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 source keyboard firmware is great, it's a good example of how open source is beneficial for end users, especially power users.
And, in an era where vendor software and firmware for all kinds of devices is constantly having vulnerabilities, it is possible the liability of doing custom shit will eventually outweigh whatever benefits hardware companies seem to think it has, versus just having industry standards and free software instead. But, maybe that is wishful thinking.
My only complaint with Keychron is that of 5 or so keyboards I've owned from them I wound up having to resolder 3 different hotswap sockets on 2 different keyboards right out of the box. That is... Not a fantastic failure rate. OTOH, they are otherwise an unambiguously great value, with materials and build quality that feels pretty impressive for the cost, QC issues notwithstanding.
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.
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.
This is why i buy them. With the latest keyboards putting the usbc port on the left side *n a protected sunken enclosure they got good enough to use at wotk and i now have 70 or so of them deployed there to nearly uniformly rave reviews
Perhaps "meme" was a wrong choice of words. What I wanted to say, I think, is that they are overrepresented in review coverage than they deserve. Good for them, they are decent keyboards, I didn't say they weren't.
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
Theres nothing about the moonlander that forces you to not be QWERTY though, and I'd bet most people are in fact on QWERTY with it.
Do you mean hard to quit staggered keyboards? As in the rows dont line up in a grid.
Personally I've been using ortholinear boards for over a decade to the point that its quite the opposite problem, it feels so unnatural to have to move your fingers in such directions.
Sometimes there is just no home row quite like a 48 key planck's.
Do you mean hard to quit staggered keyboards? As in the rows dont line up in a grid.
Perhaps. But also, during my 3-4 day infatuation phase, I spent too much time screwing around with remapping and thumb keys and layers with zero to show for it. I do not blame ortho/Moonlander/staggered, this was on me. I am a victim of having too many choices.
I also realised that qwerty will always be required. So I use colemak-dhm on split-columnar-blank-keycap keyboards with less keys and qwerty on unibody-rowstaggered-printed-keycap full-size keyboards. It helps my brain to switch.
It is very similar to using both bikes, ebikes and motorcycles all having different controls. Your brain can have different muscle memory if it thinks of them as different things.
They have silent keyboards in full size and TKL, with Hu layout. It is really silent, with butterfly mechanics, and was ~50€ with VAT included!
Had a slight bug that the kbd didn't wake until first mouse click, when machine woke from sleep, but a recent receiver firmware update solved it. It is great value for the buck. It is very hard to find really silent keyboards, especially in ISO layouts, and there they have it. Is it customizable? Only in software. Does it have trendy clicky keys or fancy keycaps? No. Is it good for my work, when I sometimes have to work late and not disturb my family? It is great!
ps: I'm not at home, I cannot recall the model, I don't really care for this stuff, this is exactly what I wanted: an unnoticable workhorse with good price-performce .
It's both the ortho and the split. The Moonlander is a very nice keyboard, it's worth its BOM, I was simply impatient. I bought it for the cool factor on a whim without realizing time investment required. My email is in my profile, I'm in the states.
Mine is plugged in but not that used yet. Same deal its hard to change habits. I also find it slightly too big for my hands especially with the mouseball added. Its sad because it feels so qualoty and the ideas are awsome just my habits are slowing my adoption
I mentioned it to the person you’re replying to but if you’re in the USA and considering. in offloading the Moonlander I’m interested. My email is available in my profile.
Agree, not much special about them, and I truly hate their keycap profile which I find to be way too tall.
They’re not bad keyboards, and regularly on sales in the 40-60% range for many of their boards, it’s just that they’re not great either, middle of the road so to say.
I had keyboards upwards of $200 with a very nice design but they have their Bluetooth switch underneath the keycaps ... and usually don't ship ISO versions. What keychron is delivering for the price is just amazing.
Mine hates the P button. Sometimes it will not react to it. Sometimes It wil repppeat it two or three times. But I love the aesthetic of the pastel colors, the volume sphere is cool and the typing feeling is great.
I dropped my keychron k2 and it stopped working via usb, but charging still works. If I were able to fix it maybe (maybe) I'd switch back to it, in the end I prefer having a reliable keyboard.
> I like the EPOMAKER Magicforce Smart2 68-Key layout [0] . No QMK, but I get by with Karabiner, etc.
Many Epomaker boards are just licensed to be sold under their brand name, most of them fairly transparently. (Ie. Epomaker x Aula, Leobog etc.)
Quite a few of their configuration software packages end up looking quite horrible as a result, as I don't believe they have a unified software package for all the brands they sell. Many Windows Forms looking programs that look like a time machine back to the era of Windows XP.
Unfortunately they've also been caught up in quite a few scandals over the years:
QMK license violations
Customer support/Quality control issues
Attempts to dodge customs by deliberately under-declaring the value of their packages...
Got into a legal fight when another company also licensed an identical board design and beat them to market (The other company aren't angels either)
Platform banned from Reddit for astroturfing
Which kind of just results in Epomaker in being a hard discourage.
At the time I purchased the one I linked to, it was sold under Qisan brand. I don't have any brand loyalty to either them or the Epomacher, I just prefer this specific "MagicForce 68 Smart" build - the layout, the quality, that it's only white backlit. It is really made well. If you can live without the F row, it's a great keyboard.
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.
I got a c3 pro a few weeks ago and you definitely can turn the lighting off. Don't remember whether it was through cycling or some other combo but you can. Did you look at the manual?
I bought a K4 Nordic version, only to learn none of their software supports it. So i can't reconfigure the firmware.
The keyboard has swapped Super/Alt (Windows/Alt) on the windows layout which is so annoying. I hate spending money on hardware so i'm living with it, but i curse the engineer that burned the prom every day.
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.
Yeah on the mac it works fine. The keyboard just shipped with the Left Alt and Left Windows key in the correct positions, but they are mapped opposite in the firmware. Imagine how maddening it was in the beginning.
GP’s point is that many keyboards these days come with a Mac/Windows switch, and one of the things that switch does is swap the keycodes sent by the Alt and Win keys—the “Mac” behaviour is exactly what you’re describing. (The other thing it does is toggle FnLock for the F-keys.) So if I had a problem like yours with my keyboard I’d think that the Mac/Win switch were in the wrong position. If I’m reading page 9 of the manual[1] right, on the K4 the switch in question is right next to the USB-C port.
If you're not aware, you can remap modifier keys in System Settings on macOS. It doesn't have individual settings for left/right versions of a modifier key, so keep it in whichever mode has the modifiers on left/right paired with each other correctly, and then swap their functions to the right ones.
> "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.
At least on the keychrons i've got, you can absolutely configure layout changes via key combination, and that slide switch is just an input like every button is an input.
I've got 2 that both run QMK firmware, so maybe the non-QMK ones can't do that, but at least some can.
Have been using one of their keyboards for two years switching between windows and macos and that key was not the one that wore out first.
Plus on most keyboards you could configure the layout switch with qmk anyways.
I like their products, but I recently discovered that two separate keyboards that I bought a couple of years ago are not actually hot swap despite claiming to be.
On the bright side, both demonstrated very strong solder joints when pulled on fairly aggressively.
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.
I only bought one keyboard from keychron and it was flaky from day one. It's the simplest keyboard they sold - wired, non hot swap. I don't know how to diagnose and fix the problem or I might try. In the end it wasn't worth $50, and you can get other Chinese mechanical keyboards for half the price with seemingly better quality control. Really can't recommend keychron
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.
And, in an era where vendor software and firmware for all kinds of devices is constantly having vulnerabilities, it is possible the liability of doing custom shit will eventually outweigh whatever benefits hardware companies seem to think it has, versus just having industry standards and free software instead. But, maybe that is wishful thinking.
My only complaint with Keychron is that of 5 or so keyboards I've owned from them I wound up having to resolder 3 different hotswap sockets on 2 different keyboards right out of the box. That is... Not a fantastic failure rate. OTOH, they are otherwise an unambiguously great value, with materials and build quality that feels pretty impressive for the cost, QC issues notwithstanding.