Lofree Hyzen, world’s first hybrid magnetic-mechanical keyboard now on Kickstarter

Lofree has quite a selection of keyboards, but it mainly focuses on everyday use, like the Lofree Flow Lite that we've reviewed. With its latest offering, the company is looking to bridge the gap between a casual everyday keyboard and a gaming keyboard. The Lofree Hyzen claims to be the world’s first hybrid keyboard with mechanical magnetic switches, and is now on Kickstarter.

Lofree Hyzen features and specifications

With the Hyzen, Lofree is bringing a new style of keyboard to its lineup. It has developed a new type of switch in partnership with Kailh called Nexus, a combination of metal leaves from traditional mechanical switches and a TMR sensor. This allows the keyboard to have adjustable actuation along with a tactile typing feel. The TMR PCB also supports hot-swapping magnetic and traditional mechanical switches.

The brain of the Hyzen is the Nordic 54 series chipset that allows 8K polling and a claimed 0.125ms latency. Being a magnetic switch, it comes with Rapid Trigger (RT), DKS (Dynamic Keystrokes), and SOCD settings that can be customized through the web driver. The Hyzen packs a 10,000 mAh battery that is said to last up to 80 hours and offers three modes of connectivity – 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, and wired.

As for the design, the chassis has been CNC-milled from a single block of aluminum. It is a 65% keyboard but smartly integrates the function row through a dedicated toggle and LED indicators. There is a knob for audio control and a three-way toggle switch for power, wired, and wireless modes. While there are no feet at the bottom, Lofree has added a 12-degree tilt for a more ergonomic typing position. The Hyzen also has an LED light bar towards the bottom, facing down.

Lofree Hyzen price and availability

The Hyzen will come in two colors, Silver and Space Gray. It is up on Kickstarter with a goal of 80,000 HK$ (around $13,984 USD) and has already reached 4,022,953 HK$ (around $703,228 USD) with 29 days to go (at the time of publishing). There is a wired version and a tri-mode one, with the former priced at $279 and the latter priced at $299. Deliveries are estimated for July, and those who back the campaign can get a 33% to 36% discount, depending on the variant.