> As someone with an affinity for both wireless devices and mechanical keyboards, I am saddened that wireless mechanical keyboards are few and far between.
There are two reasons for this. First, mechanical keyboards are generally larger than other keyboards, which makes them less portable.
Secondly, mechanical keyboards are oftentimes used by professional gamers, and for their use case, wireless just doesn't cut it. Higher latency (and more importantly - higher variance latency), as well as multi-key rollover[0]
That said, as someone who owns two Das keyboards and hates typing on laptop keyboards (or, worse, on tablet screens), I'm very happy to see this!
I'd like to know, on the other hand, what's the supposed benefit of wireless? On a laptop the cable length shouldn't be an issue anyway, and on a desktop you can, in the worst case, get an extension cable for a couple of bucks. And what do you get in exchange? Batteries that need to be swapped and slightly (though arguably neglegible) worse performance.
I think "professional" gamers tend to be needlessly fussy about their equipment. I beat Super Meat Boy 100% with a wireless gamepad with no issues at all. I also use a wireless gaming mouse to play Counter-Strike and other FPS. These are both Logitech products so they use their own receivers instead of Bluetooth (presumably for better performance), but it looks like this keyboard mod is doing the same thing.
Latency is bad, but it's pretty trivial to build a short range ultra-low-bandwidth wireless connection that will never have a latency of 1ms or greater. And for a human inputting via a mechanical device into a desktop operating system, that's as good as zero.
The default on a USB keyboard is polling every several milliseconds anyway.
I've love to see some sort of blind visual latency test between a wired and quality wireless keyboard. I've been using wireless keyboards since around 2005, am fairly allergic to latency in any device, but couldn't imagine going back to the shackles of a wired keyboard or mouse now.
I'm confused as why you wouldn't just use a USB breakout board and a bluetooth or serial modem (e.g. [1]). Having to desolder every key seems like an immense amount of work and risk of error. At any rate, an awesome hack. I love my Das Keyboard, and wireless wouldn't hurt (gaming isn't my use-case).
I have different problem - keyboard I love doesn't come as wired keyboard, only wireless. I want something to turn into wired one. Why? Because wireless microsoft keyboards aren't secure. And I'm talking about Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard...
I too wish there were more out of the box solutions for these. I also wish more keyboards separated the keypad from the main keyboard. I like to stay centered in front of the monitor, which means necessarily the number pad makes the whole thing asymmetrical and knocks into the mouse (I have a very narrow desk).
I'm surprised they're not more common, because many of my programmer friends also prefer mechanical keyboards. At that point latency seems irrelevant? It doesn't appear mechanical keyboards are intrinsically less suited to being wireless...
since no one has mentioned it, there's this http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/. IMO, it's the perfect solution for a portable mechanical keyboard. It's small, so you can throw in your bag and have it with you always, and the rechargeable batteries inside this thing are seriously impressive. I last recharged mine about 9 months ago and I use it all day every day.
An interesting project, and a nice result, but I'm curious about the goal of not having inscriptions on the keys? You may not look down at the keyboard when typing but what if someone else needs to use it or for whatever reason you cant focus? It seems like needless one-upping, even their website seems to acknowledge that its really only for showing off...
If nothing else, it means they can make one version without annoying half the population - in this case me, as a Mac user. It's simple enough to remap the Ctrl/Win/Alt cluster to their Mac equivalents.
It's also forced me to be a better touch-typist; I'd never really bothered learning the numbers up until now. I didn't even realise it but I was looking down at them each time I needed them. No more!
I own an unlabeled Das and I did find it helped me type because it completely takes away the ability to cheat. I ended up having to learn how to type a lot of special symbols w/o cheating.
I have a keyboard without key inscriptions. I prioritize aesthetics over other people being able to use my keyboard (and using a non-conventional layout, most people would be confused by my keyboard anyway).
[+] [-] chimeracoder|11 years ago|reply
There are two reasons for this. First, mechanical keyboards are generally larger than other keyboards, which makes them less portable.
Secondly, mechanical keyboards are oftentimes used by professional gamers, and for their use case, wireless just doesn't cut it. Higher latency (and more importantly - higher variance latency), as well as multi-key rollover[0]
That said, as someone who owns two Das keyboards and hates typing on laptop keyboards (or, worse, on tablet screens), I'm very happy to see this!
[0] Even the Das keyboards don't support n-key rollover over USB; you need to use PS/2 cables, IIRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_%28key%29
[+] [-] walterbell|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nullabillity|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noeleon|11 years ago|reply
[1]: http://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-ultimate/
[+] [-] archagon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dylan16807|11 years ago|reply
The default on a USB keyboard is polling every several milliseconds anyway.
[+] [-] Encosia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clebio|11 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12700
[+] [-] nacs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sashk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] entee|11 years ago|reply
I'm surprised they're not more common, because many of my programmer friends also prefer mechanical keyboards. At that point latency seems irrelevant? It doesn't appear mechanical keyboards are intrinsically less suited to being wireless...
[+] [-] abroncs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|11 years ago|reply
I did look at the source of the page and .. whoa. Can someone explain to me what
meta og:description (more or less the whole text, I guess)
meta itemprop="description" (as above, a full copy)
meta twitter:descrption (a third one..)
are? Is that normal? Sane? I've never seen that before.
Plus, meta description is .. present but empty. The body starts roughly 600 lines into the document.
[+] [-] bdchauvette|11 years ago|reply
twitter:description one is metadata for Twitter Cards. [2]
itemprop="description" is metadata in the microdata format [3]
----
[1] http://ogp.me/
[2] https://dev.twitter.com/cards/overview
[3] https://schema.org/docs/gs.html
[+] [-] meo2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PebblesHD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jen729w|11 years ago|reply
It's also forced me to be a better touch-typist; I'd never really bothered learning the numbers up until now. I didn't even realise it but I was looking down at them each time I needed them. No more!
Aaaaand it does look cool.
[+] [-] djtriptych|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GuiA|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmondo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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