Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Keychron announces first open-source firmware for gaming mice

digitalfoundry.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 190 posts

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

#101

Post by stingraycharles »

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…

It’s interesting and slightly off-topic, but I’ve been a Keychron user for years (currently have their latest Q6 Ultra 8K), and I’m wondering whether I should be using QMK? I’ve never really dug into it before, but I’m afraid I’ll be losing functionality.

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

#102

Post by deepsun »

ssl-3 wrote: post #78
fn-mote wrote: post #35

Announces != releases. They claim 2027 Q1 will be the release date. Links below purporting to be “the repository” lead to a repo with no source code. Sorry, I’m cynical. An announcement 6-9 months ahead of release? Why? Right now it’s vaporware.

I'm cynical, too, and I have good reason to be. I recently bought a Keychron TKL keyboard that uses Hall effect switches. It is, in my opinion, a lovely board to type on and so far I like it quite a lot. (Hopefully, this board with its socketed HE switches will serve longer than the previous board that had soldered Cherry MX Blues.) It was advertised as being open-source and supporting QMK. Not at some time in the my…

Well technically they sold you product that does not satisfy description, so you can claim money back even after warranty period ends (same as factory bugs/mistakes, they cannot be put under warranty period).

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

#103

Post by michaelt »

abhinavk wrote: post #67
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #57

I really wanted to like Keychron, but after spending 200$ on one of their high end keyboards, certain keys weren't detecting presses less than a month later. I couldn't end up fixing it so I tossed it out. Felt like a waste

I am deep into custom keyboards but I only buy ones with hot swappable switches. Some keys like AWSDEHJKL etc are bound to fail sooner than others.

As the poster is saying "certain keys weren't detecting presses less than a month later" it's almost certainly a manufacturing defect, rather than a wear-out issue.

Keychron say their mechanical switches last '50 million clicks' so to wear out after a month you'd have to be pressing the key 19 times a second, 24 hours a day.

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

#104

Post by esseph »

spike021 wrote: post #50
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…

my issue with the one i have (k2, iirc) is that if i use it wirelessly and the battery dies, it becomes a brick until its been fully recharged. it won't even work as a wired keyboard until then. so ever since then i only use it wired.

Weird, my K1SE or K8Pros aren't like that.

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

#105

Post by esseph »

deepthaw wrote: post #90

It took me three hours to figure out how to blacklist my Keychron keyboard from showing up as a joystick - and screwing up several games that thought they were receiving constant joystick input - in Linux, so I'm not sure how keen I am on using their stuff in the future. Is that a common issue in Linux?

No? I run Fedora and have a few keyboards from them and have not seen that. 1x K1SE and 2x K8 Pros for reference.

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

#106

Post by stasomatic »

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 up on Ebay. Bought it 3 years ago, used for a week. QWERTY is hard to quit. I like the EPOMAKER Magicforce Smart2 68-Key layout [0] . No QMK, but I get by with Karabiner, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0836T2Y17

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

#107

Post by userbinator »

rincebrain wrote: post #70
userbinator wrote: post #60

Never have I thought "I want a mouse with modifiable firmware", IMHO this is only going to lead to more bugs arising from the associated increase in complexity and the "we can always fix it later" mentality. All the mouses and keyboards I've used have a mask-programmed MCU, and essentially no bugs to speak of.

I think the point is less to add features and more to lower the barrier to entry for people making mice, since, as you said, in large part keyboards and mice are appliances to the degree that it should rapidly converge to a stable set of features. Plus, on a human level, I wouldn't be surprised if the teams working on mouse development were annoyed they couldn't show their past work in the same way...

to lower the barrier to entry for people making mice

The barrier is absolutely not firmware; you can get a single-chip sensor with a USB + PS/2 interface for cheap, no firmware required, and it's just plug-and-play on any PC. The mechanical design is the biggest hurdle.

https://github.com/RandomDelta6/USB-Mouse

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

#108

Post by thomaslord »

HDBaseT wrote: post #98
fn-mote wrote: post #35

Announces != releases. They claim 2027 Q1 will be the release date. Links below purporting to be “the repository” lead to a repo with no source code. Sorry, I’m cynical. An announcement 6-9 months ahead of release? Why? Right now it’s vaporware.

Don't they already have open source firmware, at least for their keyboards. I have a K4 HE and this is on their Github [1]. [1] - https://github.com/Keychron/qmk_firmware/tree/hall_effect_pl... They publish the .stp, .dxf, .dwg, .pdf files for a lot of their products already too. I would be fairly optimistic that they will hold their promise.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Keychron has legitimately published the source for their QMK branches.

The real issue is that people buying a keyboard that advertises QMK support reasonably expect that they can install the upstream generic QMK, but Keychron actually maintains a bunch of "playground" branches on their fork of the QMK repository that each function as their own version of QMK.

I've been using a Q6 Pro as my primary keyboard for a while and I like it overall, but I was very disappointed when I decided to roll up my sleeves and compile QMK myself. My board launched with a build from the "bluetooth_playground" branch, which hasn't been updated for 2 years now and is now 6000 commits behind the main QMK project. There's now a separate "wireless_playground" branch which has been updated more recently and has an entry for my keyboard, but the link on the product page still goes to "bluetooth_playground" and even "wireless_playground" is 3000 commits behind the main QMK project.

Keychron boards without special functionality seem to get added to upstream QMK just fine, but a lot of us owners of bluetooth-enabled Keychron boards would really appreciate it if they provided an official way to flash normal QMK and just forgo the wireless features.

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

#109

Post by fylo »

minimaxir wrote: post #41
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Logitech's infamous double-click issue. :( Isn't that just the tact switch failing? Two minute job to replace...

I do not casually have spare tactile switches, nor the hardware skills to replace.

Its very easy to source switches, soldering kit and skill curve for this particular repair is short. Plus you can even end up with better performing mouse switches

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

#110

Post by yborg »

NormenKD wrote: post #88
danudey wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only complaint is that the backlight behavior has like a dozen different settings, none of which are "off". There's "on", "flicker", "blink when you hit the key", "ripple out when you hit the key", "move in waves regardless of input", etc., but there's no "don't be light" option.

It's fn+light-key on my keychron. Might work on yours.

On mine, it's both!
Post reply on HN