I remember when I first saw a waterproof keyboard at HIMSS many many years ago. It was pretty amazing to see. Even back then, the argument for why you’d want a waterproof keyboard was compelling. When you think about the germs that are floating around every healthcare organization, the keyboard is the perfect haven for germs to collect. Without a waterproof keyboard, there’s really not a great way to clean the keyboards.
While waterproof keyboards have been around for a bunch of years, I haven’t seen them really take off in most organizations. I imagine cost plays one role, but I think the bigger role was the waterproof keyboards just weren’t as good. Most of the waterproof keyboards I’d seen were silicon keyboards. While they were certainly waterproof, they didn’t work quite as well as their plastic counterparts.
I was reminded of this when I got an email from Seal Shield about their new 100% waterproof, back-lit plastic keyboard.
No doubt, this keyboard looks like any other regular keyboard. That’s a great thing. Although, it’s impressive that they’ve added not only the waterproof, but the back lighting as well. This is important in many hospitals where patients might be sleeping and the nurse or doctor might be working in the room.
Seal Shield has a wide variety of “dishwasher safe” products like this keyboard for a while. I wonder if healthcare is just waiting for a lawsuit to finally invest in some washable peripherals like these. I’m sure a simple swab of any keyboard in healthcare would make for a compelling story.
We’ve purchased similar sealed keyboards in the past for ~$100 each and they are still littering our warehouse. No one wants to use them. We found that it’s difficult to type on them. Users must press each key harder than normal which makes it tough to type fast and easy to miss characters. Maybe they are better now but weren’t a few years ago.