Install Arduino support on Windows

The Arduino system has been designed to be accessible to people at all skill levels, and Keyboardio is built on top of the Arduino platform because we share that goal. There are many ways to set up your system to work with the Keyboardio firmware, the most typical is to use the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE); an application that gives some visual context to the code you want to send to your Arduino device. This is the easiest process for folks who are new to Arduino, or to programming generally. If you follow the instructions below step by step you should be fine. :-)

Note: This tutorial has been written using Windows 10.

Prerequisite: Install USB Driver (Win 7, 8, & 8.1)

For Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, please follow the instructions on the Installing USB Driver on Windows page before proceeding with the instructions on this page.

Step One: Set up the Arduino IDE

1. Download the Arduino IDE installation package from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

As of this writing, the latest version is v1.8.8, which you can download from this URL:

https://www.arduino.cc/download_handler.php?f=/arduino-1.8.8-windows.exe

Note: Some users have had difficulties with the Windows store version of the Arduino IDE. Please use the downloadable installation package.

2. Open the installation package and follow the prompts to install the Arduino IDE.

Step Two: Add keyboard support to the IDE

1. Open the Arduino IDE. It will open an empty "sketch" window.

2. Open the "File" menu and click on "Preferences"

3. At the bottom of the "Settings" tab is a box labeled 'Additional Board Manager URLs'. Paste this into the box:

   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keyboardio/boardsmanager/master/package_keyboardio_index.json
   

   then click 'OK' to close the dialog

4. Go into the 'Tools' menu, click on 'Board' and then click on 'Boards Manager'

5. Enter 'Keyboardio' into the search box. You will see an entry that says "keyboardio by Keyboardio" click on it to select it, and then click 'Install'. Once the install completes, click "Close".

6. Open the 'Tools' menu again, click on 'Board' and then click on 'Keyboardio Model 01'. You may have to scroll through a long list of other boards to get there.

7. Open the 'Tools' menu again, scroll down to "Port > ". Select your keyboard. (It may already be selected.) If there is only one option such as "COM3" try it, it's almost certainly the correct port.

Step Three: Build the default firmware and install it on your Keyboard

1. In the "File" menu, click on the "Examples" submenu. Scroll down to 'Model01-Firmware'

   A new window will open that contains the firmware configuration sketch at the top with a white background, and a black section at the bottom that will fill with errors and messages. It will be helpful to expand the bottom section so you can read the messages a little better.

2. Click on the check mark icon below "File" to build your firmware. Hopefully it will build cleanly and you can skip down to the next step!

   If there are any errors they will show up in the black section. If you don't understand them you can search the community forums to see if someone else has had the same problem, and if you don't find the help you need just make a new post with the errors and we'll help you resolve them:

   https://community.keyboard.io/c/help

   There are a lot of versions of Windows out there and a lot of unique system configurations. Hopefully your install will go smoothly, but if it doesn't we want to know, so we can help not just you but also everyone else who may have the same issues you have. Even if you can solve the issue on your own we would appreciate hearing about what happened and how you solved it, so we can help other folks who have the same issues later.

3. Once you build your firmware succefully, you need to install it on the keyboard!

   Note: We recommend testing the install of the default firmware before making any changes to it, so you can make sure the process works for you.

   Hold down the prog key which is in the upper left of the keyboard, and then click on the right arrow in the sketch window menu bar to install.

   If it's successful, the Model 01's LED's will flash red across the board as the firmware is installed, and then the "LED" key will glow blue. You may also see messages that "the device "Model 01 is undergoing additional configuration." If you have any problem, see the Troubleshooting Firmware Upload Issues page.

   Congrats, you've just installed the latest firmware!!

Next step: Edit a Keymap