Leading action-and webcam brand Insta360 has gifted real gold keycaps to its most valued employees. SCMP reports that this generosity has become something of a tradition in recent years at the Shenzhen, China-based imaging technology firm. On ‘Programmer’s Day’ last month, for example, 21 keycaps were gifted, worth up to $45,000 each.

The firm’s practice of sharing out golden gifts reportedly started around four years ago. This likely coincided with the firm gaining traction and a good reputation for its imaging hardware.

Since that time, and over consecutive ‘Programmer’s Day’ events in China, Insta360 has reportedly given away 55 gold keycaps. It is notable that, as the price of gold has climbed, the monetary value of these keycap gifts has more than doubled since the tradition began.

Established gold culture

Now, a ‘gold culture’ seems to be firmly embedded at Insta360. At a party last year, the SCMP reports that a 50-gram pure gold bar was presented to a competition winner. A recently married couple (both employees) was also gifted a pure gold coin. Moreover, to mark the firm’s 10-year anniversary in July, everyone at the company (including interns) was given a gift box including pure gold stickers.

Thus, it isn’t surprising that the prominent imaging brand has started to become known as the ‘gold factory’ among locals.

Management philosophy

Gold keycaps symbolize that each keystroke is a touch that “turns the stone into gold,” says Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang. The boss explained to the SCMP that the value of gold, in his eyes, comes from its implications of stability and reliance.

This philosophy seems to be going down well with employees and envious folk at other firms. One Insta360 employee is quoted as saying, “I will work harder and fill my whole keyboard with gold keycaps.”

We awarded the Insta360 Link the Best Webcam for Content Creators award in our frequently updated roundup, and please check out the full review. However, there are newer models from the firm on the market now, with AI enhancements.

As an occasional keyboard reviewer and dabbler in the vast, deep waters of the custom keyboard hobby, I regularly find myself wondering about the latest (tactile) switches and perusing the seemingly endless spectrum of keycaps. On that journey, I've occasionally encountered Awekeys, a company that takes a step up from the typical ABS or PBT plastic, and crafts its keycaps from metal. So when the company reached out about its latest offering – a Viking-inspired metal keycap set with a distressed or antique finish – my fingers couldn't resist trying them out.

Awekeys' sent me the "Thor Copper" set with traditional legends and some Norse-inspired accent keys, but the set will also be offered in "Frigg Silver" and "Odin Gold," as well as with runic sublegends corresponding to the alphabet used by Germanic tribes before they adopted the Latin alphabet. As someone whose living room has several copper accents and who has also visited several Viking-era sites in the far north of Scotland, this keycap set felt like it was made for me. So I removed the wood-themed keycaps I'd been using on the Keychron K2 HE Special Edition for the past couple of months and began installing the Awekeys keycaps.

What exactly goes into a metal keycap set, and how much does it cost?

The Viking Antiques keycap set may come in copper, gold, or silver, but the metal at the core is a copper and nickel alloy that gives the caps an extremely solid and hefty feel – arguably too hefty, at least when it comes to the space bar, but I'll get back to that. An Awekeys representative tells me the antique copper set I typed this review on is plated with real copper along with a protective nano-coating. The texture is somewhat slick and smoother than it looks in photos, but the extra weight and coolness of the metal give the typing experience a unique and premium feel. And barring something disastrous like a house fire, they do feel like they'll last forever – as you might expect from keycaps made from a similar alloy as the U.S. nickel.

How much coin do you have to throw down to own a set of coin-like keycaps? Well, that depends. As the company has done in the past, it's launching these keycaps via Kickstarter with significantly lower prices if you order early in the process (the first 24 hours of the campaign or throughout if you pledge $2 to become an Awekeys VIP). A kit for 60% keyboards is $139 at the reduced price, or $209 MSRP if you miss the early window or aren't a VIP. An 80% kit will start at $149 for VIP members or first-day pledgers (also $209 MSRP), and a 100% kit will be available at $179 for VIP or first-day orders, with a $279 MSRP.

The above prices are for the copper set I tested or the silver colorway. Gold, which the company says is more complicated to produce, starts at $189 / $299 for the 60% base kit, and jumps all the way up to $299 / $499 for the 100% gold kit. These prices don't include the five accent keys (the world tree, Odin's ravens, Viking ship, warrior, and wolf) which are $79 extra for copper and silver and $99 for gold. There are various other add-ons, as well as a third early bird pricing tier if you miss the first day of the campaign but pledge before those kits sell out.

There is no denying that the price of these keycaps is high – especially if you don't get in early. But unlike previous kits, the company is at least offering lower-priced options for sub-100% keyboards so you don't have to pay for keycaps you won't use. Language support now goes beyond ANSI QWERTY layouts, with legends available in German, Nordic, Japanese, and Korean. The rune sublegends, runes-only, and blank keycaps are also options. The company says if they get enough interest in other languages, they may expand the legend options further.

As always, we caution that pledging to a crowdfunding campaign is not the same as buying something. There is no guarantee in these situations that you will get your pledged items as described – or at all, particularly if the pledge goal isn't met. But the $40,000 goal seems reasonably modest, and the company has completed four previous campaigns in the past. Still, pledge at your own discretion.

Installation

The custom-cut foam packaging of the metal keycap set is arranged in two layers, and, once I set them both out on my coffee table, finding the right keys was easy thanks to the clear legends (a major issue I had with the above-mentioned wood-themed keycaps). Installing the individual metal keycaps is a similar experience to plastic caps, lining up the stem holes with the switch stems, and I didn't run into any major issues getting all the Awekeys keycaps on the Keychron K2.

That said, there were some oddities. Many of the switches didn't press all the way down on the stem at first, even though they felt like they did. Once all the keys were covered with the copper caps, I noticed about a third of the keys were slightly taller than the rest. So I had to methodically go through all the keys and press them down harder than I've had to with any other keycaps, and most of them snapped down further onto the switches with an audible sound.

You also might notice that the stem attachment points don't have the typical circular enclosure as is typical with plastic keycaps. But if anything, the metal keycaps seem to fit more snugly on switches than most plastic keycaps. And while there is some keycap wobble if you go looking for it, it wasn't enough that it bothered me and it didn't make the caps feel cheap at all.

In the end, with my Keychron setup, a few of the keys were shorter or taller than those surrounding them, though the issue is clearly with the non-standard layout of the Keychron keyboard I used. The delete key, pushed over one spot from the right corner by the dedicated lighting key, was shorter than the caps that surround it. And the home key, normally near the top of the keyboard, was taller than the other keys surrounding it because Keychron chose to move it three rows down from its usual spot. These are issues you're likely to encounter to some degree with aftermarket keycaps and any non-standard keyboard layout, so Awekey isn't at fault here. Still, when you pay this much for metal keycaps, it's the kind of small imperfection that can sometimes be hard to ignore. If your keyboard's software allows for it, you could of course reassign keys to better fit the kaycap layout, but personally, I'd rather live with a few taller or shorter keys than try to re-train my muscle memory about where keys are "supposed" to be.

Awekeys also included the five Viking-themed accent keys in the box. I chose the standard-sized Yggdrasil cap for the lighting control button in the upper-right corner, and the dual-width Huginn and Muninn (Odin's ravens) key as a replacement for the standard backspace key. To balance those accent keys on the right side out, I eventually replaced the caps lock key with one with a picture of a Viking ship (possibly Naglfar). There's also a wide accent key depicting a warrior with an axe and shield that looks like it could replace the enter or left shift keys, but as of this writing, that one and the wolf cap are still in the foam packaging, along with the 30 or so extra keycaps that you'll need if your keyboard is full-sized.

Typing experience

Because the copper/nickel keycaps weigh so much more than typical plastic caps, they add a surprising amount of weight both literally to the heft of your keyboard and to the overall typing experience – and some of that takes some getting used to. Keychron lists the K2 HE Special Edition I used to test the Awekeys caps as weighing 966 grams. With the Awekeys metal keycaps installed, the keyboard weighs 1,433 grams. That's a 48% weight increase for this keyboard, or a little over a pound for the installed keycaps. And keep in mind that's without the 30 or so keys I didn't use. Adding the full set will likely add about a pound and a half to your 100% keyboard.

And while the added weight isn't necessarily a bad thing (unless maybe you often travel with your keyboard), it does change the typing experience. As you might imagine, the heavy metal keys change the sound that the keyboard makes when you type, adding a deep, authoritative thock that sometimes (but not always) sounds metallic. With this Keychron keyboard, I found the spacebar sounded the most metallic when I thumbed it. It's not an unpleasant sound and could probably be lessened by upgrading the stabilizers.

But depending on your switches, you may want to do that, and change the switch for the spacebar. The large spacebar keycap in particular is so heavy that I frequently found myself entering spaces when I didn't intend to. My thumbs have a tendency to rest on my spacebar when I type, it seems, and because the metal is so heavy, even the slightest brush of a thumb would insert a space (or ten) when I where it didn't belong. After a few days, my thumbs got used to this issue and it happened a lot less as I learned to hold them above the spacebar, but at least in the 10 days or so I've been using these keycaps so far, my thumbs would still occasionally "forget" and I'd have to delete a few extra spaces.

Even picking the keyboard up quickly off my desk caused the spacebar to press, at least with the Gateron HE switches that shipped with the Keychron K2 HE review unit I'm using. Keychron says those switches have a 40-gram starting force, and an Awekeys rep told me the company recommends "starting with a 60gf spring for the best balance." So it seems the switches I'm using aren't the best fit for these keycaps, but I really only have an issue with the space bar. The problem for my situation specifically is that because this is a magnetic switch keyboard that only officially supports Gateron's HE switches, I can't just drop in some random mechanical switch I might have lying around with a stronger actuation force. And from what I can find online, the Gateron HE switch with the highest starting force tops out at 50gf. So if you like light switches or your keyboard uses hall-effect (magnetic) switches, make sure to check your switch options before buying. And considering HE switches are the hot thing in keyboards right now, that's likely to be an issue that many users with recent keyboards might encounter when using metal keycaps.

In the meantime, I'll be here trying to get my thumbs to stop brushing against the spacebar a few times a day. Or maybe I'll eventually disassemble the switch under the spacebar and insert a stronger spring. I wouldn't say the spacebar weight issue is a deal-breaker, but it probably isn't something most people think about when considering buying luxury keycaps. Since I didn't have this issue with any of the other metal keycaps in the kit, Awekeys might want to look into tweaking the spacebar to make it a little lighter.

Also a note for gamers, particularly those already using HE switches. While I didn't have any major issues as a casual gamer, if you've trained your fingers and fine-tuned your magnetic switches to very specific actuation tolerances, you're probably going to have to re-adjust your settings after installing these keycaps, because they definitely weigh substantially more than the plastic caps you're probably using now.

Bottom line

After considering Awekeys metal keycaps over the last couple of years as I stumbled on them in social posts, emails, and ads, I was intrigued to try them out. And after spending a couple of weeks using the company's antique copper set, the experience has been very positive. I like the way they feel, love the deeper sound, and of course they look like noplastic keycap and should last for several years – if not decades. If you're after "endgame" keycaps for your "endgame" custom keyboard and you like the way these (or the silver or gold variants look), then these caps might be exactly what you're after.

That's not to say my experience with these copper caps was perfect. Unless you never leave your thumbs near the spacebar when you type (or maybe your switches of choice have a heavy actuation force), you may find yourself dealing with several accidental spacebar presses per day. I certainly did, and while the issue did happen less as my thumbs adjusted, it never went away completely. And due to the extra weight of the keys, serious gamers will likely have an even bigger adjustment to deal with.

Mostly though, I think if Awekeys could just find a way to lighten the weight of the spacebar keycap in particular, that would eliminate the vast majority of the frustrations I had with this metal set. Of course, pricing will also be a frustration for many. I could see myself spending around $150 for a set of metal keycaps. And if you get in on the ground floor of the company's Kickstarter, that's around what you'll pay for the 80% kit. But the full $209 price for the 80% kit feels like a lot. And the $279 MSRP for the 100% (or $299 for the gold model) makes it feel like the kind of thing that Vikings used to raid monasteries to acquire. For those who already spend several hundred dollars on high-end custom keyboards, dropping $200-$300 (or more) on keycaps that may last longer than the fingertips you use to press them might seem reasonable. For the rest of us, plastic keycaps still get the job done, even if they don't feel or sound as nice as metal.

HyperX, HP's peripherals brand, is launching a new line of cutetastic keycaps, headset stands, microphone holders and other personality-driven accessories that are manufactured using the company's industrial-strength Jet Fusion 580 3D printers. The new line of "personalized" accessories will be known as HX3D, with the first accessory, a Cozy Cat keycap, available for $19.99 on HyperX.com later this month.

At HP's pre-CES demo, we got to take a look at number of sample keycaps, headset stands, headset clip-ons and other models that may or may not be available for sale at some point. Most of them had a very cutesy design, with bright pastel colors and the shapes of adorable cartoonish animals such as rubber ducks or unicorns. 

Some of the sample accessories also looked like skeletons or demons. But they were still cutesy in a Hello Kitty sortof way. 

The Cozy Cat itself is an adorable 3D cartoon cat with a blue, snow-flake scarf that's adorned with the HyperX logo. You definitely wouldn't want to do any serious typing with this keycap, but maybe  you could place it on the Esc key or one of those Scroll lock keys you never use.

HyperX announced that it plans to have limited-time keycap sales like the one with the Cozy Cat throughout the year. It also released a YouTube video that shows some of the sample accessories in action, including a headset add-ons, stands and keycaps. 

The company says it will be working with designers and esports personalities to come up with more fun accessories to sell. But despite what HyperX says in its press materials these don't really "take hardware personalization to a new level," because while they allow you to decorate your gear, they aren't unique to each consumer; they just are whatever the company chooses to sell.

The fact that these HX3D products are manufactured by 3D printers is interesting, but not particularly relevant to the consumer who buys them. HyperX told us that it is using HP Jet Fusion 580 Color 3D printers and printing the accessories in nylon. These printers cost around $50,000 new (or $32,000 used on eBay) so it's not like you could 3D print these models at home with the same quality. Also, HyperX has not revealed any plans to share the design files it's using so, even if you have one of the best 3D printers for consumers, you couldn't attempt to make one of these accessories at home.

Finally, it's clear that HyperX isn't printing these accessories to order, but just making them in these limited edition batches. So whether your keycaps is made in a mold or on a 3D printer doesn't really change anything for you. If you could design your own HyperX accessory online and then have it printed for you, then this would be a really unique and interesting use of the technology.

HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mice

If you're looking for a lightweight gaming mouse, HyperX has two new choices coming in the Pulsefire Haste 2 and Pulsefire Haste 2 Wireless.  The Haste 2 (wired) tips the scales at just 53 grams and uses a special 26K DPI sensor, along with an 8,000 Hz polling rate. 

Designed to compete with the best wireless mice, the Haste 2 Wireless is slightly heavier at 62 grams but has the same 26,000 DPI sensor. It can connect via 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth 5.0 or USB-C. Its 370 mAh battery lasts up to 100 hours on a charge.

Both mice are available in black or white colorways and have built-in RGB lighting you can control via software. They use PFTE skates that are intended to provide a smooth glide.

The Pulsefire Haste 2 and Haste 2 Wireless will be available in April for $59 and $79 respectively.

HyperX Clutch Gladiate Xbox Controller

HyperX is also coming out with its own wired Xbox controller called the Clutch Gladiate. This controller has rear buttons you can remap, textured grips, a 3.5mm audio jack and two trigger locks. It will launch in March for $34.

When it comes to Raspberry Pi Pico projects, the RP2040 microcontroller is no stranger to custom keyboards. But this one, created by maker and developer Thomas, also known as Thpoll, amps things up by splitting the keyboard into two separate halves and using keycaps with integrated OLED displays.

This keyboard features 36 individual per PCB, which is intended to provide an ergonomic element to its design. In addition to the keys, Thomas opted to include a rotary encoder on one side. This can be programmed for a variety of functions like a media controller to adjust things like volume.

The idea behind this keyboard design is to make it easy for users who use multiple layouts or speak multiple languages to change the characters on each key as needed. Instead of swapping out keycaps, users can just program the OLEDs to display whatever they want at the press of a button.

As we stated earlier, the keyboard is powered by an RP2040 which serves as its main processor. The project also required the development of a couple of custom PCBs which Thomas created from scratch. The Gerber files were made available for anyone who wants to take a closer look at their design or possibly modify them for their own creation. These are designed to support the keys, encoder, as well as the OLED displays that are placed inside the keys.

Thomas has shared plenty of details about the OLED keyboard project progress so far. When asked about the software side of things, he confirmed the keyboard was programmed using C which is one of the more popular choices along with MicroPython, so it’s no surprise to see it used here. He’s also using QMK firmware which is designed to help program custom keyboards.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, take a look at the original thread shared to Twitter to see a demo of it in action. You can also follow Thomas at Ko-fi to read more detailed updates about its creation progress. Be sure to follow Thomas for more updates and as well as any future microelectronics projects.

Nvidia has unveiled a custom keyboard keycap, described as a "celebration of GeForce RTX." The tech titan says that the new GeForce RTX Keyboard Keycap will be a perfect way to "show off your fandom." Without a doubt, to a certain section of the PC community, Nvidia's embossed brushed aluminum keyboard implant will very much be an object of desire. However, Nvidia said it won't be a retail product but an exclusive social media/community giveaway.

As pictured, the Nvidia GeForce RTX keyboard keycap is designed to replace a single standard key, and several promotional shots show it as an Escape key (Esc) replacement. This is a common 'keyboard charm' location, as it is a location where the key can look good without getting in the way of your QWERTY bashing work or play. Some keycap crafters build quite large or elaborate replacement keycaps for the Esc, and by comparison, Nvidia's effort is relatively modest. Nevertheless, it would still probably be a bit of a carbuncle if it wasn't swapped into a location at the periphery of the main input deck.

How to Acquire a GeForce RTX Keyboard Keycap

Nvidia says it will give away GeForce RTX keyboard keycaps throughout the spring and early summer. Interested parties should watch Nvidia GeForce's social media channels to spot rewards and chances to win.

Apparently demonstrating "a passion for games, graphics, and technology" in your social media interactions with Nvidia GeForce will help you with a chance of winning one of these limited edition keycaps.

PC Customization Trend Continues

PC enthusiasts and gamers love to customize their setups. So naturally, the most obvious target of custom craft is the PC case, and this outlet for artisans has become a pretty significant movement over the years. More recently, custom keycaps have come to the forefront, with a cottage industry of suppliers now thriving.

As a collector's item, Nvidia's new GeForce RTX keycap is going to be quite a treasure, thanks largely to the revered maker and the item's limited availability/distribution. 

An Asus ROG Strix branded keycap with a GPU tribute design has been spotted for sale in China. The keycap replaces your Right Shift key, and it follows the highly recognizable triple fan ROG Strix design formula. We have seen similar ideas executed before, but the new Asus ROG TouchStone goes the extra mile, or three, courtesy of its solid aluminum alloy construction and the working trio of ball-bearing fans. The packaging is pretty cool too.

The custom keycap business has grown in tandem with the mechanical keyboard boom over the 10 or 15 years. Some moderately sized companies indulge keyboard enthusiasts with keycap sets and custom caps, but you will find many are from boutique makers and trading sites like Etsy. However, one of the biggest PC components makers is now showing an interest, as Asus ROG puts its sizable boots in the field.

You must be dying to check out the specs of this new keycap, so we have put together a table breaking down all the critical aspects of this design below.

The specs appear to tick the meticulous attention to detail and premium construction boxes beloved by PC enthusiasts. Then, of course, we have the gratuitous spinning fans to distract from doing actual work on the PC, too. Moreover, it is nice to see the use of packaging here, to enhance the "new GPU installation" vibes you might be yearning for while you sit out the GPU market's shortage/pricing issues.

How much does the Asus ROG Strix TouchStone cost? This mini GPU tribute was listed at 399 Chinese Yuan by ZFrontier China, roughly $63. Sadly, we can't find any traces of this carefully crafted keycap in ZFrontier's global store.

Noctua has collaborated with Drop to create a new keycap set designed to fit Cherry MX switches. The keycaps come in Noctua's brown and white theme, which are perfect for Noctua enthusiasts, and feature a variety of configurations to suit a multitude of keyboard designs. Pre-orders are now open, with pricing starting at $115 (discounted right now from $130) for the base keycap set.

The base keycap set will come with everything you need if you are using a United States standardized keyboard layout, including a couple of extra keycaps for best compatibility with multiple keyboard layouts. With the kit, you'll also get Noctua's novelty keycap set combined with the regular set of keycaps. These come with Noctua's logo and some of its fan designs imprinted on the keycaps.

Besides the base keycap set, you can also order dedicated Numpad keycaps separately for 10-key keyboards and many other configurations, including ISO UK keycaps, Colevrak keycaps, and Ortho keycaps for more unique keyboards (and for keyboards designed for other countries).

All the keycap sets come with both Noctua brown and white colors, complimentary of Noctua's own design language on its fans. Generally, most of the outer edge keys consist of the brown color. Meanwhile, all the keys in the middle consist of Noctua's white color.

Again these keycaps are designed to fit onto Cherry MX cherry switches; however, they can also fit onto any clones you might have as well.

Today we change gears a bit, from featuring best gaming keyboards, to talk about a different type of keyboard – the fun-learning musical kind. Combining its love for music and technology, Roli created Lumi Keys, a wireless RGB MIDI keyboard controller designed to work together with the Lumi app to make music learning easier and more interactive for everyone, using the learn-as-you-play approach. 

Setup

Getting setup with Lumi is very simple. Download the Lumi mobile app to your iOS or Android device (compatible devices are listed below), then pair it via Bluetooth with the Lumi keyboard. Once you’re connected, you’ll get access to the Lumi library, where you can either dive right into learning to play a song or study the basics first by watching the video tutorials. 

Lumi Keys and Lumi App Specs 

Hardware: Lumi Keys 

The Lumi keyboard comes with 24 keys, featuring the Roli BrightKey technology which has "full spectrum" illumination and design inspired by Fresnel lenses (used particularly in lighthouses). This is what provides the Lumi keyboard with its bright, attractive colors that look great in dark environments but also stand out in well-lit settings. Its keys feel precise, even though they are fairly small, measuring just 19.4mm wide, which is a touch narrower than the typical 23.5mm. The high (black) key measures 9.67mm, rather than the standard 13.7 mm.

The plunge distance is 10mm, which is 92% of what you'd find on a grand piano. If you are a beginner, this may not be a concern, but experienced musicians will notice the difference and may need to get acclimated.

The Lumi Keys have a modular design, using DNA connectors (proprietary Roli magnetic connectors), so you can connect to another Lumi keyboard or to Roli's Blocks, a studio-ready mini keyboard with a variety of configurations including a drum pad. As of this writing, the software app for Lumi only supports two joined keyboards, but theoretically, more Lumi keyboards could be attached together for playing more than 48 keys at once.

Weighing 1.3 pounds and measuring at 11 x 5.5 x 1 inches, the Lumi Keys is really portable and convenient to carry around compared to other more traditional MIDI keyboards which can measure anywhere from 20 to over 50 inches in length. Portability is key to musicians on the go, and you can easily fit more than one Lumi keyboard into a regular backpack.

As a true MIDI keyboard, Lumi Keys will work with other MIDI-compatible software. Just plug it into your desktop and use it with any DAW (digital audio workstation) such as GarageBand, Kontakt, Cubase or Omnisphere.

Software: Lumi App 

The Lumi mobile app allows multiple methods of keyboard fun, including free play, jamming or learning songs. The RGB keyboard sets the stage for learning songs using the app, with color-coded notes and a Guitar Hero-like experience. As the song plays, notes scroll down on the screen with colored keys appearing for you to play on your keyboard. The more used to the learning activity you get, the easier it becomes to play without looking at the RGB keyboard. 

Challenge mode is available where, much like Guitar Hero games, it tracks your accuracy and rates your performance at the end of the song.

You can connect to the Lumi mobile app via Bluetooth and USB-C which includes MIDI out and power for charging the rechargeable lithium battery).

Content: Lumi Library 

At the heart of the Lumi app is the Lumi library, where all the content (songs and lessons) are stored and organized. It comes in two packages – Essential and Premium/Complete. The Lumi Essential is the free access service that comes with the initial package and starts you off with 60+ lessons and 40 classic songs. Once you've mastered the songs and lessons there, you can move up to Lumi Premium/Complete, which does require a subscription, but provides access to a constantly-updated library of 400+ contemporary and classical songs and over 130 interactive lessons. 

Upgrades 

Once you've settled in and gotten some knowledge under your belt, Lumi can connect you to Roli software packages like Studio Player, the Noise app and Roli Dashboard.  These are real pro tools and while Lumi can readily use the entry-level Blocks, there's no reason to not jump right into making music like the pros. Studio Player opens up a massive library of sounds and has composition tools like Smart Chords (for chord composition) and Multi-Layered Arpeggiator (for rhythmic patterns). You can add Roli Noise to your mobile iOS device for sketching out musical ideas on the fly. With Roli Dashboard, your LUMI can work with Roli’s popular Seaboard Rise and other popular DAWs.

Bottom Line

Since the advent of MIDI, making music has become more accessible to aspiring musicians. The new Lumi keyboard and app offer something everyone from beginners to professionals can appreciate.

For those who want to go Pro, Lumi provides the perfect first-step toward using Roli Blocks and instant connectivity to software packages like Roli Studio Player and the mobile Studio Noise. This is definitely a great toolset for any beginner who is wants to make the leap into serious music playing and production.

Depending on your budget, the $299 price tag may seem a tad expensive compared to other MIDI keyboards on the market. But combined with its beginner-friendly game-style learning and easy upgrade potential to pro-level tools, the Lumi is an impressive and powerful music platform for new learners and hobby musicians.

Lumi aims to inspire and cultivate a love of music by making it easy to learn, play, and make music in a fun environment. This keyboard delivers on that promise.

Keycaps are a great way to add some personality. Whether you want your best gaming keyboard's RGB to shine more brightly or want to add a splash of your favorite colors, swapping out your keyboard's original keycaps helps you boast your brand. Now, what if the brand you want to boast about is AMD? 

zFrontier, a popular gathering place for mechanical keyboard lovers in China, held a giveaway a couple of weeks ago, where an AMD and PowerColor-themed keycap set was part of the spoils. It's a shame that keycaps aren't available for purchase, since they would surely make any die-hard AMD enthusiast jump with joy.

JTKeycaps, commonly known as JTK, manufactured the keycaps. The standard height keycaps are made from ABS plastic. 43 studio, which designed the keycaps, offered them in the standard black and red theme or a black, grey and red theme.

Since it was a PowerColor-sponsored giveaway, the keycaps arrived with a fair bit of marketing. In addition to the AMD and Radeon logos, you'll also see the Red Devil mascots from PowerColor.

There are a number of capable keycap makers in the keyboard world. It would be cool if one of them got in touch with AMD to get the chipmaker's blessing to cook something up. Custom keycaps provide a cheap way to really spice up a boring keyboard, and what better way to do so than using some from your favorite brand.

RGB is a controversial topic; you either love it or you hate it. Still, RGB has all but taken over the gaming keyboard world, with every option on our Best Gaming Keyboards page offering the ability to drench its keys in multi-colored lights. HyperX embraced the rainbow even more today, releasing its second set of pudding keycaps that make RGB look even more intense (or gaudy depending on who you ask).

Available for $25, HyperX made the pudding keycaps with a double-shot injection process, which molds two pieces of plastic together. The bottom layer is a translucent white, allowing the LEDs' light to shine  through with less hindrance and a welcomed glow. 

HyperX's latest keyboard accessory will work with any keyboard using Cherry MX-style switch stems. They come either with black or white top layers. I opted for black because I thought it’d stand out more against the bottom white layer. In the end, the contrast created a trippy style with the black tops seemingly floating on a sea of RGB, reminding us how fun RGB can be.

The key puller included with the keycaps isn't the best, but it's much better than other free pullers thrown in with a purchase. It was easy to remove each keycap from a HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini on the first try. That keyboard has HyperX switches but uses the same type of cross stem as Cherry MX switches. 

Because the keycaps are double-shot, the font also won't fade. HyperX paid extra attention to the font for its new caps -- seemingly the only real change over the previous gen -- giving them a bolder, all-caps design that arguably feels more gamer-like. The blocky vibe comes off a little robotic to me, but someone who wants their RGB to be extra powerful may very well appreciate this in your-face-font. My biggest complaint pertains to the single and double quotes button, which now has the symbols too close together compared to my original keycap.

The double-shot process also lends to a thicker keycap that's supposed to add durability and oil resistance, HyperX noted in its announcement.

Like the prior generation released in 2019, HyperX's new pudding keycaps are PBT plastic. This is a more premium and durable plastic than ABS, although it'll still scratch if you use the puller incorrectly. PBT is also less slippery than ABS and more resistant to fingerprints. The HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini I used to test out the keycaps already came with PBT keycaps from Ducky. Compared to the Duckys, HyperX's keycaps are slightly rougher as you can see if looking at the differing textures very closely. 

HyperX's pudding keycaps certainly made my keyboard's RGB more appealing. The One 2 Mini I used is a 60% keyboard, but each purchase includes enough pudding caps to feed a full-sized keyboard's RGB needs. 

HyperX hasn't announced any keyboards with its pudding keycaps pre-installed, but a rep told us to "stay tuned." 

Following a handful of big names in the component and peripherals market, Corsair announced that it has a pair of aftermarket keycap kits.

We knew the company was at least contemplating creating these kits, and it makes sense. Even as the overall mechanical keyboard market expands, there’s a growing divide between the gaming keyboard types and the DIY builders / typing enthusiasts. Aside from matters of taste, one of the key criticisms enthusiasts have about the gaming keyboards from big brands like Corsair, Logitech, and Razer is the ABS keycaps with lasered legends. It’s widely accepted that ABS plastic is inferior to PBT (not to mention thinner), and laser-ablated legends don’t hold up as well as doubleshot legends.

Doubleshot caps actually have two molds, one inside the other, with the interior mold providing the color of the legends. Thus, the legends basically don’t fade at all, because they're not printed or etched.

These new Corsair caps are PBT doubleshot, which will appeal to hardcore keyboard types, and what’s more, the legends are clear to allow for RGB backlighting--a feature that is not especially common on aftermarket doubleshot caps.

One may question why Corsair felt the need to make its own keycap sets; after all, there’s a robust market for keycaps of all kinds. Thus, it should follow that people who like Corsair keyboards but pine for better caps could just grab the ones they want and pop them on. But (for reasons we still don’t understand), Corsair employs a non-standard bottom-row layout, which makes finding aftermarket caps for its keyboards difficult. These new kits solve that problem for Corsair keyboard owners.

The sets come in white or black, and they’re full sets (104/105 keys) for “North American, British, and International English layouts.” Note that they won’t pair with the K68, and there are no caps for the additional macro keys found on the K95, K95 RGB, and K95 RGB Platinum. Further, because of Corsair’s oddball layout, these kits are going to work only with Corsair keyboards, so they’re a product exclusively for people who buy a Corsair keyboard and want a little upgrade in the keycap department.

Each set costs $50. They’re ostensibly available now, but both kits are listed as “out of stock” on Corsair’s site.

In any case, Corsair gets extra credit for a superb marketing tag: “Legends Never Fade.”

Custom Keycap Sets

The keycaps that came with your keyboard were probably not designed to be eye-catching. That's why custom keysets have become so popular in the last few years. What once was a small niche for enthusiasts has expanded. Well, it's still a niche, but there are many more people crammed into it now.

Some custom keysets sell thousands of units, but they're available only for limited production runs. That means some of these gorgeous keysets end up becoming incredibly valuable as collector’s items. We’ve gathered a list of some of the best and/or rarest custom keysets, which predictably are also the most expensive to obtain.

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HyperFuse

Hyperfuse was first run in 2013 by a keyset outfit known as [Ctrl]alt. It was offered in a flat DSA and sculpted DCS profile. DSA has its fans, but DCS isn't very common. Still, people loved the combination of white, purple, and cyan. In 2015, Hyperfuse was rerun in GMK's Cherry profile. These thick, doubleshot ABS caps proved extremely popular. Resale prices for this set went through the roof in early 2016. After commanding $300-400 for a while, the price came back down after keyboard retailer Originative worked with [Ctrl]alt to run GMK Hyperfuse again. In addition to GMK, Originative has shipped the DSA version and a taller, sculpted profile called SA.

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Carbon

A user on the Geekhack forums known as T0mb3ry posted the first renders of his Carbon keyset in 2015. It's essentially an homage to number 6 on the periodic table, with a ton of cool novelty caps. It uses complementary shades of cream, dark gray, and orange. It was a huge hit when it ran on Massdrop a few months later, and it has since become one of the most desirable and valuable sets. The first round was done in the retro-style SA profile by Signature Plastics (SP), but it's also been produced in Cherry profile by GMK. In the recent second round sale of Carbon SA, demand was so high that delivery isn't expected until March 2018 at the earliest. Getting just the base set of Carbon SA or GMK will probably run you $250-300.

Update: 6 on the periodic table, not 12 as was originally written above.

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Miami

If you're into the retro "outrun" visual style, you'll probably love the Miami keyset. This combo of pink and blue was first produced by [Ctrl]alt in doubleshot ABS. The colorway proved so popular that it's been made in other profiles like SA and Cherry (by GMK). You can even pick it up on the cheap as a Tao-hao PBT plastic set in OEM profile, which is similar in shape to the keycaps that ship on most boards. The legends on Tai-hao sets don't look as crisp as those on the more expensive versions, though.

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Honeywell

The historic tech firm Honeywell used to have a division called Micro Switch that made the Honeywell Terminal system. These devices had monochrome displays, Hall Effect switches, and a distinctive keyset. The colorway of that original Honeywell consisted of white, gray, and black with red accents. It's beautiful in an understated way. Now, it's back as a GMK keyset in doubleshot ABS. The set was run by Originative, and there are still some for sale, if you don't mind the exorbitant price.

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Godspeed

Not every keyset looks right in the tall, retro-ish SA profile, but Godspeed certainly does. This set is designed to look like a control panel from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module cockpit. It has that classic NASA off-white and blue colorway, which looks slick on the SA keys. These doubleshot ABS keycaps include a ton of fantastic novelty keys from the spacecraft like "cospar," "deploy," "stage," and "transmit." The group buy for this set was run by Massdrop, but major delays at the manufacturer pushed the ship date back by months. It was worth the wait, but it's tough to find Godspeed SA if you missed the drop. We've seen full sets of Godspeed (with the fun novelties and whatnot) re-sold for $250-300. There's another version of this colorway in XDA profile also in the works.

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Dolch

Before you could carry a supercomputer in your backpack, Dolch Computer Systems was making "portable" computers with suitcase-like form factors. They included a distinctive keyboard with dark and light gray keycaps. The elegant, minimalist Dolch colorway has been replicated in many materials and profiles over the years, perhaps most famously by Pimp My Keyboard (a storefront for Signature Plastics). These keycaps are flat DSA profile and produced in doubleshot ABS. There are also versions of Dolch in GMK's Cherry profile. Most Dolch sets also include a few red accent keys.

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Penumbra

The Penumbra colorway was designed by [Ctrl]alt to imitate the colors of the famous Solarized palette for terminal and GUI applications. It consists of light yellow alphas and dark blue modifiers with multi-colored legends. It was originally run in SA profile (doubleshot ABS) but eventually came in GMK as well. The original set suffered a delay of several years because of some mismanagement on [Ctrl]alt's end. This pushed the price of the Penumbra base set into the high hundreds of dollars on keycap-selling forums. Things have stabilized now with a second round of SA and more profiles, courtesy of Originative.

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Jukebox

You can relive the style of the 1950s with the popular Jukebox SA keyset. It was designed by community member LivingSpeedBump and has been produced twice so far. Jukebox uses light yellow, red, and minty green to recreate the retro aesthetic. The set has plenty of neat novelty caps that you might associate with the era, like a record and an atomic diagram. It was manufactured by Signature Plastics in doubleshot ABS. Jukebox has only ever been produced in SA profile, which fits the style best. The last round of Jukebox sold a ton of units, so supply isn't too limited. A base set of Jukebox will run you under $150, but the novelties will add a bit to the price.

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Granite

Created by keyset and keyboard designer Matt3o, Granite is one of the most popular keysets, and one of the few you can (sometimes) get without joining a group buy. This is a DSA set produced in PBT plastic with dye-sublimated legends. This plastic is harder than ABS, so it won't wear as quickly. The name comes from the combination of light and dark gray, but you can spice Granite up with colored accent kits if you like. After several group buys proved extremely popular, Granite is now manufactured by Signature Plastics every few months and restocked in the Pimp My Keyboard storefront. It still sells out quickly, though.

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1976

You're probably noticing a trend of keysets that evoke feelings of decades past. Well, here's another: The 1976 keyset is unique in the way it uses stripes of color to replicate one of those garish gradient effects that were common design elements back in the 1970s. Most of the keys are brown or blue, but there are vertical stripes of yellow, orange, and red, as well. The profile is SA, which certainly fits the overall aesthetic. Like most SA keycaps, these are doubleshot ABS produced by SP. One interesting quirk is that the 1976 set isn't sculpted. All the keycaps are the same shape—SA row 3, which is the home row. It's rare to see a set of 1976 up for sale or even trade online. People who bought this set tend to hold on to it. When someone does sell one (for at least $300), it goes quickly.

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Overcast

Overcast is one of the most customizable keysets we've ever seen. This set comes from designer MiTo with myriad color options and some cool "gamer-style" novelty kits. You can get keys with various weapons on them, as well as characters from games like Overwatch. It's common to cover the left side of the board around the WASD cluster with the Overcast novelty caps, which you can match with in-game keymaps. It was produced in DSA profile by SP with doubleshot ABS plastic, which was necessary because of the wide selection of colors—PBT caps with dye-sublimation work only with certain colors.

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Skeletor

Whereas some keysets like Miami are obvious callbacks to the slick, modern veneer of the 1980s, Skeletor is a bit more aloof. This set was produced in Cherry profile by GMK, meaning they're excellent quality doubleshot ABS caps. The colorway is composed of cyan and purple, which are based on Skeletor from the 1980s He-Man cartoon. (It's a bit weird when you realize that Skeletor, the big bad of the show, had light blue skin and a purple costume. What sort of skeleton has skin anyway?) The keyset is really pretty, though. It was sold by Originative for a few months before it sold out, so prices aren't out of hand. You can find a set in the aftermarket for around $175.

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DSA Quartz

Like Granite, DSA Quartz is a PBT set with dye-sublimated legends. It's mostly light gray, but the bottom row is a darker gray. The set also includes cyan accent keycaps. It's a subtle but beautiful colorway. The caps also use mono legends (only one glyph per key) for a clean look. This set is produced by Signature Plastics every few months and posted on Pimp My Keyboard, but it's around $100 for the base set.

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Troubled Minds

The villains of our childhood seem to make good fodder for keysets. There's GMK Skeletor, but before that was Troubled Minds. This SA keyset produced by SP was designed a few years ago by community member Thesiscamper. It's all purple and green, the Joker colorway. The set also has clever novelties like a "Die" cap and "Lose CTRL" instead of just "CTRL."

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Hydro

GMK Hydro has been run only once, but it was a huge hit. It's a keyset based on the Squirtle Squad from Pokemon, produced in Cherry profile with thick doubleshot ABS caps. It uses white, blue, and gray colors, along with novelty caps emblazoned with the sunglasses worn by the Squirtle Squad. If you missed the group buy, someone might sell you a Hydro set for around $200.

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Sky Dolch

We already mentioned the popular Dolch colorway, but retailer Originative came up with a cool twist on Dolch called Sky Dolch. This GMK-produced keyset has proven extremely popular, too. It has the same two-tone gray base color, but the legends are cyan. As a GMK set, it's made from thick, doubleshot ABS plastic. Re-sellers usually ask around $250 for this one.

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DSA Borealis

Borealis is a Northern Lights-themed keyset produced by SP in the flat DSA profile. The keycaps start light blue on the bottom row, getting progressively darker as you move up. The effect is supposed to look like the Northern Lights, but Borealis has another trick up its sleeve to complete the effect. The legends in this doubleshot set aren't ABS like the rest of the cap; they're glow-in-the-dark plastic. After being exposed to light, the legends glow sort of like the Northern Lights. DSA Borealis was sold for only a few months in late 2016 and early 2017 on Pimp My Keyboard. It's unclear if it will be run again, but one occasionally pops up for sale at about $100. That's not a bad price for a keyset like this one.

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Nuclear Data

Retro keyboards are a great source of inspiration for keyset designers, and such was the case with Nuclear Data. This SA keyset was produced by SP in 2014 with the intention of reviving the old-school style of keyboards produced for scientific instruments by Nuclear Data Inc. The set has dark green caps with white legends, plus some bright orange accents. It's SA, but flat R3 just like 1976. As you might expect, the novelty keys are nuclear-themed. The original group buy was small, so there's lots of demand for the set. It sells for around $300 in the aftermarket, but it's rare to see a set for sale.

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Pulse

Pulse is another keyset designed by MiTo, and it has become one of the most instantly recognizable sets out there. The striking black and cyan colorway has been produced only in SA profile courtesy of Signature Plastics. The first round sold just a few hundred units in 2014, but that was a good number at the time. The second round in 2016 sold in the thousands. You're still looking at somewhere north of $200 when someone puts their base set up for sale. The heartbeat-style novelty caps will add a bit to the cost, but those are even rarer.

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Calm Depths

The Calm Depths SA keyset was produced in 2013 by Signature Plastics. It's doubleshot ABS like most SA keysets, with a blue/gray colorway. It's a lovely set, but there are precious few floating around; the community was just so much smaller in 2013. The designer never ran it after that first go around, and consequently, the price has skyrocketed. We've seen it sell for as much as $650 in the recent past. Demand has gotten to the point that others have taken on the responsibility of reviving the set. There are preliminary plans for a new round of SA as well as DSA.

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SA Camping

The great outdoors and keyboards don't usually mix, but SA Camping brings a little of the outdoors to your keyboard. This is a sculpted SA keyset produced by SP (doubleshot ABS) and designed by Camp-Team China. As the name suggests, it's all camping themed, with a green, white, and red colorway. There are also numerous delightful novelty caps like mountains, trailers, campfires, compases, and more. This group buy happened in the summer of 2016, but it's already in high demand in the aftermarket. We've seen it sell for upwards of $350.

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Nantucket Selectric

Nantucket Selectric is half old-fashioned typewriter and half nautical-themed, but it's all awesome. It was designed by the makers of the popular Clueboard custom keyboard kit and produced in SA profile with doubleshot ABS by Signature Plastics. The colorway consists of cream and navy with yellow accents. There's also an "Amity Island" add-on kit that includes red accents with a more "dangerous" vibe. It's got shark fins, sea monsters, and skulls. It's a gorgeous set, but it’s also tough to find now. The base set without any fancy add-ons often sells for over $200.

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DSA Lightcycle

Designed by Evangs of The Van Keyboards, DSA Lightcycle is an homage to everyone's favorite '80s sci-fi film, Tron. The black, gray, and cyan keys perfectly replicate the feel of that movie, and the novelty caps are fantastic. There's an identity disc, light cycles, and "MCP," among others. It was produced by Signature Plastics, so it has sharp doubleshot legends. Unlike most sets, this one was available for both MX switches and the much less common Alps mount switches. This set just shipped recently, so it's not too overpriced on the buy/sell/trade pages, going for $175 or so.

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GMK Plum

A lot of GMK sets are mashups of the same few colors, but GMK Plum is something distinctive. This set uses custom colors that look like a plum—there's a nice, pulpy tan and a deep, muted purple. The set also has red accents in a similar muted tone. Because it's GMK, the set is Cherry profile in thick doubleshot ABS. The set looks great, and it was sold on Massdrop just last year. That means plenty were sold, and supply isn't too constrained. Still, the resale price is creeping closer and closer to $200.

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Grand Budapest

Grand Budapest is another SA keyset manufactured by SP, but this one is much more cheerful and bright than most. It uses pink, purple, and red in the style of the film The Grand Budapest Hotel. The tall, SA profile keycaps work with the aesthetic well, and there are novelties fitting for a keyset based on a fictional hotel. The old-fashioned key legends are particularly nice, and there's a "Lobby Boy" enter key.

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Replacing the keycaps on your mechanical keyboard is one of the easiest ways to customize it. All you need is a keycap-pulling tool and some snazzy replacement keycaps. Maybe that's a full set of keycaps, or perhaps just one or two extremely pretty ones. Some of the most popular so-called "artisan" keycaps are so rare that you can't even buy them outright. Sometimes an owner might offer to sell one for hundreds of dollars, but more often it’s a question of trades. The barter system is alive and well in this insular, and sometimes obsessive community of keyboard enthusiasts. But why is it like that?

Artisan Keycaps

Artisan keycaps come in all shapes, sizes, and materials, but most they're commonly composed of plastic resin and occupy the same volume as a 1-unit key on your keyboard. What makes them artisan keycaps is that someone (the artisan) designed and produced them by hand.

Most artisan keycaps start with a sculpt created in clay, and the designs are surprisingly varied. There are skulls, animals, and various types of abstract art. The sculpt is used to create a mold, which is where the actual keycaps are casted (usually under vacuum). Some keycaps are created with a single color of resin, whereas others contain multiple "shots" of colors. Casting these designs can consist of a dozen or more steps, so it's a time-consuming process. Even so, because these caps are handmade, they sometimes have  imperfections that make them unsellable.

Most keycaps are produced to fit on the standard MX switch "cross" stems, but there are also plenty compatible with less common Topre switch stems. A few even have hybrid "TMX" designs that fit on either stem. If you're wondering which type of switch your mechanical keyboard has, it's almost certainly MX. Topre boards are more expensive and harder to find, so there's virtually no one on the planet using a Topre keyboard who doesn't know they're using one.

Artisan keycaps are often cast in colors that match popular keyset colorways (that is, a specific range or combination of colors). Put the right things together, and they look like they were meant to be. In order to get a popular artisan keycap, you need to be actively watching sites like the "mechmarket" keyboard subreddit and the Geekhack forums. Makers of these caps post raffles, sometimes completely without warning. Winners are usually selected by a random number generator (RNG).

If you "win" a raffle, all you get is the chance to buy a keycap, usually for around $20 to $80. The cost and number of winners varies from one sale and artisan to the next. One thing is certain, though: The demand always vastly outstrips supply.

Custom Keysets

A full keyset comes with its own distinct supply issues. Producing a full set of keycaps requires machinery that regular people simply don't have. So, companies that exist to produce keycaps for industrial machinery and retail POS consoles are contracted to make the fancy custom sets enthusiasts are after. Even the most popular sets are a drop in the bucket compared to keycaps made for enterprise customers—enthusiasts are a tiny percentage of the business of making keycaps. So, we need to resort to group buys.

A group buy is a bit like a pre-order, except it's the buyer (you) taking the risk instead of a retailer. Many group buys are run by individuals on forums, but there are also group buys operating on sites like Massdrop and a myriad of smaller operations like KeyClack and The Van Keyboards.

In a group buy, you and a bunch of other people bundle your orders for a keyset and send the money to the organizer, who places the order. The group buy usually needs to hit a minimum order quantity (MOQ) before it will be produced—manufacturers aren't going to set up tooling to make 20 sets of keycaps, after all. So, you and a few hundred people pay your money, and some months later the keycaps are delivered fresh off the production line.

The best case scenario with keyset group buys is that you get your keycaps in three or four months. However, delays are common, and some buyers have waited a year or more for to be delivered. A few group buys were such a mess that people never got their caps at all.

Just like with artisan caps, you're essentially out of luck if you miss the original sale. Because these are limited production runs, you can't just head over to a website and buy them. Well, that's not always true; some high-quality sets are sold on sites like Pimp My Keyboard and Originative, but they aren't always in stock. The most popular sets are only available in limited quantities anyway.

The Keycap Economy

Let's say the RNG gods are not with you, and you don't get the chance to buy that artisan keycap you've been craving. You may still be able to get your hands on it, but it won't be easy. The rarity of many keycaps makes them highly valued—so much so that your money might not be any good. Instead, you have to trade other rare artisan caps. Oh, but you don't have any of those? Therein lies the problem.

You can't just jump into artisan keycap collecting one day and get the all caps you want the next. No, you have to win some raffles first. People sometimes join raffles for caps they don't even want to use because they know those caps will be good trading fodder. It can take weeks or months to build up a respectable collection via trades and raffle wins.

Combined with the extremely limited supply, the dollar value of some keycaps is obscenely high. If someone posts a Kosmonavt or Clack skull on a buy/sell/trade forum for $300, it will sell within minutes. People almost never do that, though, because there's nowhere you can go and just buy a high-quality artisan keycap whenever you want. If you're into collecting these things, you want more of them rather than fewer, and even a large sum of money is not guaranteed to get you the caps you want

The high value and rarity of artisan keycaps has led some unscrupulous individuals to try and make a quick buck. Just as there are counterfeit Rolex watches floating around the internet, the same is true of counterfeit artisan caps. They're usually of lower quality, but they might look the same in pictures, and a new collector could easily be fooled. That's why some makers have started including certificates of authenticity with their keycaps.

Just a step above the counterfeiters are those who copy popular designs, but are open about it—they’re reproductions, if you will. These caps are usually stamped to indicate they aren't the "real" version. Once a sculpt gets popular, they become nearly impossible to get. So, some people are willing to pay a few bucks for a very similar keycap. It's like buying costume jewelry instead of the real thing.

Full keysets sometimes end up with the same inflated value as artisan caps, but not to the same degree. This is more common when there are lengthy delays or mismanagement that cause people to cancel their orders. With a limited supply of sets and no way to have more made, they can become ridiculously valuable. Anyone who sticks it out and actually gets the keyset can resell them for a tidy profit. However, many owners of rare keysets will only trade them (you guessed it) for other rare keysets.

You're more likely to see people offering to sell hard to find keysets for (a lot of) cash. A keyset that costs $100 during the group buy might go for two or three times that if it ends up being popular. A few older sets like Penumbra SA and GMK HyperFuse have regularly sold for more than $500, but don't think you can just put a keyset in the closet and cash in later—you have to time the market. For example, HyperFuse was worth many hundreds of dollars for a while, but then the designer ran a second round and the resale price tanked.

It's not a conspiracy, it's a niche

Despite the high barrier to entry, the people designing these keycaps aren't doing it to spite newbies. Even as this hobby has increased in popularity, it's far from a reliable business. Artisans rarely make a living from making keycaps, so they can't just pump out handmade items all day for you to buy. Likewise, keycap manufacturers do most of their business with companies making computers, POS systems, and other devices that need keycaps in bulk. Group buy orders are a small slice of the pie.

This inevitably leads to a constrained supply, high resale prices, and the barter system for keycaps. It's not ideal, but it can end up being a fun adventure when you set out to find the perfect keycap and the RNG gods smile upon you, or you manage to put together just the right trade.

The enthusiast keyboard market is littered with smallish shops that routinely deliver the tasty variations for which keyboard nerds hunger. Vortex’ latest offers a rather specific layout and keycap set, but it should appeal to a number of people.

Called the Vibe, the keyboard is a “78%” layout--which is basically a 60% layout with a numpad attached. There’s a huge trend towards more compact layouts, from tenkeyless (numpapd removed) to 60% (usually no numpad, F keys, or navigational keys) to adorable little 40% (more or less the same as 60% but also without the number row).

A 78% layout is a curious variation because although it’s short bottom to top, it’s quite wide--long and lean, if you will. (Hey, there’s a layout for everyone.)

Vortex neglected to mention which switches would be on the Vibe (we assume it’s going to be multiple Cherry MX options), but the keyboard does feature PBT, dye-sublimated keycaps--in SA profile, which is kind of a retro-flavored favorite--with a mostly gray-and-white scheme that’s punctuated by one purple key, one light blue key, and one red key.

All of that is mounted on a CNC-machined metal chassis.

Although Vortex has been teasing the Vibe for a bit already, the company said that this is the final version. There’s no word on release timing or price.

Update, 8/9/17, 6:49am PT: Ducky responded to our queries with more information. Primarily, it's that this version of the One RGB has the same specs as the One TKL RGB. We've altered the copy below to reflect that new information. We've also acquired and added some pricing information.

Original article, 8/7/17, 1:05pm PT:

Sure, it’s essentially just a variation on a theme, but Ducky announced a full-size (“100%”) version of its Ducky One TKL RGB keyboard.

At this point, RGB lighting is not exactly a special feature, but this particular announcement is noteworthy because the keycaps are doubleshot PBT--which typically have opaque legends. These legends are transparent (or translucent, at least), though.  

Ducky said in its announcement that the Ducky One RGB is the only keyboard that offers this feature, which is probably technically true, but it’s a misleading claim. There are other doubleshot PBT caps with see-through legends--see here, here, and here for example--but this plank from Ducky may indeed be the only keyboard on the market that ships with such caps already onboard.  

It is, in any case, an attractive feature. Typically, RGB keyboards have ABS plastic caps with lasered legends. ABS is generally considered inferior plastic to PBT, and lasered legends are prone to far more wear than doubleshot legends.

These particular keycaps are made by Hardcap, a Chinese brand that uses Ducky as a distributor and partners with Varmilo.

We've confirmed with Ducky that this model has the same specifications as the TKL version (aside of the numpad), and it has Cherry MX RGB switches. We don't know which types, exactly, but we've seen Blue and Brown variants available, so presumably the 100% version will at least mirror that.

The keyboard enjoys the support of the Ducky Macro 2.0 configuration software, and it has the same soldering technique as the TKL version, as well as the same Holtek H132F1654 MCU, NKRO, 1,000Hz polling rate, and lighting effects. The cable is a removable microUSB to USB.

The TKL versions runs about $140--there are listings on Amazon and MechanicalKeyboards.com--so we presumed that the full-size Ducky One RGB will cost a bit more, but a company rep informed us that the price--which is not yet set--will be in the range of $129-139. That should push the price of the TKL version commensurately.

What was that we were just recently saying about mainstream gaming keyboard makers and aftermarket keycaps? HyperX, which already offered some replacement caps on one of its keyboards, is now selling the caps separately, too.

Take a deep breath: These aren’t actually metal caps, even though they really look like it in person. They’re ABS UV-coated plastic, with laser-etched legends. The tops have a texture that’s meant to evoke the diamond plate texture design you sometimes see in pickup truck beds and industrial workspaces.

There are two color options--red and “titanium”--and HyperX is marketing them as FPS or MOBA keycap sets by dint of the fact that the “upgrade kits” include eight caps in total--QWERASDF. You also get a keycap removal tool.

Wisely, perhaps, HyperX didn’t fiddle with the angle of the caps. Sometimes, these gaming-centric replacement caps have odd shapes, ostensibly to give you better grip or control in-game. However, we’ve found that style of replacement caps feels a little odd while gaming and downright uncomfortable for any other application, such as web browsing or writing articles. Instead, these HyperX models maintain the same profile as the rest of the keycaps, so you can leave them on whether gaming or typing, as long as the difference in texture doesn’t bug you.

One detail caught our eye: The caps come with a two-year warranty. For some products, what a warranty covers is fairly straightforward. A product fails or stops working, and you get a replacement. But how exactly does that work with keycaps? Barring some sensational trauma, they won’t “fail.” Instead, issue with keycaps typically come from “shine” or the wearing down of the legends.

We asked HyperX what exactly the warranty covers, and we received this in reply:

It covers mechanical damage or excessive wear. Shine is subjective, usually use related and would be considered normal wear and not under warranty. Regarding warranty questions, we welcome our customers to contact our Customer Service/Technical Support teams for assistance.

We would posit that “excessive wear” is also subjective, but we suppose you would need to take that up with HyperX’s customer service folks.

Either kit will run you just $15, though, so this is a low-risk product in terms of your investment. You can buy them directly from HyperX or through BestBuy or Amazon. (Weirdly, they're ever so slightly more expensive on Amazon, at $15.82.)

The keycaps that came with your mechanical keyboard are probably cheap and boring. There are snazzy custom sets that can liven things up, but you can also get a single keycap that looks absolutely amazing. Jelly Key is one of the more well-known makers of so-called "artisan keycaps," and it's just unveiled the most stunning design we've ever seen--the Forbidden Realm series, which looks like a tiny world inside a keycap.

Jelly Key, which is part of Vietnamese design company Joinhandmade, began offering artisan keycaps a little over a year ago. The first designs were nowhere near as intricate as Forbidden Realm, but the offerings have gotten consistently more impressive. Some of its past caps have sold for $20 or $30, which is cheap for an artisan of this caliber. However, more complicated designs like Forbidden Realm will cost more when they launch.

Each Jelly Key keycap is literally handmade, and the materials vary considerably from one keycap to the next. Forbidden Realm uses a wood-and-resin construction, which was used on the similar (but much less complex) Oasis keycaps. According to Jelly Key, these caps are "inspired by the greatness of nature." Each one has waves of color and protuberances of wood visible in the clear resin, which makes it look like a tiny landscape.

They’ll fit on any mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX-style switches. The cap is the same height and shape as an SA row 3 cap; thus, it's slightly taller and chunkier than a regular OEM cap on the top row, which is where most people stick artisans. Still, it will instantly be the prettiest keycap on your keyboard--if you can get one, that is. There are only three of these keycaps in the world right now.

Giveaways And Group Buys

Jelly Key is in the process of giving away the three prototype caps, which are called Cloudy Cliff, Purple Valley, and Cyan Lake. Your best bet to win one is probably the /r/mechanicalkeyboards subreddit giveaway (for the Purple Valley cap), which will wrap up later today. The other two will be given away via the Jelly Key and /r/mechanicalkeyboards Discord channels.. If you win one of the caps, Jelly Key will probably follow up to make sure the cap holds up to being on a keyboard, and then it'll plan a full production run.

Some artisans make only a few caps, and you need to pray to random number generator gods to get a chance to buy one. Jelly Key runs its new caps as group buys, which means everyone orders their caps, and then the company makes the necessary number. If you don't join the group buy, you won't be able to get a cap.

The wait time for Jelly Key artisans to be shipped is usually two or three months after the group buy finishes. You'll probably pay $50-60 for one of these Forbidden Realm caps when the sale goes live. For the time being, just cross your fingers and try to win one.

Some of the big keyboard makers want in on the aftermarket keycap business.

There are two main camps in the enthusiast keyboard world: gamers who love bright lights, bells and whistles, and granular software-based configuration controls, and hardcore typers who obsess about keycap materials and sense every nuance of a switch’s feel. The Venn diagrams of what these two groups care about overlap quite a bit, though, most notably as it pertains to aftermarket keycaps.

Up to now, replacement keycaps have primarily been the domain of hobbyists, tinkerers, and specialists. Typically, you’ll find replacement caps available in small, specialized batches. Some keyboard makers, like Varmilo, offer custom keycap-making services, though.

Getting into aftermarket caps is a veritable rabbit hole; like a kid in a candy store, you may find yourself wanting this, and this, and THIS. You can spend hundreds of dollars on a single rare set of caps.

Who's In

It is this obsession that some larger companies hope to capitalize upon. The status quo for most of them has been to sell keyboards with one set of caps. That’s what you get, and you’ll like it.

Some have toyed with secondary keycap sets--G.Skill and HyperX come to mind--and at Computex, we also spotted custom keycaps from both MSI and Thermaltake.

Also, a Corsair representative mentioned to us in passing that the company was strongly considering developing some replacement keycaps, too. There are no details to share (it's likely no details exist), but we felt it notable that such a product is being considered.

Blingy

What we saw from MSI followed the mold of G.Skill and HyperX: it’s just a few extra caps that you can swap onto, for example, your WASD keys for some extra bling and, perhaps, a more enjoyable feel when you’re gaming.

MSI had two different caps on display. Both were made of translucent red ABS plastic, but one had a rubber cap, and the other had a metal one. (That’s actual metal, mind you, not just metal-colored plastic.) There are no legends on either. Again, neither of these were a complete keycap replacement set, but hey, they could be. We were struck with how much of a departure these are from the higher-end replacement caps you usually see--PBT caps with doubleshot or dye sublimated legends. In that sense, MSI isn’t going to satisfy the keyboard enthusiasts, but it just might entice the more gamery types who love flash and bling. 

PBT From Tt

Whereas MSI (and others) went with just a handful of replacement caps, Thermaltake went the extra mile with 38-key cap replacements, as well as one full set (104 keycaps).

The former are doubleshot PBT caps (and they cost $30), although we’re not certain how the legends were added. The color choices are, perhaps, somewhat odd though: You can choose between pink caps or powder blue ones. That’s not to say anything disparaging about either color choice, but those are the only two? Further, those don’t exactly match Thermaltake’s design aesthetic, and presumably, the company would want you to use these with its own keyboards.

Thermaltake’s other set of caps--the full 104--are a total departure. They’re translucent, with virtually no color tint (just a “stealth white smoke finish”) and no legends, so your backlighting just explodes through them. One can imagine what that would look like with switches that have clear housings, like Cherry MX RGB switches. It’s not clear what material these are made of, but our money is on ABS plastic. These caps will run you $35 for a set.

The Beginning...

We’re likely seeing the beginnings of a trend here, where major companies accustomed to serving one type of keyboard enthusiast is looking at that other half of the community and pondering how to get those folks roped in, too. The above represent some recent (and in the case of Corsair, future) attempts. We’re not sure any are making much of a splash just yet, but the fact that they’re at least getting their feet wet is a sign that perhaps we’ll soon see a bigger and broader market for replacement keycap sets from mainstream gear makers.

You can’t always have it all, we suppose, and that’s the idea behind Cooler Master’s Masterkeys Lite L mouse and keyboard combo. The kit gives you a svelte, compact keyboard with Cooler Master’s “mem-chanical” switches in lieu of real mechanical switches.

But they are Cherry-compatible. What that means is although the performance of the switches is less satisfactory than on a mechanical keyboard, you can at least swap out the key caps for some aftermarket ones that have the Cherry-compatible cross stem. It also has a standard bottom-row layout (unlike some other Cooler Master keyboards), which key cap swappers will be pleased to see.

Cooler Master also saw fit to offer RGB lighting, and the translucent plastic backplate creates a beautiful, dispersed lighting effect.

Typing: Click, Clack, Buzz

Ideally, these almost-mechanical switches are meant to offer a “pretty good” typing experience, but I would rate it as “pretty bad.” The keys are somehow at once mushy but require a surprising amount of force to depress--so much so that I could feel the stress in my wrists almost immediately. The specs state that the mem-chanical switches require 50g of force, but I felt a lot of resistance that seemed to require more. (For context, I put the Masterkeys Lite L combo under my fingers right after spending a long time with a Topre RealForce keyboard.)

These keys have have no click, but they do have a tactile bump (like Brown switches). They have a “clack” when the switch bottoms out, but it’s an inconsistent sound and feel switch-to-switch.

Worst of all, the Costar-style stabilizers on the wider keys have an additional buzzing rattle.

There’s a metal backplate under the plastic backplate, and you can feel the support it provides, but the plastic (waterproof!) portion adds some slop to the feel.

Some Pros, Though

One aspect of the stabilizers I did like, though, is that unlike most Costar-style stabs that are a pain to get on and off, you can pop these switches back on with no trouble. The backplate holds the wires in such a way that the plastic clips snap right back onto them.

The Masterkeys Lite L has a compact, simple keyboard design with a touch of flair: It’s a simple black rectangle with the RGB lighting popping out from under the keys. There are no passthrough ports or extra media buttons to take away from the sleek look.

To keep things additionally simple, all of the lighting controls are on the keyboard itself, so you don’t need to mess with Cooler Master’s software. Using various key combinations, you can cycle through a number of different lighting modes, change the lighting direction, change the speed at which features change, adjust the repeat rate, and employ Windows lock or full keyboard lock. You can incrementally dial red, green or blue up or down to achieve a numerous different colors.

Key combinations also give you media controls including play/pause, stop, forward/back, and volume up/down.

The Mouse

The mouse part of the Masterkeys Lite L combo has six buttons (L/R, forward/back on the left side, clickwheel [with a TTC encoder], single DPI button). It offers an Avago 3050 optical sensor (up to 2,000 DPI) and Omron switches, and it weighs just 91g. It has a simple black chassis that’s accented by LED lighting under the clickwheel and along the bottom of the palm rest. Three Teflon feet reside underneath.

You can’t tell which DPI settings you get when you click the DPI button, but there are four levels. Presumably, the highest of the four is the max 2,000 DPI the sensor supports. The lowest setting feels like 500 DPI or so.

One clever feature of the mouse is that you can adjust the lighting with mouse button combinations. For example, you can turn the lights off or back on by pressing the DPI button plus the right-click button, and you can cycle through the lighting effects with DPI+clickwheel.

The mouse is right-handed, but otherwise it seems acceptable for palm, fingertip or palm grips. The tapered sides give you a nice grip, too.

The Masterkeys Lite L RGB combo costs $59.99, so you can get a pair of peripherals with fun lighting effects and attractive design for not too much dough. However, the performance of the keyboard is poor, in my opinion, and the mouse DPI is somewhat limited at just 2,000 DPI.

You may know magnetic levitation, or maglev, as one of those weirdly ethereal "future things." One of the technologies that we all collectively know from movies and television but have only figured out a few useful applications for. This year at Computex we saw one of the first big steps to moving maglev into the mainstream – putting them in laptop keyboards.

Much like mechanical keyboards, maglev keys avoid the drawbacks of traditional contact-switch membrane boards. Their resistance can be user-adjusted, and best of all they can fit in an impossibly tiny space. That's the main goal of the push for including maglev tech in modern laptops – the potential for tiny, super-thin laptops that come closer to tablets than even the MacBook Air and its ilk.

CNET reports that some manufacturers have already started placing orders for them with the hopes of having the tech in laptops by the end of this year. 

Thermaltake was demonstrating a number of things at its booth at Computex 2014, among which we found two new products that the company hasn’t shown before. The first lineup of products are custom water cooling products, and the second is a set of metallic keycaps for mechanical keyboards.

We weren’t able to get a hands-on of the water cooling products, though we did manage to snatch a few good pictures to get an idea of what the new lineup of products consists of. Included in the lineup are radiators, reservoirs, a pump, fittings, tubing, and coolant.

The other product that the company was showcasing were keycaps for mechanical keyboards made from a metallic alloy. We weren’t told much about them, but they seemed to type alright on the company’s own gaming grade mechanical switches, and did feel cold to the touch when we started typing. The concept certainly seems to have promise, though we’d need more hands-on time to really get a feeling for it.

Pricing for the metallic keycaps was expected to sit at about $80, though that was only if the caps were to reach the market in the first place.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.