I’ve been looking for a new mechanical keyboard, but every brand that I’ve checked out has some kind of problem with them that kills it for me.
I’m looking for:
- Full size
- Pre built
- Hot-swappable switches
- Compatible with third party switches
- Backlit
- Offline software
The Keychron V6 Ultra 8K seems like it’s exactly what I want, but their software is some asinine online only webapp. There is no offline app from what I could find. I would take an electron app over reaching out to a server to utilize my offline hardware.
I’ve cheched:
- Keychron - online only software
- Ducky - online only software, not compatible with third party switches
- Cherry - Not hot swappable
- Topre - Not hot swappable
- Chilkey - No full size boards
- Wooting - Not compatible with third party switches
I think there’s some others I’ve checked, but there’s too many to list/remember.
Does anyone have input or suggestions? This is the first time I’ve really tried looking through all of the options. Before I just went to Logitech or Corsair and called it a day. At this point, I feel like I’m just gonna stick with a membrane keyboard.
I swear by Razer Ornata
Programmable in Linux as well as Windows
Perfect clickiness, not too loud not too soft, lets me type fast fast fast
The VIA software is online only for convenience. It’s open source and you can run it yourself offline or get a pre-packaged desktop version.
E: Didn’t realize they now have a different software app.
The Keychron software is only for loading a config to the keyboard, or pulling a config for backup. The entire config lives on the keyboard after that.
You only have to use it temporarily while making changes to the keyboard, it’s not running or connected beyond that, and isn’t required at all if you don’t want to change anything.
You can also use VIA (also online but only when needed) with Keychron, but I’ve not had much success lately with it.
You can also just download the firmware source files, and then modify, build, and install the firmware locally without ever connecting to the internet.
Ty for the feedback!
My main problems with their software is that it’s Chromium based browsers only and they don’t provide a local workaround when their service eventually stops, either because they go under, they no longer support the keyboard, or some other stupid reason. Then the board is stuck as-is forever for people who don’t know where to look.
I’ll look into the other options, though.
