71–80 of 190 posts
I’ve had positive experiences with Keychron products in the past, but I’ve moved past them as I now prefer orthogonal layouts. That said, I loved their support of QMK on my Q1 Pro and I really hope this ends up on that same level.
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.
Keychrone mice are already pretty nice, this is a welcome improvement
To me, the missing feature in the QMK ecosystem is a devices too device communication channel. For now there is only caps lock & others: it would be nice to activate a mouse layer (for instance: increase DPI) to a keyboard key.
It is probably solvable if a heavyweight was to push for new HID descriptors or something similar.
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.
I'm on a Mac keyboard bent for the very reason, actually,
Mouse firmware sounds very cool, though. If you could access a layer by holding down a central button, that could open up neat possibilities.
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
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sucks, the main reason I like KeyChron is the little switch on the side of mine that toggles between Mac and Windows! I wouldn't buy another keyboard without this feature TBH.
> " the little switch on the side of mine that toggles between Mac and Windows " The physical slide switch on the Keychrons is a net negative for power users who use a KVM between Windows/Mac/Linux because it would wear out quickly and isn't replaceable. It's more sensible to have switching between layouts by keypress combination.
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 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 mysterious future, but right then. (And that's still true right now -- the web page is unchanged.)
But it does not have source available. The link for source code on the website lands at a Github page for a completely-unrelated keyboard, and I can't do anything at all with it using QMK. Extensive digging to find the source has resulted in zero positive results.
In the case of this Keychron keyboard, the promise of source code consists of resolute lies more than it does vaporware: The source is stated to openly exist, but it does not exist.
A question about this situation to their support email resulted in assignment of a ticket number, followed by silence.
So yeah, anyway: The cynicism is valid.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, did they announce opensource firmware without providing the source?
Yep! > This repository is currently in its early setup phase. > At the moment, the repository mainly contains project scaffolding, policy files, and the initial project direction. Firmware sources, board support, build instructions, and flashing guidance are still being prepared. > That means zgm is early, but it is intentionally early in public. The goal is not to wait until everything is finished before opening the…
"Intentionally early" is one of those phrases that means they vibed this README out in an hour with AI, and now hope that they can create firmware for it in the next 6 months.
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.