I'm not sure if anyone's got it properly working with an emulated device, because you'd need to enable and then select that ime. I always just develop on a wifi connected device.
Thumb-Key
About
Thumb-Key is a privacy-conscious smart keyboard, made specifically for your thumbs.
It features a 3x3 grid layout, as many older phones had, and uses swipes for the less common letters. Initial testing shows that you can reach ~25 words per minute after a day of use.
Instead of relying on profit-driven, privacy-offending word and sentence prediction for accuracy, as do most popular phone keyboards like Gboard and Swiftkey, Thumb-Key uses large keys with predictable positions, to prevent your eyes from hunting and pecking for letters.
As the key positions get ingrained into your muscle memory, eventually you'll be able to appromixate the fast speeds of touch-typing, your eyes never having to leave the text edit area.
This project is a follow-up to the now unmaintained (and closed-source) MessageEase Keyboard, which is its main inspiration.
If i understand correctly, enabling and selecting is very easy to do. i do it in the video in the OP. So I don't understand why that is an impediment.
Do you use Android Studio for developing on a wifi enabled device? Is step-by-step debugging possible via wifi?
Yes, I use android studio and test on a read device via wireless debugging. I used to try to use the internal emulators but they have a lot of problems.
You get full logcat logs sent from your device when you do that, so it makes errors easy to find.
Thanks! I'll give this a try.
More suspicious logs that appear when I click a text input field (and the keyboard fails to appear):
2025-07-24 20:04:42.625 4769-4769 ImeTracker com.dessalines.thumbkey.debug I system_server:b8af6eee: onFailed at PHASE_IME_ON_SHOW_SOFT_INPUT_TRUE
2025-07-24 20:04:43.246 4769-4769 com.thumbkey com.dessalines.thumbkey.debug D request for cursor updates succeeded, cursor updates will be provided
2025-07-24 20:04:43.272 4769-4769 ImeTracker com.dessalines.thumbkey.debug I com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher:5b3df7fa: onFailed at PHASE_IME_ON_SHOW_SOFT_INPUT_TRUE
2025-07-24 20:04:43.728 4769-4769 com.thumbkey com.dessalines.thumbkey.debug D cursor moved
It should show an error, not just a debug line, if it's failing to open. I'd recommend just using a real device instead of an emulator.