Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the scenes #202

Behind the scenes with the Womier SK71 Pro and Dareu COOL60 reviews, also the Clackify stand, plus open-source projects, keyboard art, meetups, vendors, discounts.

dovenyi
Published November 26, 2025

Hey, what's up everyone!

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 commercial 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.

Black Friday sales everywhere. Buy responsively. Most people don't need more than one keyboard. Ahem. No, seriously.

I'm pushing my limits to finish all the reviews of the recently arrived keyboards accumulating on my desk. I hope I can work through my backlog until Christmas, and then press the pause button for a week. That's why the 2-3 reviews per issue recently.

Chef's choice

• Go60 on Kickstarter. A portable split from MoErgo, the team behind the Glove80. | Keyboard art with custom keycaps and a Corne in an olive wood case. | Awekeys low-pro metal keycap IC. Vote for your preferred stem choice. | And of course check out my recent reviews: Womier SK71 Pro, Dareu COOL60, and the awesome Clackify stand currently decorating my desk.

Some posts worth sharing

• Review: This great wireless 75% keyboard, the alu+plastic Womier SK71 Pro, comes in cool themes, with fancy lighting, and VIA support. That magnetic lid in the top right corner hides the dongle and on/off switch. Womier definitely deserves more attention, as the ERA75 was pretty unique as well.

• Bonus review for gamers on a budget: An ultra-affordable 60% HE keyboard, the Dareu COOL60 – nice frosted case, matching caps, per-key RGB, wrist strap. Up to 8KHz reporting rate and 0.01mm RT resolution for gamers. Now for just $42?!

• In addition, I tested this great keyboard stand designed and sent to me by Clackify – it's sturdy, functional, and looks awesome. I love it. My desk looks much more sophisticated now. I'd buy some more for sure if international shipping plus all the extra fees weren't so expensive (EU).

• The 36ribs is a nice unibody offset ortho keyboard with exposed diodes. Designed by CREATINE0.

• A 100%-ish keyboard with split thumb clusters – Mist by Modern Hobbyist.

• Charading's Shego75HE, an open-source 75% Hall-effect keyboard, runs QMK. Is this the first one doing so?

• Chris Lo released his loongcat40, a gasket-mounted offset ortho keyboard featuring a nice OLED.

• Yuburolls modubu is a semi-staggered 38-key split keyboard – made for Korean layout. (Semi-staggered meaning partly ortho/colum staggered, partly horizontally offset.)

• A Bluetooth diode-free 36-key ergonomic keyboard by Peter Cock: Gamma Omega Hesse – using graph theory. A PCB in the Gamma Omega form factor.

• A Totem-fork by Atila M. Schrieber: Totem Plus 1 – with an extra pinky key.

Closed-source, commercial, WIP, etc.

• ATLAS progress, AsicResistor adding trackpoints. Still WIP, but there's a repo with the PCB already.

• OLSK60 v2. A GH60 case compatible ortholinear PCB with trackpoint. Designed and sold by techmech. Also on r/olkb. More photos.

• The retro-looking Epomaker RT82 with a bold display aka "TV" positioning. :D And it's detachable. I mean, keyboards don't need displays, but if you want one, this is the way to go. Probably.

• offsetkey 70% (GB) at PandaKB. A classically staggered split with various extension modules. Reminds me of the UHK. (Not much, but the KBDNEWS coupon is worth $2 off.)

• Go60 by moergo. Not really an alternative to the Glove80 but a completely different concept for travel: flat and with touchpad. On Kickstarter. This is a very short 7-day Kickstarter campaign. "We have blasted through nz$200k and the nice people at Kickstarter gave us the "project we love" batch" – Stephen.

• The Minimi40 (GB) is a lidded, bento-themed keyboard by CannonKeys – designed to be just as portable as a lunch box. Lid to be secured to the board with a strap in standard bento fashion.

• Space Mission 30. A new low-pro half-keyboard for gamers, by ergohaven (RU).

• Wireless Corne ULP with mini trackballs – by kzyz-gluum. These are real pics, not renders.

• Ploopy Adept slim frame by Dexter_Lim.

• Modulate is a WIP split with modules like trackball, encoder, display, etc. Posted by paper5963.

• Handwired: HHBB. A 34-key board with solenoid. Plate and case models on thingiverse.

• Missouri301 is another 3D-printed keyboard by Rain2, inspired by the vintage Micro-Term Ergo 301.

• This cutie is the f1-8x macropad by Olivious. A resin-printed case for the PCB distributed at a Zion meetup. With gaskets/tadpoles and magnetic attachement. 3D files here.

Typing, Keymap, Tips

• 1.5U KLP Lamé variants by braindefender. Both for Choc and MX switches.

• Cardboard/leather Cheapino case by Mrs_Fancy_Pants.

• Foot roller-scroller by a__b. Converted Kinesis Savant pedals for a wireless keyboard setup.

• Carlosedp made and shared open-source QMK firmware for some Epomaker keyboards (TH40, Luma40, etc.)

• Two new QMK modules by ohshitgorillas: xcase makes it simple to type long variable names in snake_case, camelCase or kebab-case by swapping spaces with the necessary delimiter. And SpongeMock – randOmly capItalIZiNg lETTERs like In tHE sPoNgeBOb MoCkINg MemE.

• Lego-compatible case for the Silakka 54 (thingiverse) by nolexyn/Flat-Razzmatazz.

• Some crazy tenting ideas as inspiration: deskless setup by ryanlue. And Dexter_Lim's kettlebell tenting kit.

History/Discovery

• Compaq Portable III posted by solidpro99.

• Ill_Engineering1522 collected some Soviet clones of the ZX Spectrum.

Keyboard art

• Pictish swirl keycaps posted by um_jao. Made on YUZU based on this alphabet.

• Wow. Olive wood case by orientusishidea for his Corne.

• A one-off milled keyboard from a machinist. Posted by SubluxeUBC.

Diderot effect (aka accessories)

• Fill in the IC form discussing low-pro metal keycaps by awekeys (source). And another post/update.

• KEEB-DAC (prototype) is an audio interface/DAC/USB HUB for your keyboard.

In the mailbox

• KiiBOOM Cybrix 29 – an aluminum gaming (half-)keyboard with encoders.
• From Angry Miao: Dry Studio Battleye keyboard featuring a unique knob with an integrated circular touch screen + AM Infinity mouse with hotswappable magnetic battery.

Donations

• New donors, yay! Joerg L., James L., and Jake from KeyboardHoarders. Thank you guys!
• As always, many thanks to my awesome regular supporters and everyone who helped this project thus far.

For all the donation options check out the donation page!

Meetup database

The 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.

Recently added

• Keyboards Hawaii Winter '25 Meetup, December 13, Honolulu, HI, US

Missed :)

• There was a micro-meetup in Saint Petersburg.

Vendor news & Discounts

Feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 187 keyboard shops worldwide! And do not hesitate to report any issues! :)

New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this past two weeks:

• PandaKB offered you a $2 discount for the Offsetkey (coupon code: KBDNEWS).

Developments

The Cloudflare outage affected the site on Nov 18, and the most annoying thing was that I couldn't log into CF either to simply turn it off temporarily. Aaargh.

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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 26th Nov 2025. Featured in KBD #202.

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