Willis adds wireless ZMK support to Bruce the Keyboard
Willis turns Bruce the Keyboard into a wireless ZMK board without forcing a rebuild. It keeps Bruce’s 34-key column-staggered parts and fitment intact, then adds the convenience people kept asking for.
The cleanest upgrade in the custom scene is not always a new shape or a louder spec sheet. Sometimes it is a PCB that lets a board you already like cut the cord without making you throw away the case, plates, or muscle memory. That is the pitch behind Willis, Alexander Krikun’s wireless ZMK PCB for Bruce the Keyboard.
KBD.news published the project on May 16, and the appeal is obvious if you have ever chased a “wireless upgrade” that quietly turns into a full rebuild. Willis keeps Bruce’s ergonomic, column-staggered identity intact while adding a built-in E73 module, fuses, ESD protection, externally accessible soft_off and reset buttons, and ZMK support. The repository says it is licensed under CERN-OHL-P v2, supports ZMK Studio, ships default firmware files for the 34-key layout, and puts the bootloader in the Releases tab with an interactive BOM next to the PCB files.
That compatibility story is the real selling point. Willis is fully compatible with the plates and cases made for the original Bruce, so builders do not have to start over just to get wireless convenience. For users who want a little more room for batteries and hardware access, Willis-specific cases add reset and soft_off buttons plus a battery cutout for larger batteries. In a hobby where sunk cost is real, that is the kind of upgrade path that actually gets used.
Bruce already had the bones of a cult favorite. Whydobearsxplod designed the 34-key column-staggered board, while jlw created the original PCB, which debuted in 2024 with a small run of 15 units. Bruce v1 sold informally through Discord in January 2024 as a tray-mount-only board. Bruce v2 followed in February with plate-mount cutouts in the corners, and Bruce v3 arrived in March with rotated switch footprints. The JLW product page described the PCB as based on an STM32F072 MCU and preflashed with Vial firmware.
Willis takes that existing ecosystem and moves it into the ZMK era without asking Bruce owners to relearn the basics of the board itself. ZMK’s wireless stack defaults to five host profiles, which fits a keyboard that is likely to bounce between laptop, desktop, and tablet. The E73 module used here is built around Nordic’s nRF52840 family and supports Bluetooth 4.2 and 5.0, which puts Willis squarely in the modern wireless camp.
That is why Willis matters more than another flashy one-off PCB. It shows Bruce as a compatibility platform, not a dead-end project, and that is how a good custom board stays alive: by making the next step easier than starting fresh.
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