The new collaboration with keyboard maker Work Louder is available to order today.
The first piece of OpenAI hardware is here, and no, it has nothing to do with Jony Ive. It's called the Codex Micro, and it's a keypad created in collaboration with keyboard maker Work Louder, specifically for controlling OpenAI's agentic coding feature Codex. The two companies started teasing the accessory in June, and the Codex Micro is available to order now for $230, ahead of the Jony Ive-designed smart speaker OpenAI is rumored to be introducing later this year.
If you've seen Work Louder's Creator Micro 2, or the Framer Micro the company created in collaboration with the website builder Framer, you have a good sense of the fit and finish of the Codex Micro. The keypad features six frosted keys with LEDs that track the status of agents in Codex and additional keys that can be assigned to common actions like accepting or rejecting code, branching threads or using voice input. The keypad also features a dial for switching between the levels of reasoning Codex can use, and a joystick for flicking between Codex workflows. The whole thing is designed to be customized, and it also comes with additional keycaps if you want to assign your own controls. OpenAI recently converted its Codex app into a "super app" that combines the functionality of the normal ChatGPT with Codex and a new general productivity-focused agent tool called ChatGPT Work. The entire app can be used without dedicated controls, but for diehard users, Codex Micro should make navigating everything a lot easier.
The Codex Micro is the least troubled of OpenAI's current hardware projects. The rumored rollout of the company's smart speaker has already been complicated by an Apple lawsuit accusing current OpenAI employees Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu of stealing trade secrets from the company. Both Tan and Liu previously worked at Apple.
The Codex Micro is available to order for $230 from both OpenAI and Work Louder. On its store page, Work Louder suggests it only has a "limited quantity" of the keypad, so it may only be available while supplies last.