User banned from Das Keyboard forums for telling people of open-source drivers
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What makes it more profitable selling a keyboard with proprietary drivers, than one that their users can hack at will?
Especially given the target audience of this one.
edit: I don't even know why a keyboard would need drivers :p but if it's for fancy colored LEDs or so, yes please make that open and hackable!
edit2: oh. cloud connected keyboard. ok.
Ouch... A keyboard with closed source and cloud connected drivers isn't exactly something I'd want to write my passwords with, or am I missing something?
Das is definitely a "brand over product" company and the market is flooded with much better alternatives, eg Leopold, Varmilo, IKBC, Vortex, Filco, etc.
Again, they've been quite good to me but my work and home keyboards both have a dud key (in quick succession) so I am looking for a cost effective Cherry Blue or Brown replacement.
That's… just about nothing for a keyboard. I bought my wireless apple keyboard in 2010 and it's behaving perfectly, my MS Ergo 4000 is 10+ and the only issues with it are the plastic's paint going.
And I don't consider these old.
I wouldn't accept a fucking battery lasting less than 2 years, how can it be acceptable for a keyboard you found anywhere outside a walmart bargain bin?
That would be "pretty bad" even for a $10 keyboard.
The newer Model S introduced the 'fn' key left of the left super-button, resizing that one in the process. Now the old key-caps don't fit on the newer model any more. It also doesn't feel quite as solid as the previous Model S.
The newer 'cloud connected' keyboards take DasKeyboard in a direction that makes no sense to me. Fortunately, there are now plenty of competing mechanical keyboards, for much friendlier prices. I got a nice mechanical keyboard for €90 on Amazon last year for my girlfriend (Fnatic Gear Rush Silent LED); no complaints whatsoever, and her colleagues are jealous of it.
My next keyboard won't be a DasKeyboard.
I have 40-year-old keyboards at home that still work great - one or two are even the awful membrane type.
I think it was Jeff Atwood (of Coding Horror fame) who turned me on to them in the first place.
(No association at all, just wanted to share my experience).
Edit. Never mind, looked up WASD and they appear to be linked to Code
I have 2 Cherry MX Board 3.0 i am quite happy with those.
Not even that expensive and of course no internet of shitty things.
It's currently lying in the corner whilst I try to stomach paying £25 for a third-party cable made with their custom internal connector.
I'd prefer if they just had a USB female socket on the keyboard and then I could use any cable.
Why do keyboards have hard-wired cables anyhow? They have plenty of space for a socket and it would eliminate another point of failure.
Why do keyboards have hard-wired cables anyhow?
Separate cables, OTOH, need enough copper for 500mA with a certain voltage drop to be USB standard compliant. Means 24AWG or bigger for a 2m cable [1].
That's why your keyboard, mouse and webcam have skinny cables while other USB cables are much thicker.
[1] http://cdn2.goughlui.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/USB-Cabl...
https://www.mechtype.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/cable-ro...
Low-speed USB devices are not permitted by the spec to have a detachable cable. The fancier keyboards are probably full- or high-speed, though, so that doesn't apply to them. As someone else said, mechanical strength may have something to do with it. Keyboards get shoved around a lot, and a connector would likely break off too easily.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that even tenkeyless keyboards are too wide for most right-handed users - unless you're very broad-shouldered, you'll either have to skew the keyboard to the left or use your mouse too far to the right. 60% and 68% keyboards offer real ergonomic benefits, by simple merit of being narrower.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/comfortable-ergo-keyboard/
The only issue I have with it is its cleanliness, need to take it apart and give it a good scrub again sometime. There's also some rust on the base plate, probably because I scratched the paint at some point. But that's not something you can see or is a problem when using it.
It's mostly for leisure though, at work I've got an Apple wireless keyboard; the low profile works for me to prevent rsi issues.
It surprises me that most of the nice key switch keyboards are all standard layout though, rather than more ergonomic options like the Advantage.
Curious what glitches you get?
I made the Kinesis and Dvorak switch at the same time and it was pretty debilitating! Twitter is surprisingly good for a practice medium because your thoughts have to be so short that you don't get the "my mind is 4 sentences ahead of my hands" problem you get with prose.
It's rare enough to not be annoyed as I otherwise like the keyboard, but it happens at both home and at work where I have the same thing.
Haha, I have not even tried SC:BW with this yet, but maybe I will now that the HD version is out and I already bought it ages ago.
For actual typing there are vastly superior choices. In descending order: Buckling springs (used or new[1]), used Alps (for 5$ in your nearest thrift shop or for 50$-150$ on ebay) or even brand new Matias switches[2].
Gateron, Kailh, etc. there are plenty producers of all kind of switches.
[1] https://deskthority.net/wiki/Category:Clones_of_Cherry_MX_sw...
You can buy all kind of pretty keycaps for them, which is what “gamers” care about.
There's no accounting for preference when it comes to switches or keyboards. Some people quite like Cherry switches.
I refuse to believe there’s anyone that actually prefers Cherry switches. Most people just don’t realize there are better options.
Regardless, Cherry switches are absolutely high quality - they are manufactured out of premium materials to tight specifications.
You may not prefer their feel for your purposes, but as others have said, that's a different story.
Also the keyboard is much to... Advanced?... So it doesn't get recognized when I attempt to enter the bios, so I needed to have a backup keyboard around just in case.
I only found out that the company had quietly changed what used to be Cherry switches for Chinese knock-offs after buying the keyboard.
One of the most regrettable purchases I ever made.
There is another trend where you would name it "Le Keyboard"
Then again, Sainsmart made a soldering iron recently that was very good quality - so I guess China will soon become a purveyor of quality objects. It already is, in some sense - it's just a matter of separating them from the trash.
The cheapest flimsiest forks are made in China, but then so are Apple computers.
Also, counter intuitively, "Made in the USA" within the USA is seen as a generic product that is obviously trying to trade on Americanism to interest you in buying it. Quality products usually name the specific state they are made in (e.g. Apple labels themselves as 'designed in California').
I guess that's because my two points of reference are my CST LaserTRAC trackball and my Oster beard trimmer.
They should have called it 'Die Tastatur', sounds very rammsteiny.
And it also means "The Color" which is probably a more apt translation in this case.
> The Das Keyboard 5Q is a cloud connected keyboard allowing users to display color notifications on each key. Notifications can come from applications such as Twitter, Gmail, eBay, Facebook and many others. Hundreds of applications can be configured via IFTTT and Zapier, transforming the 5Q keyboard into a RGB dashboard. An open REST API is also available for programmers.
As with other fashion, don't expect decisions that can be explained rationally from without.
https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/ - the website doesn't work properly, so I'm guessing you still can't buy one?
I was getting aches in my hands / wrists so I grabbed a MS Sculpt L5V-00001 last year and couldn't be happier with it. After working on a Macbook (2013 style, not the new ones) for the last few years I can't really see myself going for something with a huge amount of key travel anymore.
Investors or a bank loan will demand creditworthiness, interest payments, penalties for late repayment, and if you can't make the promised product or customers don't buy it, they can bankrupt your company.
With crowdfunding you have none of those obligations. No credit check, no interest, and you can deliver a late, low quality product, or nothing whatsoever, and the only cost is to your reputation.
> I work at the company and the group of people that added this part just stole the code of the company and try to replicate the code. They give a bad influence of the company and what they are doing is against the law. They try to give a bad image of the company everywhere including wikipedia
The amount of ignorance shown in that edit comment is just impressive. I doubt they have heard about the Streisand effect.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Das_Keyboard&acti...
There are Cherry Browns, Gateron Browns, Kailh Browns, Zealio (bunch of them with different activation weight), and bunch of others. I have 2 keyboards with browns and one with blues. I don't like browns, I want some thing with bigger activation weight.