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Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

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Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#151

Post by regularfry »

jerlam wrote: post #16

This would be more exciting if Keychron had mice of more interesting / experimental form factors and functionality. Just like their keyboards, their mice are mostly differentiated by obscure technical features (polling rates!). I'm a bit worried that a decent, modern replacement for the extremely obsolete multi-button mouse I have now (Logitech G602) will never be available.

I've just grabbed myself a Nape Pro trackball. It's really quite neat. ZMK firmware (which was actually the main thing I wanted) and a configurable positioning angle. I'm still getting used to it but so far it looks like a decent addition to my wireless toolkit.

I would prefer a bigger trackball as a daily driver, but it's an interesting device otherwise. It feels like they could reasonably do a mini version, too, just by chopping the non-main buttons in half. Definitely going to crack it open and see what the innards look like.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#152

Post by aaviator42 »

burner420042 wrote: post #149

The number of buttons on ergonomic mice is excessive. More than 3 is too much. So I'm sitting there wondering what else you could use them for: a random squiggler to keep the mouse moving and your monitor active when you want a break.

When doing image editing and text copy editing, I find it very handy to have mouse thumb buttons mapped to copy / paste / cut / undo / redo / delete / shift / ctrl. Allows me to do a lot more with my mouse when I'm using it anyway to do stuff, without having to switch back and forth repeatedly with my keyboard.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#153

Post by elictronic »

unbolted3032 wrote: post #121

I bought two (identical) of these keyboards and they're by far the worst keyboard I've ever purchased. OOB, both had Bluetooth stability issues, dropping out at least 1-2 times a day, resulting in a sustained keypress being interpreted by the OS while they reconnectedddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. Vendor support suggested upgrading the firmware (I was on the latest firmware) so I followed thei…

Greetings and salutations. Same issue on two seperate keychron keyboards with repeating key presses I purchased for wife and myself. She ran hers on a Mac and I am on a windows gaming rig.

I tried changing the key, updating firmware, different cord and wireless, and just got tired of it and threw them both into my backup in case of closet. I saw so many positive comments about these keyboards but will never buy another after getting burned twice.

I don’t think everyone is BSing but getting two lemons is weird and makes me second guess the positive comments. I never contacted support, just found repair routes online. I had spent enough time faffing about with them, few hundred dollars wasn’t worth my time after that.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#154

Post by agile-gift0262 »

omcnoe wrote: post #119
stasomatic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Keychron is a meme brand surfing on the long tail of custom drops. I have a couple of them a Q1 Pro something, a K* whatever. They are just decent keyboards, a middle of the road. The constant accidental invocation of flashing lights is annoying and then you have to cycle through the presets. Not unique enough for geeks. Their marketing is good. My Moonlander is gathering dust, can't find time to put it…

Their low profile keyboards are some of the best available. "Standard" full size mechanical keyboards is a a pretty crowded market with literally thousands of products that aren't that differentiated.

Agreed. I bought my low profile keychron k3 pro, I believe it was, several years ago and I'm really happy with it. No complaint whatsoever. I bought the equivalent with full layout for my wife a couple of years ago and she's really happy with it too.

I don't think I can move away from low profile mechanical keyboards with programmable firmware like QMK now. I'm too used to my Keychron

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#155

Post by ssl-3 »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #143
ssl-3 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. > A question about this situation to their support email resulted in assignment of a ticket number, followed by silence. It's annoying, but it's not the end of the world. I don't even really know what I'd do with QMK if I could use it. This is the first keyboard I've owned that was advertised to support QMK and I was kind of hoping to learn more about the kinds of clever things that can (and cannot) be done with…

Remap Shift to CapsLock or whatever. I also have full mouse controls on the right side which is a gimmick but comes handy once in a while.

I think I can do all of that with Keychron's webusb interface (which works fine in Chrome, including with Linux after some permissions butchering): https://launcher.keychron.com

There's quite a lot that can be done in there including some mouse functions.

After some thought, I think I'd want QMK for weirder stuff.

Maybe steal a few pins for a rotary encoder that sticks out of the side and acts as a volume knob (I really like having physical knobs for volume).

Or RGB dumb stuff: Of the built-in RGB modes, I like "heatmap" the best. Areas of the keyboard light up with progressively-warmer colors as I type, and I think that's both fun and non-distracting.

It's an HE keyboard, so it knows the linear position of all of the keys with decent resolution. If it's got enough grunt to spare, it can calculate the velocity and end-travel point of each keypress.

So lazy typing can light up with a nice cool blue-ish heatmap, and faster-but-relaxed typing can eventually progress all the way through orange and red. It does this right now with its existing mode.

But with velocity and travel added as inputs: Furious, hard, high-velocity typing that really bottoms out the keys could start off being really red straight away, even if few keys have been pressed.

Or key repeat rates: If I want any random key to repeat Really Fast or Really Slow right now, maybe that can be made to be very dynamic thing thing by pressing that key harder or softer, or even vary throughout a single keypress by looking at the key's linear position. (Maybe I should patent that one. You read it here first, Mr. Patent Examiner.)

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#156

Post by ErikBjare »

martinjc wrote: post #64
Barbing wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On macOS: I use my Keychron C3 in Windows mode because the macOS mode ain't right with the bottom left corner keys. Maybe placement of Control/Option/Command aren't similar enough to the MacBook Pro keyboard for me. Been meaning to figure this out and fix it... swapping physical keycaps or remapping in software or replacing the keyboard...

Waiting for it to die and will not buy another of theirs. Piece of shit.

I don't think I've ever had a keyboard die on me

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#157

Post by ZiiS »

stasomatic wrote: post #106
jchw wrote: post #8

A bit ago I accidentally bought a Keychron keyboard that didn't have QMK support, but then found that someone had ported it anyway, and I was able to flash it and fix some problems I had (the main one being that it seems like the default firmware only scans a single row of keys while asleep, possibly to save energy, but I want any keypress to wake the computer.) Maybe it's not perfect, but the community around open s…

I think that Keychron is a meme brand surfing on the long tail of custom drops. I have a couple of them a Q1 Pro something, a K* whatever. They are just decent keyboards, a middle of the road. The constant accidental invocation of flashing lights is annoying and then you have to cycle through the presets. Not unique enough for geeks. Their marketing is good. My Moonlander is gathering dust, can't find time to put it…

Keycron are middle of the road decent keyboards, but they are priced much lower then other comparable ones. This makes them much more then a meme brand.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#158

Post by ValentinPearce »

ssl-3 wrote: post #133
squigz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > A question about this situation to their support email resulted in assignment of a ticket number, followed by silence. Oh, my apologies, I missed that line. > I don't even really know what I'd do with QMK if I could use it. This is the first keyboard I've owned that was advertised to support QMK and I was kind of hoping to learn more about the kinds of clever things that can (and cannot) be done with it; I'm not…

One of these days, maybe I'll get an opportunity to explore it. :) I seem to be running across more people saying interesting things about QMK than I used to, but maybe some of that is just observational bias bringing it to the forefront. If I may ask: What's good about it for your use?

Not the same user but I can chime in here. I'm mostly on a smaller split keyboard but having symbols accessible trough a layer without having to leave home row is definitely something I like to add to my keyboard configurations. That and home row modifiers or shortcuts I use often.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#159

Post by gadams999 »

manaskarekar wrote: post #120
stasomatic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Keychron is a meme brand surfing on the long tail of custom drops. I have a couple of them a Q1 Pro something, a K* whatever. They are just decent keyboards, a middle of the road. The constant accidental invocation of flashing lights is annoying and then you have to cycle through the presets. Not unique enough for geeks. Their marketing is good. My Moonlander is gathering dust, can't find time to put it…

You can disable the invocation of the lights. Fn + L + Light button for 6 seconds for the K series. YMMV depending on the exact model. https://keychronsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052... Their low profile keyboards are unmatched IMHO. Nothing has hit the balance that they have.

You need a cape! And my bad for not RTFMing or searching their site. All three of my K series now blissfully dark. Thank you kind person.

Re: Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

#160

Post by thenthenthen »

hack1312 wrote: post #140
stasomatic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Keychron is a meme brand surfing on the long tail of custom drops. I have a couple of them a Q1 Pro something, a K* whatever. They are just decent keyboards, a middle of the road. The constant accidental invocation of flashing lights is annoying and then you have to cycle through the presets. Not unique enough for geeks. Their marketing is good. My Moonlander is gathering dust, can't find time to put it…

Hmu (email in profile) if you’re in the US and want to get rid of the moon lander; I really enjoy my Voyager want to try out the Moonlander. That EPOMAKER reminds me of my Leopold Topre keyboard.

Avoid EPOMAKER, they are super buggy in my experience (losing connection, requiring weekly reflashing of firmware).
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