Direction9 made a T9-based keyboard for better typing on TVs

Typing on TV sucks. Those long and/or cluttered on-screen keyboards are cumbersome to use and a real problem for anyone trying to make something for TV.

exist CES 2025I’ve just been introduced to a better way. This is made by a company called Direction9the system has been in development for about a year, and it starts with a very old way of typing: T9. The T9 was born out of necessity, at a time when the only buttons on phones were number pads. (This is a demo For the layman.

Here’s how the Direction9 system works: All letters are arranged in a three-by-three number grid, with multiple letters assigned to each number, just like T9. When you open the keyboard with the cursor positioned in the center by default, click on the letter you’re looking for. Each time you click the middle button to select a letter, the cursor jumps back to the center, meaning you only have to click once or twice to find the letter you’re looking for.

You can use the keyboard’s “smart” mode, which will try to predict the word you’re looking for – tap the “abc” button, then tap the “def” button, then tap the “def” button again and it may guess what you’re typing “bed”. You can also turn it off and do more manual typing: when you click “abc” it pops up a new array that lets you choose between letters.

The rest of the keys you need (Enter, Space, Back, etc.) are arranged on either side of this grid. The trick with Direction9 is that you don’t actually have to press Enter to select them; you just press Enter to select them. Just click and hit the Enter button and it will automatically submit.

Direction9 CEO Leon Chang actually showed off an early version of this keyboard At last year’s CES. But he told me that Direction9 is currently in talks with companies to bring its keyboard to streaming apps and smart TVs; but for now, it remains pure Steam software.

The whole process sounds a bit complicated, but I learned it in 30 seconds while standing in the Direction9 booth at CES Unveiled. Part of the appeal of software, Chang said, is that you can eventually learn how to do it without even looking, which I was able to do in a minute or two. The smart prediction software seemed to struggle with more complex words like “shogun,” but overall seemed to understand what I was looking for. It’s not a perfect system, and it does have a learning curve that the average line of letters on the screen doesn’t, but it’s the fastest system I’ve ever typed on a TV. This has to make a difference.