CheckMag | My favourite wireless gaming keyboards just got even better with a mere software update
First, the news: Keychron has updated another batch of its keyboards in both the Keychron and Lemokey brands with new firmware, bringing support for proper per-key RGB support to its Hall-effect gaming keyboards and much of its mechanical keyboard line-up. It's unclear exactly which Keychron keyboards have received the new firmware features, but I have confirmed with my own test units that the Keychron K4 HE and Lemokey L1 HE have received the new features. There are also reports on r/Keychron on Reddit that the Lemokey P1 HE (curr. $169.99 on Amazon) and Keychron K1 Version 6 QMK and K1 Max have also been updated. If this is anything like the last time Keychron pushed a new firmware version, it's safe to say that the entire Lemokey HE range, Keychron K HE series, and at least the more recent QMK-compatible K-series keyboards have all been updated.
New firmware features put Keychron's gaming keyboards on-par with Wooting
When I reviewed the Keychron K4 HE earlier this year, I praised Keychron Launcher for its in-depth customisation observed that it was about as close to Wooting's Wootility as you could get in terms of features and usability. With this update, the most important missing features have been added to the Hall-effect keyboards, and then some. The biggest change is the new RGB control screen, but Keychron also now lets you manage the wireless connectivity settings, like backlight time-out, matrix scan time-out, and wireless connectivity time-out.
The new backlighting controls include the mix RGB options introduced to the Q Max series earlier this year and a new per-key RGB option that allows you to configure RGB on a per-key basis. You can assign different colours to each zone, and each key can be defined as its own zone. Between the per-key mode and the mix RGB settings, there's plenty you can now do to make your keyboard look visually unique, and that's even more relevant with shine-through models popular for gaming.
These new RGB controls mean that the Keychron K4 HE, for example, is now effectively just as customisable as I found the Wooting 80HE to be in our review, and it has bonus productivity functionality that the 80HE doesn't have, like wireless connectivity and on-board macro recording. This feature combination and high customisability make the Keychron K4 HE and the Lemokey L1 HE I am testing for an upcoming review some of the best gaming keyboards I've used to date. The Lemokey L1 HE is outstanding, because of combination of shine-through keycaps and enthusiast design now taken to the next level with customisation.
While it's easy to dismiss the new wireless connection settings as unnecessary, they solve the biggest annoyance I've experienced in my ongoing review of the Lemokey L1 HE — the need to tap space bar and wait for the keyboard to wake up from sleep. Prior to this update, the wireless connection, both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth, would enter deep sleep within 30 minutes by default — this doesn't seem that bad, but when connected over Bluetooth, it meant re-establishing a connection with the host. If you've ever used a keyboard and mouse on Android, you'll know that things aren't always super predictable, and sometimes re-establishing that Bluetooth connection would introduce a slight lag — this happens with multiple peripherals and seems to be a bug in OnePlus's Android skin. By eliminating the need to reconnect — extending deep sleep mode to 12 hours — I can now eliminate that unpredictability that comes with re-establishing the Bluetooth connection.
The “auto backlight off starting time” and “keyboard matrix scanning time” options also mean you can fine tune the power consumption of your keyboard if you like to use it in wireless mode, since key scanning at 1 kHz can drain the battery life somewhat quickly. Here again, you can save battery without having to let the keyboard go into deep sleep mode, which takes a second or two to recover from. This might also be useful for those who want to let their computer go to sleep and wake it instantly with the 2.4 GHz connection.
