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You just gave me a cool idea. You could do this by fitting small tuning forks (or similar) to a mechanical keyboard. Bonus points if all of the forks are tuned to a pleasant scale.

Then all you need is a microphone running on the destination device. Obviously this is insecure but could be fun anyway.

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Check out the Zenith Space Command TV remote from the 50s https://www.theverge.com/23810061/zenith-space-command-remot...

It would be difficult to manage the ~90 different tuning forks such a keyboard would require. Far more sensible for each of the keys to be connected to some sort of tensioned wire, the tension of which could be adjusted to achieve the required tuning.

We can only await the revival of keyboard tuners, and the interviewees of the future puzzling over how many of them are required for a city the size of Chicago.

It's also not clear how you would handle keys that are held down. Or rather, how you would distinguish between keydown and keyup events. But perhaps with your tensioned wire you could use a pick on the key (such as in a harpsichord) which has a different texture on each side, affecting the timbre but not the pitch.

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