Keyboard cover from S8 modified for S9?

[bionicbee2000]

Hi @All,

unfortunately there is no attachable keyboard cover for the S9 yet like there was/is for the S8. I know the camera and fingerprint scanner are different. But would it work (or did someone maybe know someone) who actually tried it and modified the keyboard cover so it works with the S9...

Kind regards
A.

Samsung EJ-CG950BBEGDE Keyboard Cover

 

[eske.rahn]

Hi @All,

unfortunately there is no attachable keyboard cover for the S9 yet like there was/is for the S8. I know the camera and fingerprint scanner are different. But would it work (or did someone maybe know someone) who actually tried it and modified the keyboard cover so it works with the S9...

Kind regards
A.

Samsung EJ-CG950BBEGDE Keyboard Cover

Would be interesting to know.
Remember that the cover-part has a (nfc?) chip and a magnet (near the power key). And also the keyboard part has a tiny magnet in the lower left.
I took one for the S6 Edge apart, and I can see that the S8 is quite similar. See this

So it is NOT just a matter of cutting a larger hole in the cover, the phablet has to be prepared for it with the suitable strategically placed magnetic sensors to detect that it is there.
For fun I have tried to use some of the non S8-variants on the S8, and could get an S8 back to react with the print part from the S6 Edge.
I also tried some of the other backs, but could not get them to work with the S8 (not even with the S8 keyboard)

But as it seems they have stopped production for Note 8 and S8, I think they unfortunately are abandoning the whole idea, so we should be damn lucky if the S9 got the correct sensors AND even in the same place as on S8

ADD:
Just had a look at the ifixit tear downs of the S8- and S9-, and it does not look promising for a total fit....
On the S8, the magnet at the back has its centre approximately 32mm from the top, and 10mm from the power-switch side.
So if I can measure correctly, the magnetic switch must be the tiny little component mounted north of the square chip with "C3 559 X791" (north of the orange square) here, but the S9 got no chip at that location AFAICS from this.
BUT the S9 does have a similar looking component closer to the vibrator, so it MIGHT be prepared for a cover...
The magnet on the key-part is about 16mm from the bottom and 13mm from the volume rocker side. Just north of the tip of the 3.5mm plug. And there IS a similar small component on the other side of the small print on both the S8- and S9-...

 

[eske.rahn]

ADD II

Apart from the above add, note that surprisingly the keyboard with an S8 ALSO works both in Aeroplane mode and with NFC turned off, so the communication with the case must be a dedicated circuitry.
So that has to be there for the S9 too...

ADD: I just verified that the chip is on a small plate, and thus NOT with any antenna in the back plate (updated blog post linked above), so it SHOULD be possible to move that to another location, if the circuitry is placed elsewhere on the S9-

 

[alh84001]

I just tried the s8 keyboard and I could put it on my s9 (snapdragon). It was a very tight and unstable fit, but when I did get it to click the phone recognized it and resized the screen accordingly. Unfortunately the keyboard below wasnt alugned with the buttons, and there was mostly no response. When it did respond I got a key registered from the row below and to the side, e.g. when pressing 't' it would sometimes register as 'f'. Any ideas on how to get this to work properly?

 

[eske.rahn]

I just tried the s8 keyboard and I could put it on my s9 (snapdragon). It was a very tight and unstable fit, but when I did get it to click the phone recognized it and resized the screen accordingly. Unfortunately the keyboard below wasnt alugned with the buttons, and there was mostly no response. When it did respond I got a key registered from the row below and to the side, e.g. when pressing 't' it would sometimes register as 'f'. Any ideas on how to get this to work properly?

Very interesting that it works that much! Thanks for the info! This at the least proves that the a S9 was designed for a keyboard.

To bad about the slight misalignment though. Do you see the same displacement in all columns? I mean does a W also give an A, and a P an L? (when it does anything)
You COULD try to take the print out and see if a slight move would fix it. But there is no guarantee, as they could have changed the spacing in either direction too (perhaps squeezed in an extra column)

 

[Mr KOP]

Why SamSung doesn't make for S9?