Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial
Behind the scenes #198
Still under attack, August's best-selling switches, Cornix review, Banana keyboard, projects, tips, keyboard art, meetups, new vendors and discounts.
Published September 10, 2025
Hey, what's up everyone!
This is a content-heavy weekly/fortnightly editorial post for those who don't want to check the site daily. So welcome back for another recap and behind-the-scenes write-up – with some cool projects from the DIY keyboard scene, but also promising closed-source projects or even prototypes.
If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.
PSA: The attacks by botnets are continuing. This may still impact your experience despite banning huge IP ranges, implementing new security measures, and optimizing slower scripts via caching or completely recoding parts. So if you occasionally see "resource limit reached" errors, this is why it happens. Simply too many concurrent request.
Some posts worth sharing
- In this most recent overview of your favorite mechanical switches, here are August's top picks, based on real sales data provided by 18 vendors and manufacturers – representing 1 million switches sold.
- Review: The Cornix is an awesome prebuilt Corne-derivative, designed for the masses by Jezail Funder Studio: wireless, CNC alu case, cool tenting, great sound and feel. I love it! (Yep, it became my daily driver.) The KBDNEWS coupon is worth a visible discount, but only for the first 100 purchases.
- RGBKB shared the majestic Banana keyboard, a funky split not only for monkeys. This promising unibody keyboard is open hardware, but US folks can buy it too [GB]. Support Legonut's work if you can!
- A low-profile, minimalistic 40-key split keyboard designed for simplicity by Lucas Merritt: Aurora40.
- The updated Tempest by Oliver Thurley features a snap-off pinky key.
- A 42-key low-profile wireless split keyboard: Corneucopia by DynamicWhiteHat.
- Chalk is a 42-key ultra-low profile keyboard with PG1316s switches, shared by eqlair.
- Maksim Esyunin's Keyatura is a 36-key ergo monoblock split keyboard with Choc/MX switch support.
- The Leptosis by Cheyao is a 7.5 mm ultra-low profile wireless split keyboard with PG1316 switches.
Typing, Keymap, Tips
- Weekly typing practice: ZippyWords is a burst typing trainer by FroyoAbject. Get one word at a time, prep, then hit it as fast as you can. Boost your typing speed, accuracy, and rhythm with quick practice sessions. Actually, I like this a lot.
- Shift strategies. A thread with lots of good advice. I'm still struggling with a proper Shift implementation though… :)
- Simon's Afterburner layout features a magic key (plus skip magic key) to drastically reduce samefinger keypresses.
- Fresh photos for the exploding keyboards post. Swollen battery of a Keychron K2 – used in wireless mode(!) for about 3 years. Epicguru wrote up a guide for you about how to replace the battery.
Closed-source, commercial, WIP, etc.
- These horizontal roller encoders make so much more sense than the classic vertical knob. Simple 75 by Astro. Now $20 off with the KBDNEWS coupon code.
- Weekly wood: NULL65 by Null Design Co.
- An S112B and handwired RC128bm – daily drivers of piercejennkins.
- JokerPad by Rain2. (I can't embed the video, check it out in the original post.)
- I'm not a big fan of gamer caps with the characteristic translucent legends, but I almost like this font featured on the Neo65 Sonic He+. Much better.
- Kevin54. A handwired monoblock by SfBattleBeagle – in a nice 3D-printed case.
- A Boardwalk tribute by RadioactiveHop.
- Sneakbox's mujimanic is working on some keycaps with strange sizes nobody asked for.
- Keyformers. An ergo split made from a dissected standard keyboard. We've already seen something similar, but this one has thumb buttons on the opposit side as well.
History/Discovery
- Bull Questar 200. Found by knesha.
- Hehe. A Cherry catalogue and coupon for a switch sample from 1976 – pre-MX times. Shared by TheAwesomeTrain.
- Retro-Revival-EU went to a computer museum and shares some photos.
- 1977 Key Tronic keyboard with 2u numpad keys. Photos from ebay, shared by Ready_Independent_55.
Keyboard art
- Jeez. Splitty Kitty [GB] is a 6kg(!) aluminum split. Eehh, ookaay… (the KBDNEWS coupon code should work and it's worth a 7% discount if you have a penchant for unreasonably heavy cats)
- Viking Antiques Thor Copper metal keycap set by Awekeys.
- Apiaster build by CaptLynx.
- Stickerbombed mouse between Velvet halves. By IntelligentTruth96. It's always nice to see kbd.news referenced. ;)
- This is the bottom of a BGKeeb, turned into MX wireless by KaoticKalukumara. (Original artwork: Gustave Doré illustrations from Divine Comedia.)
- PiXeL161616 posted a nature slideshow for ZMK and nice!view. With AI art. Then pgetreuer and bin_chicken_overlord pointed out that something similar exists with human-made pixel art.
In the mailbox
Something is being delivered right in these moments, but I'm not yet sure what. Keebmat stuff? We've been talking about a care package with k33bs. The resin KiiBOOM Jade75? It was definitely on its way. But recently I've talked to Awekeys and MoErgo as well, about some goodies: metal keycaps and a super secret new project, respectively. Moeetech is cooking up something new too.
UPDATE: Yeah, it was the Jade75:
Womier poll
Womier reached out to me to select something from their store for review. Any requests? The ERA75 looks crazy, but which theme should I choose? :) Or are you more interested in the SK75 with double-shot caps? SK65 with the quick-release ball-catch mechanism? RD75 Pro with the nice hidden dongle storage?
Feel free to reach out to me with your preferences.
Donations
- New donations came from: Micah Alpern, Evan Hatch, Derek T., and Jannis L. Thanks a bunch! You. Are. Awesome!!
For all the donation options check out the donation page.
Meetup database
As always, this meetup database serves as both a calendar and an archive, so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.
Upcoming meetups
- ClackyCon 2025, September 13, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Recently added
- Keebs @ UCI - The Great Keeb Harvest 2025, October 18, Irvine, CA, US
Feedback
- Some Keeblife 2025 photos by Sterlingandcophoto.
- Steel City MK Meetup photos as well.
Vendors & Discounts
Feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 184 keyboard shops! And do not hesitate to report any issues! :)
New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this past two weeks:
- New RGBKB (US) discount. Use the KBDNEWS coupon code for 5% off the Banana. :) Or anything else.
- Womier (CN) added. There's the KBDNEWS coupon code, but they have a crazy Back to School Sale until 11th Sept: 20% sitewide discount, buy one get one free keycap set, etc. Check out the store.
- Astro Keyboards (US) is moving from offering keycaps to keyboards: starting with the very promising Simple 75. Now $20 off with the KBDNEWS coupon code.
- Awekeys (US/CN), home of some jaw-dropping metal keycaps, offered you a 5% discount (coupon: KBDNEWS).
- CTRLshop (CZ) is expanding, shipping also to Germany now.
- Nouvolo (Hong Kong) added.
- Another Yusha Kobo visit. Photos by XXXTYLING.
- RAMA WORKS liquidation developments. Posted by InternetTop325.
Developments
Continued attacks, continued optimization, plus some other tweaks.
- Caching weekly RSS, right column, etc.
- The still very WIP switch comparison pages are now cached too – this way it takes much more attackers to take down the site…
- Some keywords like nice!nano are automatically highlighted and linkified now. Less scripting needed.
- Not directly visible, but I made some handy extensions for the switch price and in-stock status updater scripts running in the background. Spotting newly added switches in 30+ stores is much easier now. This will help a lot when compiling the monthly switch overviews.
- Much more caching thus speed boost on the way.
- Some older issue leads updated with some keywords, upon reader request. Yep, the last few dozens of posts had the same lead, out of lazyness. Update to be continued.
- Couple of quick news links added to issue pages. The last time I did this was issue #174… To be continued as well.
All in all, it's been a very productive week again! Once some cloud services act and the compromized accounts used by the botnets have been taken down, kbd.news should load much faster and work much more efficiently. ;)
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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!
Until next time,
Tamás
Published on Wed 10th Sep 2025. Featured in KBD #198.
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