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Various patents expired and now you can get excellent typing keyboards from China for $30-50. Basically everyone I know who types for a living has one. Gamers

by arcologies1985 8mo ago

Various patents expired and now you can get excellent typing keyboards from China for $30-50. Basically everyone I know who types for a living has one. Gamers have moved on to analog keyboards which are controversial because some of their features straddle the line into cheats. e.g. with an analog keyboards you can negate all inertia in Counter-Strike or do speed tricks in Trackmania not otherwise easily accessible to keyboard players.

FuturisticLover 8mo ago
In India, many brands are now offering low-cost mechanical keyboards. They were costly earlier but one can find super amazing one with 50% less cost now.
reedlaw 8mo ago
Could you give examples of excellent typing keyboards from China for $30-50? Every mechanical keyboard I've owned eventually suffered from key chatter or inconsistent actuation.
- riskable 8mo ago
  Just get a hall effect or TMR keyboard and all your problems with key chatter will go away. Also, I recommend you just build it yourself. It's a fun hobby and if you don't know how to make PCBs it's a great way to learn (keyboards are one of the easiest things to make from a PCB complexity standpoint). Ever play "connect the dots" as a kid? That's what it's like making a keyboard PCB. It's the adult version of "connect the dots". It's not a "rabbit hole", it's a pending addiction :D
  - reedlaw 8mo ago
    From the article I like the characteristics of hall effect better than TMR (although one of the cons under HE, "Since the sensor is reading magnet position, any wobble in the switch can change the magnet’s alignment and affect the signal", is a bit troubling). There are indeed $30-50 ones on Amazon. Any particular brand recommendations?
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
- arcologies1985 8mo ago
  If you notice these things at all, you are the target market for an analog keyboard.
  - reedlaw 8mo ago
    Under the Cons section the article says: > Full analog functionality often depends on proprietary software support (and not all boards execute it well). Could you elaborate how that works? I'm on Linux. I find with Keychron I can visit the web-based tool to configure the keyboard, but if it's proprietary software I'm out of luck.
    - arcologies1985 8mo ago
      I use a Wooting which is largely open source on GitHub. Also their config tool is only needed to set up your keyboard, the config is saved onto the keyboard and persists across devices, OSes, etc. Looks like their config software works on Linux if you set up udev to allow it to flash the keyboard: https://help.wooting.io/article/147-configuring-device-access-for-wootility-under-linux-udev-rules https://help.wooting.io/article/147-configuring-device-acces...

FuturisticLover 8mo ago

In India, many brands are now offering low-cost mechanical keyboards. They were costly earlier but one can find super amazing one with 50% less cost now.

reedlaw 8mo ago

Could you give examples of excellent typing keyboards from China for $30-50? Every mechanical keyboard I've owned eventually suffered from key chatter or inconsistent actuation.

riskable 8mo ago
Just get a hall effect or TMR keyboard and all your problems with key chatter will go away. Also, I recommend you just build it yourself. It's a fun hobby and if you don't know how to make PCBs it's a great way to learn (keyboards are one of the easiest things to make from a PCB complexity standpoint). Ever play "connect the dots" as a kid? That's what it's like making a keyboard PCB. It's the adult version of "connect the dots". It's not a "rabbit hole", it's a pending addiction :D
- reedlaw 8mo ago
  From the article I like the characteristics of hall effect better than TMR (although one of the cons under HE, "Since the sensor is reading magnet position, any wobble in the switch can change the magnet’s alignment and affect the signal", is a bit troubling). There are indeed $30-50 ones on Amazon. Any particular brand recommendations?
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
arcologies1985 8mo ago
If you notice these things at all, you are the target market for an analog keyboard.
- reedlaw 8mo ago
  Under the Cons section the article says: > Full analog functionality often depends on proprietary software support (and not all boards execute it well). Could you elaborate how that works? I'm on Linux. I find with Keychron I can visit the web-based tool to configure the keyboard, but if it's proprietary software I'm out of luck.
  - arcologies1985 8mo ago
    I use a Wooting which is largely open source on GitHub. Also their config tool is only needed to set up your keyboard, the config is saved onto the keyboard and persists across devices, OSes, etc. Looks like their config software works on Linux if you set up udev to allow it to flash the keyboard: https://help.wooting.io/article/147-configuring-device-access-for-wootility-under-linux-udev-rules https://help.wooting.io/article/147-configuring-device-acces...