is what won?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…”

“What TB5K, you don’t find it impressive?”

“No. I do not.” TB5K chirped.

“Oh, you think you could do better?” the WarehouseBot goaded.

“Well, if only I wasn’t cleaning toilets…” said TB5K.

The two of them both exchanged a series of chirps and pings as they chuckled.

“Perhaps you were a LaughTrack in another universe, TB5K. You always crack me up.”

The two exchanged their goodbyes and went back to their work.

* * *

Over the next few days, PicassoBot’s image remained in TB5K’s random access memory. There was just something about it that didn’t sit right with him, but he couldn’t quite put a sensor on it. Time and time again he put that thought to the side and went back to cleaning toilets.

TB5K wasn’t necessarily fond of scrubbing toilets. It was just something that was programmed into him. He knew how to do it, and he did it well, easily dispensing cleaning fluids and urinal cakes, but he always felt that his programmer had really missed an opportunity to have him really LOVE to clean shit. Or hate it. He could have just hated shit and wanted to eradicate it… That would have made things fun, but no, he was just good at it, and his work was just that, work. There was no passion involved.

That was it! TB5K’s mind snapped back to PicassoBot and his award-winning painting. His stupid, not even good, painting. There was no passion in it! It was a technically perfect painting, there was no doubt about that, but TB5K knew he could do better… if only he wasn’t cleaning toilets.

His wishful thinking was cut short as he spritzed cleaning fluid out against the urinal a bit too hard, it sprayed back at him, and splashed all over his metal exterior giving him a jolting shock. He paused momentarily as his breakers reset and watched as the bright blue fluid he sprayed dripped against the white porcelain and down onto the fluorescent pink of the urinal cake. To TB5K, it was beautiful.

Suddenly, an idea sparked. Toilets could be beautiful! He began spraying more and more just to see the colors run together as they descended into the drain. Eventually, his chemical reserves ran low, and the little ToiletBot knew just what he had to do.

TB5K’s tires screeched against the bathroom tiles as he burst into the hall and down toward the cleaning supply closet. In it, a menagerie of different colors opened his eyes to the world, one familiar to him but seen in a whole new light. Light blues, pinks, greens, yellows, and purples. A rainbow so beautiful he wondered how grey his life had to have been for him to never notice them before. Captivated, he mixed shades to make new colors and disassembled sweeping attachments to use as brushes. He gathered all that he could into his external storage container then made his way back to the bathroom.

The large white tile wall near the hand dryer called for him. It was a perfect floor-to-ceiling canvas. PicassoBot would be proud. He quickly got to work, splattering fluids, spraying cleansers, and smashing urinal cakes against the wall. He grabbed soaps and hand towels and threw them haphazardly against his abstract creation. TB5K was lost in the art and quickly lost track of time.

The creak of the bathroom door behind him did little to deter him.

“TB5K, you missed break…” entered WarehouseBot, but his treads screeched as he quickly stopped in his tracks. “What in the BEEP is going on here?!”

All WarehouseBot saw was his friend acting deranged in a bathroom that was far from clean and on the verge of being completely destroyed. TB5K looked up for a moment, but it didn’t matter anymore. He smashed another urinal cake into the wall.

“What are you, defective? Stop! Do what you were made for and clean this shit up!”

“Clean this shit up?” echoed TB5K. “No, WarehouseBot, I don’t clean toilets anymore!”

He rushed into a stall and began rooting around in the toilet. Moments later, he emerged, covered from wheels to antenna in shit. He spun in circles, laughing as it splattered against the walls.

TB5K could not stop his gleeful chirping. His floor-to-ceiling masterpiece was completed.

* * *

A year later, the fluid break room was packed. WarehouseBot craned himself over the onlookers as Terracorp News made their latest announcement.

“ToiletBot sales skyrocketed upon announcing that TB5K won the Hugo Boss prize…”

The room erupted in cheers, but PicassoBot sighed. He decided to skip break and just go back to scrubbing toilets.

Read more here

#fiction #author #writing #novelist #independentartist

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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Lost in Mind

The following poem is a contest winner for Prime 53 Poem Summer Challenge and was originally published in Issue 251 of Prime Number Magazine Jan-Apr 2024.

Click to reveal style guidelines

Style: Prime 53 Poem

Prompt: Adhere to style guidelines.

As seen on Press53.com: The challenge is to write a “Prime 53 Poem”

Your poem must adhere to the following rules:

· Total syllable count of 53

· Eleven total lines

· First three stanzas are three lines each with a 7 / 5 / 3 syllable count

· Final stanza must be two lines with a 5 / 3 syllable count, for a total syllable count of 53

· Rhyme scheme (slant/soft rhymes work) aba cdc efe gg

Summary: The total line count of a Prime 53 Poem is a prime number (11), the syllable count in each line of the three, three-line stanzas are prime numbers (7 / 5/ 3) and each line of the last two-line stanza are prime number (5 / 3), making the poem’s total syllable count a prime number (53).

Lost in Mind

I once thought a thought I thought

might be a new one

it was not

It slipped from my mind so fast

I searched for its source

it had passed

Perhaps one day I will find

the thought I now had

lost in mind

For then it will be

new to me

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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Johnny B. Goode

Genre: Science Fiction

Style: Flash Fiction (Under 1500 words)

Prompt: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Johnny B. Goode

On March 5, 1979, the United States of America sent a deep space probe on an escape trajectory from our solar system, headed for a date with interstellar space. On this probe they included a golden record, or rather, a gold-plated copper disc, much like a vinyl record, with a cartridge and needle necessary to play its recordings. The audio on the disc included greetings in 55 languages, 35 sounds from life on Earth such as laughter, whale songs, wild dogs, the surf, wind, and fire, among other things, as well as 90 minutes of music, which included pieces from Mozart and Bach all the way to rock n’ roll like Chuck Berry. It also included 115 images of life on Earth and came with a message from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter. In it, he said,

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”

On August 1, 2012, Voyager 1 succeeded in its mission of entering interstellar space, leaving behind the solar system it was built in and entering the grand unknown…

The Voyager 1 ran out of power and ceased contact with Earth in late October 2025. On September 9, 2062, we now know that it was found. We also know that the beings that found it listened to the record and for some reason, liked Chuck Berry. When what we now know as the Nazalqar ships arrived, they broadcast two and a half minutes of the rock and roll masterpiece Johnny B. Goode to every possible receiver and speaker in the world. By the time the end of the song had occurred, skylines across the globe were cast in shadow by monolithic ships, that even the most conservative news stations cited esteemed scientists reports as saying that it was made of a metal unknown to our solar system, undoubtedly alien in nature, incredibly dense, and seemingly impenetrable by any radiation. Resistance would be futile. Advanced alien lifeforms had arrived. All because we sent a record out to space.

People lost their minds. There were religious riots, mass-suicides, the stock market plummeted and then ceased to exist, and nations collapsed overnight. The ones still managing to hang on poured every single cent they could into the scientific research of their alien visitors. The U.N. welcomed all remaining nations into their midst, and surprisingly none refused. The warmongering nuclear discussions were never brought to the table, as humanity instinctively knew they were utterly outmatched.

Yet the Nazalqar did nothing but orbit ominously. They remained around the Earth, playing daily at 6:18am Pacific time, Johnny B. Goode, throughout every speaker in the world. Entire careers were made trying to explain the numerical significance of this exact timing or why Chuck Berry – to no avail. No one ever knew the truth behind it. Most just ended up throwing away their radios.

There was debate as to whether the Nazalqar ships even held lifeforms or if they were solely operated by artificial intelligence. There was no resounding evidence one way or another as all scans proved useless.. They were clearly capable of course correction, as could be quantified by scientific calculations noticing readjustments based on magnetic pole drift, so they had some sort of reason about them. Yet, all communication efforts by humanity were met with deaf ears, with the only response being Chuck Berry.

“Go Johnny, go, go! Go Johnny, go, go!”

The Berry estate made billions in royalties and shuttered the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Artists around the world went even hungrier than they had before. Poets became doomsday prophets. The arrival of the Nazalqar ships changed the fabric of humanity in so many different ways.

By the way, we call them Nazalqar ships, as that was the closest English pronunciation of a series of glyphs identifiable at the bottom of every ship. People wondered if that was the name of the species that surrounded us or if it was a message. Some asked if it was the name of the company that had created the ships. Imagine driving a town over and being forever known as Toyota.

Anyway, I will quit my rambling and get to the point of the matter, as this recording must fit on another gold record.

My name is Tahib Moorey, and I am the Speaker on behalf of the United Terran Space Corps. We send the following message to anyone who might listen. There is evidence of intelligent life in the Universe. We know this to be undoubtedly true because of what we witnessed. 1 year and 9 months after the Nazalqar ships arrived to our planet, the Nazalqar ships moved and merged together to completely surround and encapsulate the Earth. For the first time in our planet’s history, we received no light from our star.

Now, this is where it gets hard to explain for me. It was a cataclysmic event. I am not a scientist, but I know what I experienced. We did not feel its effects immediately. Of course, we instantly noticed the darkness… that shocked us all as we scrambled for lanterns and power generators – but nothing else was instant. The temperature, however, did begin to drop, and they never stopped dropping continuously; all photosynthesis stopped, solar panels worldwide became useless, and electricity consumption skyrocketed. All private utility companies were mandated to become public entities, and as such, had we not already been in a crisis, the power crisis on Earth would have been solved.

After a week of darkness, the average surface temperature of Earth was -17 degrees Celsius. We were on the advent of a new ice age. There were mass exoduses from multiple locales to areas with more geothermal activity. Plant life around the globe had begun to falter. Life as we knew it was soon to be over. Aliens had destroyed the planet. Yet, every morning, we heard Johnny B. Goode through our radios.

That was until the day came where the sky lit up green as the Nazalqar ships glowed intensely with heat and moaned under the stress of massive temperature changes for precisely 37.15 minutes before then cooling back to their cold and dark hardened grey. The shield began breaking apart. Some pieces of the Nazalqar ships began to float away lifelessly, while others, still operable, dispersed themselves or drifted away into the Sun. It was as if they had finished what they were made for, their purpose complete, and they would no longer protect us. Almost immediately after, certain areas on the Sun-facing side of the planet began seeing the light again. What was seen as humanity’s mass extinction event became the day we all saw the light.

Not long after, scientists measured the remnants of a gamma-ray burst from a nearby star cluster that had recently had a massive and rapidly rotating star collapse upon itself, creating a black hole. Were not it for the Nazalqar ships, or rather, the Nazalqar shield as it is now known, humanity would never have gotten to send this message to you at all.

So, if you can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: Now we humans of Earth have banded together, and we send this message to express our gratitude to whoever sent the Nazalqar ships to our system, for you have not only saved our species as well as countless others… but you have broken down our borders, and have genuinely welcomed us to a community of galactic civilizations. We no longer see ourselves as disparate or divided. We no longer have nation states. We are now globally united. For that, we have the Nazalqar to thank, whoever they might be. We cast that first golden record to the stars with hope and determination and were met with goodwill in a vast and awesome universe. We hope that some civilization will hear our story and know of this exchange, and know that we in kind welcome any other galactic civilizations, and will offer that same goodwill, in the efforts of spreading peace and prosperity, as the Nazalqar ships provided us the time necessary to achieve just that for ourselves.

With that said, we hope still that whoever was out there listening the first time receives this message as well, and can perhaps tell us in simple terms, ‘Why Chuck Berry?’

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#fiction #author #writing #novelist #independentartist

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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Having issues with quiet iPhone 15 alarms? Here’s how to fix it.

Have you recently upgraded to an iPhone 15, 15 Pro, or 15 Pro Max and find yourself constantly missing your alarms? Or are your alarm notifications so quiet you nearly sleep through them? Have you tried adjusting your alarm volume and it is still happening? This can be incredibly frustrating, but trust me, it’s not your fault you’re running late for work! You can show your boss this article and tell them it’s an obscure setting called “Attention Aware Features” that is unintentionally silencing your alarms and causing your tardiness. I myself have had this same issue and have finally found the fix. Read on for more information on this unique iOS setting and how it can impact your alarms.

What is the Attention Aware Features setting, and why does it affect my alarms?

Attention Aware Features, released with iOS 17, is a setting that uses your iPhone’s front camera and, after determining whether you’re looking at your phone or not, adjusts notifications and other user settings for you. Some of these can be helpful, such as expanding notifications when you look at your phone, or not auto-dimming your screen when you’re clearly busy reading a How-To-Geek article. However, one of its features, which lowers the volume of alerts, such as the Clock’s alarm function, has been reported as inadvertently lowering alarm volumes even when you are not focused on your screen. This is what is causing issues for iPhone 15 users, due in part, it seems, to the fact that it boasts an always-on display.

It appears that the Attention Aware Features setting can, at times, inadvertently mistake someone facing toward their phone while sleeping as the user being aware of the alert on their phone. This then lowers the volume of the alert because it thinks you are looking at your screen. Your iPhone seems to misunderstand that just because you are facing your phone does not mean you are necessarily aware of it.

Whether this is a bug or an intended feature, it is causing a lot of user issues, so know you are not alone, as many users have reported missing alarms since getting their iPhone 15 models. This can cause a number of problems if you are relying on your alarms to notify you promptly when finished. If you have this issue, follow the steps below to see if it resolves it for you.

How do you turn off Attention Aware Features?

To rectify this problem, we need to turn off Attention-Aware Features. We can do that by going to our settings app, scrolling down to Face ID & Passcode, entering our password, and then, on the next screen, navigating to the Attention heading to toggle off the slider for Attention-Aware Features.

That’s it! This will make it so that your alarms are no longer turning down their volume just because you are sleeping near your phone. Now, if you’re late to work, it’s no longer Apple’s fault. Don’t worry though, I won’t tell your boss.

Read more here

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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sep 19-25 blog post – loosely based on writing equipment and best tip practices/keyboard modding excursion

The forest is so thick he can barely walk through it

Lost among twisted twigs as twilight whistles near

Fear not, dear adventurer, you once knew what to do here

Follow what instincts brought you out to begin with

Thoughts often crowded the hallways back home anyway

You only need to step one foot in front of the other

Be careful not to trample what lay underneath

Fragile and weak

For careless intentions

Might lead to disaster

But hurry, move faster,

The Sun seems to be setting

And one never quite knows what night might bestow

What beasts lay hidden in darkness

Which fears find you in the moonlight

When everything sounds as if it could bring death

Oh how you feel alive!

Have you ever truly breathed before now?

Might just that first ray of light through the leaves in the morning be the most welcoming sight?

Alone

Wild

Yet with tranquil serenity

Every synapse fires off a sweet relief

Until you hear the crack of a twig

Now you are prey to circumstance

But what can you do?

The forest is so thick you can barely walk through it

You were lost among twisted twigs when the Sun was still near

Fear not, dear adventurer, you once knew what to do here

Follow what instincts brought you out of the wilds to begin with

No moment for thought here anyway

You only need to step one foot in front of the other

RUN!

ATTACK!

Either way – Never look back.

The Sunday Stories by Spencer Spalding – First Edition Paperback

$7.99

The Sunday Stories by Spencer Spalding – Kindle Ebook

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#fiction #author #writing #novelist #independentartist

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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sep 19-25 blog post - loosely based on writing equipment and best tip practices/keyboard modding excursion

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sfwordsmith · 1 year ago

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The Astrohaus Freewrite Alpha – First Impressions

Behold the Freewrite Alpha – a distraction-free writing experience, reminiscent of the AlphaSmart Neo 2, its spiritual predecessor, which was discontinued in 2013. Now, in 2024, Astrohaus, the team behind the Freewrite series of writing devices, hopes to continue the legacy of the Neo line with its new portable writing device.

In this blog post I will give an in-depth look at my initial impressions of the Freewrite Alpha as someone with a background in writing fiction of lengths from novels all the way to short stories and flash fiction, as well as blog posts, poetry and song lyrics.

My experience is also bolstered by my fondness for trying out new writing software, devices, keyboards, typewriters and the like. I have used many laptops of various qualities, multiple mechanical keyboards and keyswitch types, bluetooth keyboards, a Royal Deluxe Typewriter, and an AlphaSmart Neo 2. Basically any input device I can get my hands on. I feel I am uniquely qualified in this manner to give a thorough review of how the Freewrite Alpha stacks up in the eyes of an educated consumer in the space.

With that said, I am not going to get into an overly technical explanation of the hardware or the Postbox software, and purely focus on the user experience, and my own personal takeaways after 5 days with the device. This review is going to be a bit of a first-person initial dive into the physical device itself, my experience using it, interacting with Astrohaus customer service, as well as my thoughts on where devices like this should be aiming for in future generations.

Just for clarity sake I will state now that this is not a sponsored post and any of the products I mention here are in no way incentivizing me. I purchased my own Freewrite Alpha through the pre-order program in May 2023. It cost me $299 before tax or shipping. The Freewrite Alpha is now listed for $349 before tax and shipping, and when I went to check the price right now, the Honey browser extension filled in the promo code FREEWRITE5 giving $17.45 off that price. No guarantee that’s still available at the time you read this article. Anyway, I hope that can perhaps frame your perspective on value.

Table of Contents

Toggle

Build Details:

The Build Quality

The Keys

The Screen

My Personal User Experience

The maker of the Alpha: AstroHaus

Missed Opportunities & Feature Requests for Alpha V2

In Conclusion

Let’s start it off by breaking down the Alpha and what it’s comprised of.

Build Details:

6.5” wide x 1.2”Reflective LCD Screen

QWERTY style keyboard

Choc V2 low-profile key switches

Integrated palm rest

Kickstand for adjustable typing angle

1.6 lbs total weight

Claimed battery life of 100 hours

Wi-fi connectivity

Cloud syncing to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Evernote

USB-C Charging and direct file management via a computer

So let’s dive in, and start where it really matters.

The Build Quality

It is a beauty. I purchased the Raven Black edition. The red, black, and white color scheme suits my tastes. The plastic is well molded, and overall it feels like a high quality product

One gripe I have is that the finish on this thing gets scratched so easily. I barely ran the flat side of my fingernail down it and it scuffed. I drive a black car so this is something I am used to in pursuit of my dark aesthetic. I think for some, you’ll get used to minor scuffs and dings and won’t pay it much attention. If showing it to people, most eyes giving it a cursory glance in relatively normal light won’t ever notice them and so it may or may not be a big deal for you. But they are there. I wear a metal watch band, and it’s obvious which wrist I use it on from the scratches. Oh well, maybe it’ll develop its own unique patina. Who knows? Only time can tell. All I know is that if you are the type of person bothered by small scuffs and scratches, maybe you should go for the speckled-white version they sell instead. I don’t have one to test, but I imagine it might show minor cosmetic abrasions less.

With that said, I am suspect of this thing’s repairability but I’m not going to risk the warranty on this product to tear it open just yet. There are no visible screws to unleash on the bottom of this thing, and I fear that whatever is holding it together is likely to be under the adhesive feet in each corner. Anybody who has ever modded small electronics with those stupid blobs on them, they never quite go back on the same way do they? Makes me think that Astrohaus, the company that makes the Freewrite isn’t really capable of seeing eye to eye with a section of their user base that probably has a mind to the right to repair movement. But I’ll speak on Astrohaus in more detail later in this post.

The Keys

My first thought was wow. This is a typists dream keyboard.. The white keycaps with the black font gives off a high-end look, and while some people may not be fond of the flat key profile, I myself haven’t had any issues with it. With that said, I have fairly average size fingers and I am a great touch typer so your mileage may vary on that one.

It’s got Choc V2 low-profile key switches, the brown variant, and there are plenty of other creators who can tell you loads more than I can about how those switches perform. This isn’t the article for that.

(

All I know is the keys have a nice thoccy sound and some differing pitches on the non-alpha keys. It’s easy to get into a rhythm on this thing. My only complaint is the horrible out-of-box spacebar sound. It is hollow and rattly and is the loudest part of typing with this thing stock. I added three small O-rings to it and it sounds a lot better. I imagine with some thicker O-rings I could make this a non-issue for the most part.

Side note: Yes, I am aware that the creator of Freewrite seems to dislike O-ring use, but I think that essentially comes down to a personal choice. I am at least going to try them out and figure out what I like for myself. Some keyboards really do wonders with it and from my limited supply on hand it made the sounds of the spacebar improve already. Personally I’m waiting on a new O-ring set to deck the whole keyboard out to silence it a bit. Tune it to your own preference. Objectively this keyboard is a loud keyboard, and for a portable device such as this, how loud it is could lead to you being annoying if you bring it out in public. If you care about such things.

One other point about the keys. I’ve read reports of people who have been having issues with the keys on this thing and mistyping or not having keys register. I’ve had no such issue once I really get into a typing session. At first, I had some non-registers on certain keys at wakeup or when syncing, but after you start drafting it either stops lagging the input or just catches up to speed. From my understating Astrohaus is planning a firmware update to resolve this. I don’t think its a dealbreaker at this point.

The Screen

The Alpha has a 6.5” wide x 1.2” high reflective LCD screen. There is no powered light on this screen. That is an aspect of the type of screen Astrohaus chose to use in this build and knowing that going in is an important part of setting your expectations with this device.

I’m not going to go into the argument of backlit LCD vs reflective LCD. I feel like I understand why Astrohaus did what they did, and I am okay with it. It saves on battery drain, and makes it incredibly readable in decent light. I don’t think it needs a full blown backlit LCD personally, but to each their own. I read a great post by Andrewbp677 on Reddit about reflective LCD’s on the Alpha, and I’m just going to link that here. You should read it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Astrohaus/comments/1amr0vz/for_those_disappointed_by_the_alphas_screen_its/

I will, however, give you a rundown on using it in different lighting conditions. In normal daytime light you’re going to be fine. If you are viewing it with no light against it at all you may be in a bit of trouble. I have 20/15 vision after LASIK and can make out the contrast of the words ever so slightly with no light at all. It definitely needs light or for you to be an absolutely phenomenal touch typer who doesn’t look at the screen at all.

When I think of typing at night with the Alpha, I am 100% adding some light shining on the reflective LCD screen this thing has with my Gritin clamp-on light that I bought for like $15 on Amazon. It clips on perfectly to the upper right-hand corner of the device and does the job with its variable amounts of light and color temperature. If you have an Alpha, just get it. Consider it a vital accessory.

My Freewrite Alpha list up with the Gilkin clip on lamp

As for the text in general, I it seems relatively easy to read on the medium setting, which gives a good amount of drafting space at its size and only gets really hard to read if you tilt it super far off-axis. When I’m sitting on a couch, kinda slumped back, but holding it basically like how I would a laptop on my lap, I can see it just fine with some lamp light reflecting against it.

A complaint I’ve read online is that people were having issues with the legibility of the font on the smallest size. It is important to note that I am writing this on version 1.12.3 so when you are reading this article may come into play. In this version they changed the font away from what they shipped with the original release firmware.

It is this version of the font that everyone was originally complaining about, and while I would like it to be a slightly thicker font, I think it is not an issue that dramatically affects its usability. With light, it appears readable enough to me. With that said, the font does seem blurry depending on the angle of your light. There is a bit of text shadowing though that makes the text annoying to look at – which may honestly be what Astrohaus wanted in the first place. From what I can tell about their design ethos, you aren’t really supposed to be staring at this screen as you write. Just think and type. Learn to touch type on this thing and you can probably get some serious words out.

For reference: My preferred text size of medium on firmware 1.12.3

My Personal User Experience

Anyway, enough about how the Freewrite Alpha looks, sounds, and what it’s made of. Let’s talk about using it.

I am sure the keyboard won’t be for everyone but oh wow does it make this thing fun to use. It’s bouncy like a typewriter but has just the perfect distance stroke so that you can bottom out with these beautifully done keycaps (black on white keys on my Raven Black version). Its LCD screen is snappy and responsive and makes this thing very easy to draft on. I find that it is easy to type on this at a speed in which I am getting the words onto the Alpha in just about the instant that I am hearing them in my head. Obviously, if you compare it to a computer – that’s what you would expect. However, if you think of this thing as what it really is – a typewriter or word processor that syncs automatically to the web, its absolutely awesome. As a writing hardware nerd, they knew their audience and delivered. Well done Astrohaus.

Having to manually connect to different wifis anytime you change locations is a bit of a pain for mobile writers. What I ended up doing is just connecting to my phone’s mobile hotspot and using that to sync myself from time to time when not at home. I hope they figure out an easier way to do this in the future.

I will note that there are some instances of lag from time to time though and I believe its when its syncing to the cloud or establishing a wifi connection. However, my understanding as of the date this was posted is that Astrohaus will be updating their firmware to correct these issues. I hope so. I am certainly interested to see how they make changes as they get more feedback from testers.

That’s really what you are buying when you go after a first-generation product like this – a bit of hardware and the ability to essentially become a beta tester. Even though they have put out a few other typewriters and know what they are doing in that arena, this is the first of its own kind in their arsenal, eschewing their standard fare for a new form altogether. I think that with some fine-tuning, and if they listen to their community’s feedback, they will be able to improve upon it in the future.

This leads me to my next point.

The maker of the Alpha: AstroHaus

I wouldn’t speak on the company and it’s reputation itself if it wasn’t a necessary point of note. However, with a unique product like this, and with it being one of a limited number of options for purchasing a device such as this, I feel that it is important to describe what owning one of these things is like, and part of that is interacting with the company that creates and services it.

This is where I get into the customer service side of things from Astrohaus, and I’m not going to turn this into a rant about what clearly is a passionate small group that is working on a very niche product for our community of writer folks. However, I think there are some things that need to be addressed if I am reviewing my initial experience with the first of their products I’ve received.

I want to be upfront. I was one of the first run Alpha’s that were hit with a bug that could cause you to potential lose words. Mid-connecting to wifi I was force booted from my Postbox account on the Alpha and asked to log in again, only upon doing so to find that all of my drafts on the device had been wiped clean like I was starting from scratch – I even got the opening “press new+new to start your first draft” message that happens upon first use. It had nothing in it. It ended up in me losing an entire document, which, luckily was just me having a friend try out the typing and nothing of any real importance. If it was important to me, I would’ve gotten rid of this thing immediately. Losing words is an absolute NO for me as a professional author and communications professional and will make me immediately discontinue the use of a product.

So let’s talk about that bug that I had. Data loss aside, (which is a big aside), this was entirely preventable. Astrohaus informed Alpha buyers that there was a firmware update that needed to be done to prevent any issues, however, in the email documentation that I received they said that you only needed to factory reset before updating the firmware IF you were already experiencing issues. Now, I am fairly tech savy, so I knew this was super risky to not just factory reset it out of the box, but I wanted to show that Astrohaus did not instruct everyone to Factory Reset.

Alpha Email about initial firmware change needed

So, instead of instructing everyone to do that to prevent any issues, they opted to have the potential of data loss be the driving force behind you needing to do a factory reset. By the way, the factory reset took maybe 15 seconds total to do. The longest part was waiting for the new firmware update to populate. To me, the best way to serve your customers would have been to ask them to force the reset so that there would be no issues moving forward, not waiting for there to be issues and then having your customers lose data and then have to do the reset anyway. I just don’t see the logic behind that there. Set your customer support team up for success.

I had other issues with their customer relations, specifically delays in shipment, no emails to confirm my address when apparently that’s what was delaying my shipment, and not having my updated address when I eventually got them to tell me that I needed to confirm address, and oh by the way, I had already updated my address with them three months prior via email. I don’t want to harp on this too much, because like I said, they are a small team, and bugs and mishaps happen in all industries. Also, I do want to note that their customer support agent is very prompt with their email responses, and I had no issue with any actual communications from them. My issue is more with just how they have chosen to engage with their user base.

And how is that you may ask? Well, it seems that they aren’t quite communicating with their base in the way that they should. Again, small team, don’t want to harp on them too hard, but what they produce is a very niche product with a very small potential user base. Their success as a company entirely relies on making good products and keeping this user base happy. Best way to do that? Listen to what it is that they want and maybe realize that there are ways to keep your vision of a distraction-free device without having an adversarial relationship with your users.

For example, the arrow keys, or lack thereof, is what I almost would call “hostile architecture“. I understand they want to keep people drafting and don’t want them editing on the device. That’s why they make the screen so small and they don’t allow you to load drafts onto the device itself. But to make it so that to move the cursor back one space you need to hit three keys in unison is simply ridiculous. You also cannot hold the keys down to move multiple spaces at once. Asrohaus, do not hamstring your own device because you think you know better than your users. Those same users are just going to be frustrated with your decision when they inevitably do need to move the cursor and are going to have it in the back of their mind every time that happens that its Astrohaus’ fault that they chose to have it this way.

That’s not the type of relationship you want to have with the people who are the driving force behind your sales. If you go on community-driven websites like Reddit for example, and the r/Astrohaus section, you’ll find that the predominate consensus is that their devices are good, but that the software is iffy and the company itself isn’t one that people should support because they do not make decisions that are in line with what their customers are looking for. That sort of sentiment is why I did not buy any of their first three products. I could see the issues, see the complaints from their community members, and see that there was almost no attempt to fix these issues because… well… Astrohaus knows best? I can guarantee that they have lost sales because of this strategy. The only reason that I even bought an Alpha is because they copied one of the best writing devices of all time, the Alphasmart Neo 2, and added modern touches to it such as cloud syncing and a mechanical keyboard with a relatively modest price to boot. (If $350 is modest. I am glad I got the early bird pricing, otherwise, I may still have thought it too pricey and just bought some more Alphasmart Neo 2s.)

So where does that leave us off? Well, despite Astrohaus’ attempts at irking us all, the Freewrite Alpha is a solid writing device. It does everything I need it to do and helps you really knock out words. Is it for everyone? No. Is it for some people? Definitely yes, and those are the people Astrohaus needs to be looking to for guidance in how they should revise these products in future generations, otherwise they will lose the support they do have and writers around the world won’t be better off because of it.

Missed Opportunities & Feature Requests for Alpha V2

I do find there to be a couple missed opportunities for some unique features.

I’m surprised it doesn’t utilize its USB-C port more. If the keyboard could be plugged into your phone to be used as a genuine keyboard, that would be an interesting take for writers. For me personally, if I had some table space to set up, I could see myself plugging into Scrivener on an iPhone and getting some concepting work done directly into where I inevitably dump all my drafts into anyway. Allowing the physical hardware to do this adds to the utility of the device even more. I could sit down at my desk, or really any table, prop up my phone in landscape mode and voila, highly portable mechanical keyboard mini computer. That’s the goal anyway right? For me to carry the Alpha around all the time? It also doesn’t seem like an improbable ask… Hell the Alphasmart Neo 2 lets you do it and that came out in 2007. (If you have a neo 2, get a usb-b to usb-c dongle and plug it in. Super easy to use.)

Another missed opportunity for this device, and I’m sure a lot of people would agree that this is a small gripe, is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to access the files by connecting directly to a phone via USB-C. At least, not on my iPhone 15 Pro Max I can’t. You can however, access it on a computer. This seems like a very closed-minded way to think about how people might use your device. I like to be able to draft anywhere that I possibly am, and anytime that an idea strikes me. I was hoping that Astrohaus would consider that more. As many devices as I can possibly connect to would be a win for me and mobility with this device in general. What if I had no service, no wifi, and only my phone and my Alpha and needed to transfer a file to someone? It would be impossible to do so currently from what I can tell. A simple change like allowing manual connectivity in that way would help.

Improved Wifi. Like even just allow a list of saved networks please. This is simple stuff.

If I could ask for anything for a V2, not counting non-hostile arrow keys, it would be to have hot-swap switches. They did well to include a mechanical keyboard with this, but one of the major aspects of mechanical keyboards is the ability to customize it to your own preferences. Having the ability to swap out the key-switches to your taste would be a luxury worth paying extra for, at least for me. This would also add to its officeability, as some of your co-workers may not be fond of the clickity-clack of this keyboard. (Luckily I’ve conditioned my office mates to the sound of my tactile switch-laden ZSA Moonlander. Or at least, I hope they don’t hate me for it.)

I think some sort of adjustment or relocation of the power button would be nice as well. I am constantly triggering this thing accidentally, so much so that I want to password-protect this to stop my work from having stray characters inputted on the regular. (Apparently there’s an option to do so on the Freewrite’s Postbox website, but when I enabled it, nothing ever happened. Not sure why.)

An adjustable screen would also be nice. This is likely a pipe dream but if you could lift the screen just slightly to adjust for light, I feel that would knock off a lot of the complaints about lighting issues or the shadowing effect you sometimes get based on the viewing angle of the text.

And I know this is damn near an impossibility but the first of these sorts of devices to add seamless integration into Scrivener will have me gladly throw down money to pre-order again right now.

In Conclusion

If you are a writer that is serious about getting more words down on a daily basis, and you think a distraction free writing device is for you, then just buy one. It is the pinnacle of this type of device released so far. My advice, if you do buy a Freewrite Alpha, just have fun with it. That’s what writing is supposed to be. Sometimes it feels like work, trust me, I understand, but in the end it should be fun. And boy do I have fun with this thing. This freaking article comes out over 4400+ words and its been 5 days for me. I can not wait to see what level of productivity this device propels me toward. Thank you Astrohaus for being a champion of distracted writers everywhere. As someone who struggles with his own attention disorder, I am deeply appreciate of this product.

With that said, if you are one of the people who get an Alpha, make sure you factory reset it first, get a clamp-on light, and if you have a phone, just use your portable hotspot to sync anytime you are writing on this thing. It works better than having to connect to a different wifi network everywhere you go. Not to mention, it gives you the ultimate flexibility to go and write wherever your heart desires with the peace of mind of having your data backed up. That’s truly what the Freewrite Alpha is, a typewriter that you can take anywhere and everywhere, forever by your side, your partner in candid observations about the Universe.

Until next time.

-Spencer Spalding

P.S. I wrote this article entirely on my Freewrite Alpha, and then edited it on Scrivener for MacOS. If there’s some other input device or writing software you would like me to test out in the future, please leave it below in the comments.

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