Industrial Keyboard – On-screen keyboard for rugged Android devices

An Android keyboard with function keys (F1–F24) for rugged handhelds

In warehouses, logistics and production, people type on handhelds – often with gloves, often in terminal emulations that need function keys, and usually right before or after a scan. Industrial Keyboard is a keyboard for rugged handhelds built for exactly that work: as an Android input method it appears in every input field and is configured centrally for the whole fleet.

On-screen keyboard features

• Made for gloves

  Key height 70–160 % (120–140 % for gloves), forgiving touch targets, preview bubble above the finger, rollover typing and a high-contrast theme.

• Function keys F1–F24

  Fn tab with F1–F12, Shift for F13–F24, plus Esc, Ins, Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn and arrows; optionally an extra fixed F1–F12 row above the letters.

• Scanner built in

  Scan tab with a large trigger pad: tap for one scan, hold for continuous scanning. Zebra DataWedge and Honeywell are detected automatically, other scanner apps are triggered by intent. Scans that only arrive as a broadcast can be typed by the keyboard itself – off by default and never into password fields.

• The right keys for every field

  Number fields open the numeric pad (phone or calculator order, PIN, date, time), e-mail and URL fields get @, / and .com, Enter shows the field’s action.

• Custom layouts and macros

  Your own keyboards such as OK / Skip / Damaged as extra tabs, defined in JSON – no app update needed. Macros such as {TAB}, {F13}, OK{ENTER} or {SCAN}.

• Alphabets

  QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Nordic and Spanish, accents on long press, optional number row.

• Central configuration

  Managed configuration from any EMM (SOTI MobiControl, Microsoft Intune, Workspace ONE), configuration file – on Zebra also in /enterprise/usr – or StageNow broadcast. An admin password protects the settings and remote configuration; 5 wrong attempts lock it for 5 minutes. Error messages carry codes such as IK-0100.

• Private by design

  No internet permission, no dictionary, nothing you type is stored or learned; the configuration is excluded from backups.

F13–F24 for terminal emulation (5250)

Android has key codes of its own above F12 only from Android 16 (API level 36) on. Industrial Keyboard sends F13–F24 as Shift+F1…F12 on every Android version – which needs no such key codes and is the mapping 5250 terminal emulators use. The terminal-emulation.json template configures the keyboard for terminal emulation: a function key row, an Esc key and a Host tab with F13–F24, Field exit and Reset.

More templates: warehouse-gloves.json with high contrast, 135 % keys, calculator pad and scan key, custom-layout.json with a picking tab, and classic-keys.json without a tab bar.

Switching from the device manufacturer’s keyboard: Industrial Keyboard as an alternative

For teams that use the device manufacturer’s keyboard or a commercial on-screen keyboard for industrial devices on rugged Android devices today and want one that also runs on devices from other vendors. Industrial Keyboard does the same job – an input method for rugged Android devices with function keys, a scan key and central configuration – and is free of charge under the MIT licence, with no licence server and no device binding.

• Runs on any Android device with Android 8.0 or later; soft trigger for Zebra DataWedge and Honeywell, other scanner apps via intent.
• F1–F24 (F13–F24 sent as Shift+F1…F12), big keys for gloves, custom layouts and macros in JSON.
• Configuration as a managed configuration from any EMM, as a file or via StageNow; on Zebra devices an MX profile makes it the default keyboard.
• No internet permission, no dictionary, nothing you type is stored.

Honestly, for anyone switching: Industrial Keyboard does not import the configuration of other keyboard apps – layouts and settings are set up again in JSON. Word suggestions, autocorrect, swipe typing and voice input are deliberately left out.

System requirements

Operating system

Android 8.0 or later

Scanner

soft trigger for Zebra DataWedge and Honeywell, other scanner apps via intent

Permissions

vibration only – no internet permission

Distribution

APK via MDM or adb; Google Play is prepared

Language

English and German; Spanish, French and Chinese machine-translated

Limits, honestly

• The Honeywell trigger follows the vendor documentation and has not been tested on a Honeywell device yet.
• Spanish, French and Chinese are machine translations and have not yet been proofread by native speakers; key labels are not translated.
• No dictionary, no word suggestions, no autocorrect, no swipe typing, no voice input and no emoji picker – deliberately, so that nothing typed is stored or learned.
• The admin password protects the settings and remote configuration but is not a device lock: whoever can uninstall the app or clear its data gets the defaults.
• Google Play is prepared but not published yet.