Only buy a magnetic keyboard for gaming

For anyone wondering, this is the keyboard in the image at the top of the article: https://nuphy.com/collections/he-keyboards/products/nuphy-fi...

I was intrigued by the design so I wanted to share.

Interesting, their configuration tool runs in browser and they explicitly mention linux; I don't have much experience with gaming keyboards but the only one I bought in the past had some windows-only configuration software and was a bit of a pain.

(this keyboard does not appear to be QMK-based, but for the record) any keyboard that runs QMK (an open-source firmware for keyboards) will offer the same experience. web-based configurator and full linux support.

I think mean to say QMK?

Configuration stored _on the device_ and not needing the software to autorun every time you reboot to get your settings back, should really be a no-brainer. There's unfortunately enough gaming keyboards and mice out there who haven't got this yet.

I'm usually ambivalent about keyboards but... that one looks pretty sick. I'm still using a Filco Majestouch for my gaming / day to day use but it's at the end of its lifetime, some buttons need to "warm up" a bit before they register nowadays.

Nuphy's other keyboards, such as the Air v2 (which I own and use), are QMK based. It's just the hall effect keyboards that aren't.

Many mechanical keyboards use firmware works with Web Apps that use WebUSB/WebHID APIs to allow easy cross-platform configuration. It's a welcome change over dedicated desktop software for your keyboard. All the configuration is stored and behavior is managed on the keyboard itself. This doesn't get you cool things like keyboard LED interactivity, but I can live without that.

I'd love to see some standard HID feedback channel for interactive keyboard LED control. My previous Logitech keyboard had some fun interactions with Factorio that I miss. Things like flashing a specific letter or using the backlighting to show a progress bar.

This is why WebUSB/WebBT is a good thing, you can build configuration tools that run anywhere and are easily ported offline or replicated.

"Handy" and "a good thing" are not the same thing.

USB and BT are security nightmares, and the browser is a fantastic sandbox. I'm pretty sure a lot of 0-days will come from there.

RAZR is the worst offender here

I bought this in their pre-release sale and sold it immediately after the first day. It’s incredibly large and heavy, cheap keycaps, action doesn’t really feel nice for typing, latency was high, wired only, and I could not find a good use for the multi-stage-activation feature.

With the high latency (I measured up to 90ms at 1000hz which is ridiculously high), and competitive games banning use of macros, it’s pretty useless for gaming.

Shame they don't make a full sized keyboard.

As always you have a choice between things existing at all on Linux or fretting about the security issues that so far have not materialized.

I also have a poor experience with a Nuphy wireless keyboard - it suffers terribly from interference. If the dongle is further than a ft away, especially if there's no line of sight, then it has terrible latency + will miss keypresses + double keypress.

I still use it every day and have for a couple years now, but it's annoying to have to have the keyboard so close to my dock.

Makes me wonder what Logitech is doing differently with their 2.4ghz dongles that makes them work so well.