00:00SPEAKER- Brad, I love it when technology's fun.
00:02SPEAKER- Yeah, that's nice as opposed to the alternatives,
00:04SPEAKERwhich are many.
00:05SPEAKER- I mean, look, there's a lot of alternatives.
00:08SPEAKERYou know, when Ring camera is like,
00:10SPEAKER"Hey man, we can, you know, turn over your footage
00:14SPEAKERto help people find lost dogs and also, you know, help ice."
00:17SPEAKERThat's bad, but you know, sometimes technology's good.
00:21SPEAKERI was watching the Olympics.
00:22SPEAKERYou know, I like to see how things change every four years.
00:25SPEAKERAnd you know, the Winter Olympics are always good
00:27SPEAKER'cause it's, you know, it's the death sport Olympics,
00:29SPEAKERnot the like, you know, who can go faster
00:32SPEAKERand jump higher Olympics.
00:33SPEAKER- Going faster and jumping higher can also be a death sport.
00:37SPEAKER- I mean, fair, fair.
00:39SPEAKERBut one of the things that's happened
00:40SPEAKERover the last like two or three Olympicses
00:43SPEAKERis that drones have gotten real good.
00:46SPEAKERSo, you know, we used to cover drones over at Tested
00:49SPEAKERand I've spent a fair amount of time
00:50SPEAKERwith them over the years.
00:52SPEAKERAnd they started out as a thing that people would use
00:54SPEAKERinstead of like boom shots.
00:55SPEAKERSo they'd use them like instead of crane shots
00:57SPEAKERand stuff like that that were relatively static.
01:00SPEAKERI want you to watch this video I just sent over.
01:02SPEAKERIt is footage of people barreling down the mountain
01:06SPEAKERat 100 kilometers an hour in the Alpine downhill,
01:09SPEAKERthe death sportiest of snow skiing races, I think.
01:13SPEAKERAnd they have little micro drones
01:17SPEAKERthat have really good 4K cameras.
01:19SPEAKERThe video quality on this particular one is bad.
01:21SPEAKERWhen you watch it on the broadcast, it looks fabulous.
01:24SPEAKEROf the drones just tracking the racers
01:27SPEAKERas they're going 100 kilometers an hour down the hill.
01:30SPEAKERAnd it's kind of incredible.
01:32SPEAKERThey're using them all over the place.
01:34SPEAKERI was watching the luge yesterday
01:36SPEAKERand the drone operators are flying the drones
01:40SPEAKERdown the luge track just behind the racers.
01:42SPEAKERSo you get like an over the shoulder,
01:44SPEAKERthird person video game view
01:47SPEAKERof people going the luge track at 100 miles an hour.
01:50SPEAKER- Do you think this is definitely human operated?
01:52SPEAKERIt's not like some kind of computer vision,
01:54SPEAKERmotion tracking, image tracking thing?
01:57SPEAKER- So I don't know for sure.
01:58SPEAKERThat's definitely a technology that exists.
02:00SPEAKERYou can buy drones that will like throw up in the air
02:02SPEAKERwhen you're going skiing
02:03SPEAKERand they'll track you on the way down the mountain.
02:06SPEAKERI kind of assume that's the case for the luge track.
02:09SPEAKERWatching the mistakes that happen on the downhill,
02:13SPEAKERI think it's probably not.
02:14SPEAKER'Cause I think they pick up the,
02:15SPEAKERthey catch them on the way over the ridge
02:17SPEAKERwhen the drone would take a minute to acquire them.
02:20SPEAKERAnd I think they're at least human operated for part of it.
02:23SPEAKER- Sure, I believe that.
02:24SPEAKER- But it's wild and it's very cool and it made me happy.
02:27SPEAKERAnd it's been fun 'cause like last time they did,
02:30SPEAKERthey weren't doing this
02:31SPEAKERand the footage from the drones looked crappy
02:33SPEAKERand like the drones advancing, the cameras advancing,
02:36SPEAKERit's all good, man.
02:37SPEAKER- I wanna see a drone for the drone.
02:40SPEAKER- You want a drone operator drone?
02:41SPEAKER- I mean, I'm kind of like, yeah,
02:43SPEAKERI'm gonna sort of take relief the winter sports stuff,
02:45SPEAKERbut I would absolutely love to see the drone in action.
02:48SPEAKERI wanna see like how micro is micro here
02:50SPEAKERwhen we're talking about a micro drone.
02:51SPEAKER- So I'm, from what I've seen in the other shots,
02:54SPEAKER'cause when they're doing the head-on shots,
02:55SPEAKERyou sometimes catch the drone and it looks like
02:57SPEAKERthey're 250 millimeter drones.
03:00SPEAKER- That's a, wow.
03:01SPEAKER- Well, no, no, no, it's like,
03:02SPEAKERthey're like the size of a shoebox basically.
03:04SPEAKER- Yeah, but that's still way,
03:05SPEAKERI thought we might be talking like the size of a dog.
03:08SPEAKERI don't know why a dog is my size reference here,
03:09SPEAKERbut you know, like something the size of a,
03:11SPEAKERlike a coffee table or something like that's way smaller
03:14SPEAKERthan I expected.
03:16SPEAKER- They're definitely using like micro cameras,
03:18SPEAKERlike GoPro-style size cameras or DJI-style cameras.
03:22SPEAKERThey're definitely not big, giant, octo quads.
03:26SPEAKERYou could hear 'em and they sound like little mosquitoes,
03:28SPEAKERwhich usually means smaller propellers going faster.
03:32SPEAKERBut yeah, these are the ones, my hunch,
03:36SPEAKERand I haven't found a tech article explaining
03:39SPEAKERhow they're doing it yet 'cause drones are boring now
03:40SPEAKERand people don't write about that anymore.
03:43SPEAKERI haven't found an article talking about the drone pilots
03:45SPEAKERand the drones, but my hunch is that they're like
03:49SPEAKERthe racing class that we used to go to like industrial sites
03:52SPEAKERin South City to watch people zoom through like pipes
03:56SPEAKERand broken windows and shit like that
03:57SPEAKERin abandoned warehouses.
03:58SPEAKER- Yeah, I didn't watch the Super Bowl this year,
04:00SPEAKERbut we talked about it on the Ramblecast this week
04:02SPEAKERand I meant to ask Vinny and Alex and did not think to
04:05SPEAKERif there were any kind of obvious drone shots at that.
04:07SPEAKER- They had drone shots in the halftime show.
04:10SPEAKERThey definitely do some drone shots
04:11SPEAKERof like the outside of the stadium and stuff like that.
04:13SPEAKERI didn't notice, they use that spider cam
04:17SPEAKERin all the major stadiums now.
04:19SPEAKER- That's the thing that's on like a tether though, right?
04:21SPEAKERLike a zip line.
04:22SPEAKER- Well, it's on like four, it's tethered to corners
04:24SPEAKERto the corners of the field basically
04:27SPEAKERat the top of the stadium.
04:28SPEAKER- Still physically connected to something though.
04:30SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:31SPEAKER- As opposed to flying 'cause I mean flying,
04:33SPEAKERindependently flying cameras buzzing around at a sports game
04:36SPEAKERis like, that's not even some future shit.
04:38SPEAKERThat's like some Star Wars shit.
04:39SPEAKER- Yeah, kind of, right?
04:40SPEAKER- And yet it's just here.
04:41SPEAKERThe only difference is that we are using
04:43SPEAKERtypical rotor, what's the term?
04:45SPEAKER- No repulsor lifts.
04:46SPEAKER- Rotor lifts, not whatever the hell a repulsor lift is.
04:49SPEAKERSo we're not quite there yet,
04:50SPEAKERbut it's like effectively the same thing.
04:53SPEAKER- But yeah, it's, and it's funny 'cause like,
04:56SPEAKERthey're not filtering out the noise of the drones
04:58SPEAKERfrom the broadcast, which I was surprised by.
05:00SPEAKER'Cause that would be pretty easy to pull out, I think.
05:03SPEAKER- Yeah, sorta.
05:05SPEAKER- But no, you just hear the drones buzzing,
05:06SPEAKERwhich is kind of how you know that a drone shot's coming.
05:09SPEAKERIt's nice.
05:10SPEAKER- The future is here.
05:12SPEAKER- Unevenly distributed.
05:13SPEAKER- Sometimes it's cool.
05:15SPEAKER(upbeat music)
05:43SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod, I'm Will.
05:45SPEAKER- I am Brad.
05:47SPEAKER- Brad, it's early in the morning.
05:48SPEAKERI am a sleepy boy.
05:50SPEAKER- As it often is around these parts.
05:52SPEAKERBy these parts, I mean this podcast.
05:53SPEAKER- It's true, this is a morning pod.
05:55SPEAKERLike I've always wanted to have an evening podcast.
05:57SPEAKERI've never had an evening podcast before.
05:59SPEAKER- No, thank you.
06:00SPEAKER- Okay, I think, I think.
06:02SPEAKER- I am out of words by the evening.
06:04SPEAKER- I've often thought it would be fun.
06:06SPEAKERLike I used to love doing the late night PUBG streams
06:09SPEAKERand watching how weird everybody gets at about 11 o'clock
06:12SPEAKERat night.
06:13SPEAKER- Oh sure, like a stream, a video game stream,
06:15SPEAKERtotally fine.
06:15SPEAKERYou can get sloppy.
06:16SPEAKERI don't mean sloppy in like an inebriated sense,
06:19SPEAKERbut you can just kind of be a mess on a video game stream
06:21SPEAKERand it's fine.
06:22SPEAKER- I think doing like an Art Bell style call-in show,
06:25SPEAKERlike take Art Bell and Car Talk and match them up
06:28SPEAKERinto a computer help and I would like to do that show
06:30SPEAKERlate at night.
06:31SPEAKER- That might be fine, I don't know.
06:33SPEAKER- Yeah, when people are having their computer problems.
06:34SPEAKER'Cause computer problems I find almost always come at night.
06:37SPEAKER- Yeah, this is a pretty, yes, yes, you're not wrong.
06:41SPEAKERThis is a pretty technical show though.
06:43SPEAKERI kind of, I like the mental sharpness and clarity
06:45SPEAKERof the early morning recording as opposed to the end of,
06:48SPEAKERvery end of day or evening recording.
06:50SPEAKER- That's true.
06:51SPEAKERSo it's funny you say that though.
06:52SPEAKER'Cause I do, there's a couple of like daily games
06:55SPEAKERthat I play every day.
06:57SPEAKEROne of, I can't believe I'm gonna say this,
06:59SPEAKERbut one of the favorite ones is actually on LinkedIn.
07:02SPEAKERIt's like a Sudoku chess puzzle, basically.
07:07SPEAKERAnd they time you and tell you how you do
07:09SPEAKERversus your average and versus people on your leaderboard.
07:11SPEAKERI always do better if I do it at like 11 o'clock at night
07:14SPEAKERthan at seven o'clock in the morning.
07:15SPEAKER- Weird. - Always.
07:16SPEAKER- Weird. - Yeah.
07:17SPEAKER- I'm in bed before that at this point.
07:20SPEAKER- Yeah, you see, we're both insomniacs at this point,
07:22SPEAKERbut we're on opposite ends.
07:23SPEAKER'Cause I'm going to, I can't go to sleep
07:24SPEAKERand you wake up early I think.
07:26SPEAKER- My brand of insomnia is I fall asleep
07:28SPEAKERin five minutes or less, but then can't sleep more
07:30SPEAKERthan like six hours at the outside.
07:33SPEAKERIs a staying asleep problem?
07:35SPEAKER- I've been reading so many books in a way
07:37SPEAKERthat I haven't really since the start of the pandemic.
07:39SPEAKERSo that's nice at least.
07:40SPEAKER- Yes, okay, real quick before we have a topic this week,
07:42SPEAKERbut before we get into it, I have a question for you.
07:45SPEAKERSpeaking of computer problems on late night.
07:48SPEAKER- Yeah.
07:49SPEAKER- And this is also a question that ultimately
07:50SPEAKERI'm going to put to our audience
07:51SPEAKER'cause I could use some advice potentially.
07:53SPEAKERDo you think it's possible, has Windows gotten so shitty
07:56SPEAKERthat it is now capable of eating another Windows?
08:00SPEAKER- I don't know what that means, Brad.
08:01SPEAKER- Okay, let me expand.
08:02SPEAKERIs Windows now practicing auto cannibalism?
08:06SPEAKERDid you put a Windows inside another Windows?
08:09SPEAKER- Let me just set the stage.
08:09SPEAKERI've talked about this before.
08:10SPEAKERI have a second Windows install on a USB drive
08:13SPEAKERthat is just kind of a junk install that I use
08:15SPEAKERfor things I don't want to touch my real install.
08:19SPEAKER- Okay.
08:20SPEAKER- Like for example, the Logitech G hub.
08:22SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:23SPEAKER- Like shit that you know is going to hook deep into Windows
08:25SPEAKERthat you don't want to like gum everything up.
08:27SPEAKER- I feel like that's less of a problem in the 21st century
08:29SPEAKERthan it was 20 years ago.
08:31SPEAKER- Yeah, it's maybe not as bad as, you know what?
08:33SPEAKERA lot of that type of vendor software
08:35SPEAKERis still pretty crappy.
08:36SPEAKER- So remember I did the testing on this last year.
08:39SPEAKERWe did a video about a PC world
08:40SPEAKERwhere I took a year old Windows install
08:43SPEAKERand then wiped it and then benchmarked it
08:45SPEAKERversus the busted old Windows install
08:47SPEAKERand the performance was exactly the same.
08:49SPEAKERLike there's no performance degradation.
08:50SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:51SPEAKER- It's just jank and crustacean.
08:52SPEAKER- And I also use that install for like, you know,
08:55SPEAKERsketchy game mods that I might not trust
08:57SPEAKERor like installing 25 year old Windows games
09:00SPEAKERthat may not be well behaved.
09:03SPEAKER- Fair, okay.
09:04SPEAKER- In terms of overwriting system files or whatever.
09:06SPEAKER- So you're kind of using it like a VM,
09:07SPEAKERbut it's bare metal because you're doing stuff
09:09SPEAKERthat you require bare metal access to.
09:11SPEAKER- Because like I would use G hub
09:12SPEAKERto update the firmware on my mouse, for example,
09:14SPEAKEReven though I have absolutely no need
09:16SPEAKERof any of the other G hub functionality.
09:17SPEAKERAnyway, I fired up that Windows install last night
09:21SPEAKERto do some stuff and it's way out of date.
09:24SPEAKERAnd I was like, I should get it on a modern Windows.
09:26SPEAKERI also use it for, I have to update my NAS machine.
09:29SPEAKERLike there are some things,
09:30SPEAKERlike you can only update the Intel ME in Windows,
09:33SPEAKERyou may know, which is a huge pain in the ass.
09:36SPEAKERAlthough actually there might be a Linux tool for that now.
09:37SPEAKERI'm not sure.
09:38SPEAKER- Actually, yeah, the Linux firmware app will do that.
09:40SPEAKERBut also you can do that if you,
09:42SPEAKERon ASUS boards and certain other boards,
09:45SPEAKERyou can just upload the zip file
09:47SPEAKERthat has the ME and the BIOS now.
09:49SPEAKERAnd it'll do them both at the same time.
09:50SPEAKER- So some boards do that, some do not.
09:52SPEAKER- Some do not, yeah.
09:53SPEAKER- That workstation board got in there.
09:54SPEAKER- The workstation board probably doesn't, yeah.
09:55SPEAKER- Unfortunately, the BIOS update instructions are like,
09:57SPEAKERplease update to Intel ME version, blah, blah, blah,
10:00SPEAKERbefore updating this, but yeah, it sucks.
10:01SPEAKERAnyway, if I could get that,
10:03SPEAKERif I could get the ME update working in Linux,
10:05SPEAKERI might actually just toss this drive
10:07SPEAKERand never use it again.
10:08SPEAKERBut anyway, I was in that dummy install,
10:11SPEAKERbooted off this USB drive.
10:13SPEAKERI was like, oh, I'll just let it Windows update
10:15SPEAKERto the 24H2 or whatever it wants to do right now.
10:19SPEAKERSo it's on a patched, secure, supported version of Windows.
10:23SPEAKERWalked away for a while, came back, the update had failed.
10:28SPEAKERI let it reboot.
10:29SPEAKERIt kind of unapplied the update for 20 minutes.
10:31SPEAKERAnd then it was back to 23H2, whatever.
10:34SPEAKERI went to bed.
10:35SPEAKERI got up this morning.
10:36SPEAKERThe Mellanox card in this machine does not work anymore.
10:40SPEAKER- Have you completely powered it all the way down?
10:41SPEAKER- This machine?
10:43SPEAKER- Like drained the power and everything?
10:44SPEAKERLike unplugged the power supply and hit the power button?
10:47SPEAKER- Yeah, not turning off the power supply.
10:48SPEAKER- I bet it got the firmware into a weird state.
10:50SPEAKER- So it was on the card?
10:53SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:54SPEAKERThose cards have a lot of logic on them.
10:56SPEAKER- I don't know about that.
10:58SPEAKERI had not considered that,
10:59SPEAKERbut I don't know if that sounds likely to me.
11:00SPEAKERAnyway, like-
11:01SPEAKER- I can't believe I just gave you,
11:02SPEAKERhave you considered turning it off as advice?
11:04SPEAKER- That might be worth a shot.
11:06SPEAKERBasically, I looked in event,
11:07SPEAKERlike none of my network mounts over that.
11:08SPEAKERThat's the 40 gigabit card I use
11:10SPEAKERfor that direct link to my NAS.
11:11SPEAKERNone of the network mounts worked this morning.
11:13SPEAKERAnd I looked in event viewer and that card was just,
11:16SPEAKERWindows was trying to initialize that card
11:18SPEAKERand failing over and over in a five second loop infinitely.
11:22SPEAKER- So my guess is you have to rebuild
11:24SPEAKERthe external Windows drive as a,
11:28SPEAKERusing the Windows to go thing
11:30SPEAKERin order to get it to work.
11:31SPEAKERAnd I haven't been able to get it to work.
11:32SPEAKERI haven't been able to get Windows to go to work
11:34SPEAKERwith anything past 24H2.
11:35SPEAKER- Interesting, okay.
11:36SPEAKERI had to use Rufus, the drive imaging tool
11:39SPEAKERthat has an option for creating a portable,
11:41SPEAKERlike an external Windows install.
11:43SPEAKERHere's a rub that I didn't mention.
11:45SPEAKERI believe this may be possible that at some point
11:47SPEAKERin that update process,
11:50SPEAKERa big Windows update updates or reboots
11:52SPEAKERlike three, four times, right?
11:53SPEAKER- Yeah.
11:54SPEAKER- My refind is set up to give me the boot menu.
11:57SPEAKERAnd if I don't hit any keys, boot into my regular Windows
12:01SPEAKERafter 10 seconds,
12:02SPEAKERat one point in the middle of all those reboots
12:04SPEAKERof the external install,
12:06SPEAKERI wasn't around and it booted into regular Windows instead.
12:09SPEAKER- So then, yeah, did it host the regular Windows too?
12:12SPEAKER- Could that update process have touched
12:14SPEAKERthe regular Windows install in any way?
12:16SPEAKER- I don't think so.
12:17SPEAKER- I don't think so either.
12:17SPEAKERI also don't think so, but-
12:19SPEAKER- The way it hands stuff off during the upgrades
12:22SPEAKERand installs from sleep and fast boot and all that,
12:24SPEAKERI assume you have fast boot and all that stuff
12:25SPEAKERturned off in both Windowses and in the BIOS.
12:28SPEAKER- Oh, I don't know if fast boot's turned off
12:29SPEAKERon the portable Windows, actually.
12:30SPEAKER- If it's not, that'll do it every time.
12:32SPEAKER- Ooh, I didn't think about that, huh?
12:34SPEAKER- Well, rebooting is supposed to always be a reboot.
12:36SPEAKERIt's just shut down that's not a reboot,
12:38SPEAKERthat's not a shut down.
12:39SPEAKER- Right.
12:40SPEAKER- But yeah, so I guess report back next week.
12:43SPEAKERLet us know how it goes.
12:45SPEAKER- Yes, broadly the question is,
12:46SPEAKERcan updating a second Windows on a machine
12:48SPEAKERwith an existing first Windows
12:50SPEAKERfuck up the first Windows, maybe?
12:52SPEAKER- I bet that the Windows upgrade got your machine,
12:54SPEAKERgot your card in a weird state
12:56SPEAKERand it hasn't been able to recover
12:57SPEAKERand power cycling will do it.
12:59SPEAKERYou might have to remove the board and take it back out.
13:02SPEAKER- This has been multiple instances
13:03SPEAKERof me uninstalling it in device manager
13:05SPEAKERand letting it reinstall.
13:06SPEAKER- No, I mean physically remove it from the machine.
13:08SPEAKERI've had problems before that solved
13:10SPEAKERwhen I pulled the CPU and reboot the CPU in the socket.
13:14SPEAKERLike sometimes stuff's weird.
13:16SPEAKER- Interesting.
13:17SPEAKER- Power lingers.
13:18SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah.
13:21SPEAKER- But you know what doesn't linger?
13:22SPEAKER- What's that?
13:24SPEAKER- Magnetic switches.
13:26SPEAKERWait, no, they don't.
13:28SPEAKERYeah, actually that works.
13:29SPEAKERYeah, no, I'm gonna stick with that one.
13:33SPEAKERThat's what we're here to talk about today.
13:35SPEAKERThere's been a little bit of a,
13:37SPEAKERmagnetic switches have had a moment.
13:38SPEAKERThey've been around for a really long time
13:40SPEAKERbut we're starting to see them in more places
13:42SPEAKERin keyboards and mice and stuff like that
13:44SPEAKERand we thought it was a good time to talk about it.
13:48SPEAKERHow they work, what they are,
13:49SPEAKERwhat kind of technology happens inside them
13:51SPEAKERand then what it's like to actually use them a little bit
13:53SPEAKERon a couple of the newer devices that use them.
13:57SPEAKER- So you've been putting hands on a fair number
13:59SPEAKERof magnetic switches from the sound of things?
14:01SPEAKER- I have pause on keyboards and mice in the last few weeks.
14:05SPEAKERSo yeah, lots of stuff to talk about.
14:07SPEAKER- Yeah, these have been out there in,
14:08SPEAKERI feel like joysticks, thumb sticks,
14:11SPEAKERin controllers were the first place
14:13SPEAKERI really started hearing about these.
14:14SPEAKERHall effect and so forth, you may have heard the phrase,
14:16SPEAKERlike that's been around for several years now.
14:18SPEAKER- Well, hall effect has been around,
14:20SPEAKERhall effect is an ancient, like ancient theory, right?
14:23SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't mean in concept,
14:25SPEAKERI mean like you've been seeing them show up
14:26SPEAKERin actual consumer products in a way that is being promoted
14:29SPEAKERand is visible for a few years now.
14:31SPEAKERParticularly, honestly, a lot of this for most people
14:34SPEAKERis downstream of joystick drift
14:36SPEAKERon things like the Switch Joy-Cons.
14:39SPEAKER- That's it.
14:39SPEAKERSo the main difference,
14:42SPEAKERfirst we should talk about how regular switches work.
14:44SPEAKERSo like a keyboard switch or a mouse switch
14:47SPEAKERtypically is an enclosure
14:49SPEAKERthat contains a couple pieces of metal
14:52SPEAKERand when you push down on the switch part of the device,
14:55SPEAKERit buckles one of the pieces of the metal
14:57SPEAKERuntil it touches the other one.
14:58SPEAKERAnd depending on how that mechanism is constructed,
15:01SPEAKERthey can have just a bump, they can make a noise,
15:03SPEAKERthey can be silent and just kind of push all the way down.
15:07SPEAKERThere's a bazillion ways to make those
15:09SPEAKERand the proliferation of keyboard switches
15:12SPEAKERafter the Cherry patent ran out,
15:16SPEAKERyou can literally get hundreds and hundreds
15:17SPEAKERof different types of keyboard switches these days.
15:20SPEAKER- Yeah, just important here,
15:22SPEAKERit is a mechanical action
15:24SPEAKERthat is producing a physical electrical circuit.
15:26SPEAKER- Yeah, and a physical contact between the two places
15:30SPEAKERand that buckling that happens
15:32SPEAKERwhen you press the switch down
15:33SPEAKERtends to cause mechanical stress on a piece,
15:38SPEAKERon a physical item, which will cause it to break over time.
15:40SPEAKER- Wait, when you say buckling, wait.
15:42SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:43SPEAKER- The metal's not bending.
15:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:45SPEAKER- Is it?
15:46SPEAKEREvery actuation?
15:47SPEAKER- Every activation.
15:48SPEAKER- It's wow.
15:49SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause you're pushing a thing down
15:50SPEAKERthat makes the metal bend
15:52SPEAKERuntil it touches the other piece of metal.
15:53SPEAKER- Huh, interesting.
15:55SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:56SPEAKER- Wait, as a design, as an intentional design?
15:59SPEAKER- This is how the designs work, yes.
15:59SPEAKER- Not as just a side effect of metal touching metal
16:02SPEAKERwith stress on it?
16:04SPEAKER- No, yeah.
16:04SPEAKER- Interesting, I didn't even realize that.
16:05SPEAKER- Any time the metal bends, it puts stress on it.
16:07SPEAKER- Interesting.
16:08SPEAKER- Yeah, so magnetic switches use a variety
16:13SPEAKERof different techniques or effects to do the same thing,
16:18SPEAKERbut with no physical electrical contacts.
16:20SPEAKERSo like a keyboard switch that's a magnetic keyboard switch
16:24SPEAKERwill have the same basic shape mechanism,
16:27SPEAKERmainly so that you can use the same kind of key caps
16:29SPEAKERand they fit in the same places,
16:31SPEAKERand they're the right stability for a keyboard.
16:33SPEAKERBut instead of having two pieces of metal
16:35SPEAKERthat touch each other and close a circuit,
16:38SPEAKERa magnet just moves up and down on the post
16:41SPEAKERthat moves up and down through the switch.
16:43SPEAKERNow, this is great.
16:44SPEAKERThere's no physical contacts to wear out.
16:47SPEAKEREither in the mechanism of the switch
16:49SPEAKERor in the space between the switch and the keyboard.
16:53SPEAKERWhen you have those hot swappable switches,
16:56SPEAKERyou jam the little copper wires in
16:57SPEAKERand they can bend or wear out or get corroded or whatever.
17:02SPEAKERThe other benefit of this is that a lot of the stuff
17:05SPEAKERthat was previously tied to hardware,
17:07SPEAKERlike the actuation point for the switch,
17:09SPEAKERis software configurable.
17:11SPEAKERSo you can control stuff like bounce back
17:13SPEAKERand actuation height, and when the switch closes,
17:17SPEAKERlike when the mechanism stops reporting a signal,
17:22SPEAKERwhen you're lifting your finger back up
17:23SPEAKERoff of a keyboard press, for example.
17:25SPEAKER- Sorry, I may have lost the thread here a little bit.
17:27SPEAKERHow does it gauge height?
17:28SPEAKERIt's not just a binary on/off, yes/no.
17:30SPEAKER- Well, we'll talk about that.
17:31SPEAKER- Yes/no, it has crossed the boundary, no it has not.
17:33SPEAKER- Yeah, no, no.
17:35SPEAKERSo the boundary is a software configurable thing.
17:38SPEAKERThe way the sensors work, both Hall Effect and TMR,
17:40SPEAKERwe'll talk about what both of those are
17:42SPEAKERand how they work more in a minute.
17:45SPEAKERBut yeah, they have analog signals.
17:47SPEAKERSo in a magnetic keyboard, if the software is set up right,
17:51SPEAKERis essentially an analog device
17:53SPEAKERthat you're putting thresholds on
17:54SPEAKERfor when the presses trigger.
17:58SPEAKERAnd they do that, so, I mean, let's just jump to it.
18:01SPEAKERWith Hall Effect sensors, there's a little transducer
18:05SPEAKERin the sensor, the thing that's mounted on the keyboard.
18:08SPEAKERSo the sensors typically are on the keyboard,
18:10SPEAKERthe magnets are typically on the switches
18:11SPEAKER'cause the magnets are moving.
18:13SPEAKERAnd a Hall Effect sensor has a transducer
18:15SPEAKERthat's in the integrated circuit
18:17SPEAKERand the changes in magnetic flux around it
18:20SPEAKERchange the amount of current
18:21SPEAKERthat flows through that transducer.
18:23SPEAKER- Can you define what a transducer is?
18:25SPEAKER- It's like a little antenna, basically,
18:26SPEAKERfor all intents and purposes.
18:27SPEAKERIt's just a conductor that's very, very thin,
18:30SPEAKERso it reacts, like the current that flows through it changes.
18:33SPEAKERThe Hall Effect says that in magnetic fields,
18:37SPEAKERchanging flux will change the amount of current
18:39SPEAKERthat moves through a conductor.
18:42SPEAKER- That's how it's measuring variable gradation, then,
18:44SPEAKERin how hard you're pressing?
18:46SPEAKER- Yeah, so the amount of voltage that goes through it
18:48SPEAKERchanges based on where the magnet is in the field.
18:52SPEAKERAnd so, inherently, it doesn't know that.
18:55SPEAKEROften, people use Hall Effect sensors
18:57SPEAKERin things like RPM meters for industrial equipment
19:00SPEAKERor bicycle rotation counters
19:03SPEAKERthat give you a speedometer for your bicycle.
19:05SPEAKERSometimes we'll put a Hall Effect sensor
19:07SPEAKERup on your back fender and a magnet on the rim of,
19:10SPEAKERone of the rims of the bike,
19:11SPEAKERand then you tell it how big your tires are,
19:14SPEAKERand then it knows how far you're going
19:15SPEAKERand how fast you're going based on how many times
19:17SPEAKERthat magnet hits the Hall Effect sensor.
19:20SPEAKERI wanna say we used them on the early MakerBots
19:23SPEAKERwhen we were building those to determine the top
19:26SPEAKERand the bottom of the print area, right?
19:31SPEAKERSo, anyway, yeah, but the important thing is analog signals.
19:37SPEAKERAnd you get a range and you can calibrate them
19:40SPEAKERbased on positioning.
19:41SPEAKERThere's a lot of math there,
19:43SPEAKERespecially in noisy environments like a keyboard
19:45SPEAKERwhere there's a million of these switches
19:46SPEAKERand a million little magnets right next to each other.
19:48SPEAKER- This was my biggest question about this thing,
19:50SPEAKERand I typed it into this doc
19:51SPEAKERuntil I saw you had addressed it elsewhere
19:53SPEAKERand then removed that question.
19:53SPEAKERBut yes, it's a situation where there are upwards of 104
19:58SPEAKERor 110, depending on your keyboard layout,
20:01SPEAKERseveral dozen to 100 different tiny magnets
20:04SPEAKERall very tightly packed and adjacent to each other.
20:06SPEAKERSo is there not an issue with like bleeding
20:09SPEAKERmagnetic fields from one to the next,
20:11SPEAKERlike signal kind of cross talk?
20:13SPEAKERHow does it correct for all of that?
20:15SPEAKER- Well, so there is, but because of the way magnets work,
20:20SPEAKERthe field when the keys are all up is always the same, right?
20:24SPEAKERAnd then when you press down on a switch, it's the same.
20:27SPEAKERWhen you press down on the switch
20:28SPEAKERin the neighboring switch, that's a measurable change
20:30SPEAKERin the flux for both of the switches around it.
20:33SPEAKERAnd the magnets in the switches are really, really small.
20:34SPEAKERSo their impact on the fields around them
20:37SPEAKERis relatively limited, as I understand it.
20:39SPEAKER- That was my guess, was either or both of the fields
20:42SPEAKERare tiny and it's not a huge problem,
20:44SPEAKERor are they correct for it in terms of signal strength?
20:47SPEAKER- Well, but also like if you change switches
20:50SPEAKERin your keyboard, or even I assume change switches
20:52SPEAKERfrom one spot to another, then you have to actually
20:57SPEAKERrecalibrate the keyboard, which I haven't done yet.
20:59SPEAKERI assume that's just pressing a bunch of keys.
21:01SPEAKER- Interesting. - Yeah.
21:04SPEAKER- There's a lot of quick brown fox type stuff
21:07SPEAKERfor a while until it's happy.
21:08SPEAKER- I don't know, you want me to try it?
21:10SPEAKER- Sure. - What could go wrong?
21:11SPEAKERI didn't think to do that.
21:13SPEAKERSo anyway, but the point is because it's analog,
21:17SPEAKERyou can control things like actuation height
21:19SPEAKERand like when the key press lets off,
21:22SPEAKERlike when you're lifting your finger back up.
21:24SPEAKERSo the activation height and the release height
21:27SPEAKERdon't have to be the same
21:28SPEAKERin one of these mechanical keyboards.
21:30SPEAKERThat makes sense. - Yes.
21:32SPEAKER- It's on at a higher height than it lets off
21:35SPEAKERof the switch we're setting. - Exactly.
21:36SPEAKER- Or vice versa, I guess you could set it either way.
21:38SPEAKER- So when I do a calibration,
21:40SPEAKERI'm calibrating my E switch right now.
21:43SPEAKERI press the selected key on the physical keyboard
21:45SPEAKERall the way down and then I press the start button
21:47SPEAKERand it just says, oh, it's calibrated.
21:49SPEAKERSo there's nothing, it's just looking for what,
21:52SPEAKERwhich sensors detect flux change
21:55SPEAKERor what the sensor underneath it detects when it changes.
21:57SPEAKER- All right, well, we'll get into more of the hands-on
21:59SPEAKERtoward the end. - Yeah.
22:01SPEAKER- For the specific keyboard you're testing.
22:03SPEAKER- So, okay, so there's also this other thing
22:05SPEAKERthat you hear about in the game,
22:07SPEAKERin the joystick, Joy-Con Drift world,
22:11SPEAKERwhich are TMR sensors.
22:12SPEAKERThat's short for Tunnel Magneto Resistance.
22:15SPEAKER- Yeah, the first place I saw this was,
22:17SPEAKERI think it's like 8BitDo's last couple of controllers.
22:20SPEAKER- Yeah, their ultimate Bluetooth 2s, I think,
22:23SPEAKERare both TMR sticks.
22:25SPEAKER- They're starting to move to TMR instead of Hall
22:26SPEAKERand they definitely, but of course they do kind of talk it up
22:30SPEAKERas these are better than Hall.
22:31SPEAKERThis is the next generation of this thing.
22:33SPEAKERI don't know how accurate that is, but.
22:35SPEAKER- So that's accurate, that's fair.
22:37SPEAKERThis is a newer effect that was discovered in the '70s
22:40SPEAKERversus the 19th century, I guess, 1800s.
22:45SPEAKERAnd they use less power.
22:47SPEAKERThey measure the change in resistance of a thin insulator
22:52SPEAKERbetween two ferromagnets on an integrated circuit.
22:55SPEAKERSo imagine two magnets with something that insulates
22:58SPEAKERbetween them and the TMR effect,
23:01SPEAKERthe Tunneling Magneto Resistance effect says
23:04SPEAKERthat in a magnetic flux field,
23:07SPEAKERelectrons will tunnel across that insulator
23:09SPEAKERand into the other from one magnet to another.
23:11SPEAKER- Interesting. - And that's a measurable effect
23:13SPEAKER'cause you can measure the resistance of that insulator.
23:17SPEAKER- Yeah, speaking of measurable effects,
23:19SPEAKERI'm sure you don't have numbers in front of you,
23:21SPEAKERbut I wonder if the savings and electricity required
23:24SPEAKERto drive these is meaningful across, again,
23:27SPEAKERsomewhere between 60 and a hundred switches on a,
23:29SPEAKERespecially if it's a wired keyboard, doesn't matter,
23:31SPEAKERbut like I use a wireless keyboard and I'm wondering if,
23:34SPEAKERI wonder if that many switches makes a meaningful difference
23:37SPEAKERto battery life to have TMR overhaul.
23:39SPEAKER- From what I can tell, it matters much more
23:42SPEAKERon small integrated circuits that are being used
23:44SPEAKERon smaller batteries.
23:45SPEAKERThe batteries and mice and keyboards are relatively large.
23:47SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, fair.
23:50SPEAKER- So the bigger thing is that they're faster
23:53SPEAKERand more, faster and more precise
23:58SPEAKERthan the Hall effect sensors generally.
24:00SPEAKER- Faster, more precise and less power
24:02SPEAKERis a pretty compelling combo, although-
24:05SPEAKER- And they're quantum, so they use a quantum effect.
24:08SPEAKERThe tunneling can't be described in classical physics.
24:10SPEAKERIt's only a quantum effect.
24:11SPEAKERSo using quantum mechanics would use TMR sticks.
24:14SPEAKER- So these are quantumly entangled keyboard switches?
24:18SPEAKER- I don't know how entangled they are,
24:19SPEAKERbut it was very clear, the articles I read about this
24:22SPEAKERall described this as quantum effects.
24:24SPEAKERAnd I went and looked at it and I dug in further
24:26SPEAKERand I was like, "Oh, right, electrons jumping.
24:28SPEAKERYeah, that is quantum."
24:29SPEAKER- Electro, okay, that's not entanglement.
24:31SPEAKERIf it's one particle moving,
24:33SPEAKERas opposed to two different particles
24:35SPEAKERand influencing each other at a bizarre distance,
24:37SPEAKERthen that's not, ask me anything about quantum mechanics.
24:42SPEAKER- So the TMR effect is the same thing
24:44SPEAKERthat's been in modern hard drive heads
24:47SPEAKERfor like 15 years at this point.
24:49SPEAKERThe ones that float above the surface of the disc
24:51SPEAKERon a cushion of air.
24:53SPEAKERSo yeah, the switches measure the change.
24:55SPEAKERThe physical setup for these switches is the same.
24:57SPEAKERThe sensors on the board, the magnets on the switch.
25:00SPEAKERThe switch measures the change in resistance
25:03SPEAKERin that insulator, which is faster,
25:04SPEAKERand like I said, uses less power and more precise.
25:06SPEAKER- When you say faster,
25:07SPEAKERare we talking on the order of nanoseconds?
25:10SPEAKER- I don't know.
25:11SPEAKER- Microseconds?
25:11SPEAKER- I couldn't find that answer.
25:12SPEAKERI looked for that and I think it's just,
25:15SPEAKERI think it's not on a human scale faster was my read.
25:19SPEAKER- Probably milliseconds versus microseconds
25:21SPEAKERor milliseconds versus nanoseconds, something like that.
25:23SPEAKER- I mean, at the same time, you're seeing esports pros
25:25SPEAKERnow talk about wanting 600 hertz monitors
25:28SPEAKERand things like that.
25:28SPEAKEROr you straight up see people talking
25:30SPEAKERlike they can't be competitive
25:31SPEAKERat lower than 480 hertz or some insane threshold.
25:36SPEAKER- There was a Counter Strike tournament
25:38SPEAKERthat was sponsored by Intel and everybody's really raw
25:40SPEAKER'cause they put mid-range CPU's into it.
25:42SPEAKERSo the machines were only getting 180, 200 frames a second.
25:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
25:46SPEAKER- Now, the problem with the TMR sticks
25:48SPEAKERis the sensors are relatively new.
25:51SPEAKERThe IC sensors are relatively new.
25:53SPEAKERThat means they're more expensive.
25:54SPEAKERSo when I was looking at like replacement sticks
25:57SPEAKERfor a DualSense, for example,
25:59SPEAKERwhich you can buy on Amazon,
26:02SPEAKERfour pack of four hall effect sensors was $12.
26:08SPEAKERSorry, I have a four pack right here,
26:09SPEAKERbut it's a two pack of TMR sticks was 20 bucks.
26:13SPEAKERSo they're significantly more expensive.
26:15SPEAKER- That's what, $3 versus 10 a stick?
26:18SPEAKER- Yeah, basically.
26:20SPEAKER- I was going to ask something else.
26:21SPEAKEROh, this is mostly relevant in the context of a DualSense.
26:24SPEAKERAre those sticks and the circuit board integrated together
26:28SPEAKERor is that just the stick?
26:29SPEAKERBecause on a DualSense, you have to solder
26:31SPEAKERif you don't have that whole contraption, I believe.
26:34SPEAKER- So this was to de-solder.
26:36SPEAKERThese were units that would de-solder the old sticks
26:40SPEAKERand re-solder on the new sticks.
26:42SPEAKERYou'd replace the stems and the caps from your board, I think.
26:45SPEAKER- That's pretty substantial then.
26:46SPEAKERAs opposed to Joy-Cons,
26:48SPEAKERthey just use the easily inserted ribbon cables.
26:51SPEAKERLike the stick replacement on Joy-Cons
26:53SPEAKERis pretty dead simple as these things go, but.
26:56SPEAKER- Yeah, so we should talk about why,
27:00SPEAKERlike in the old days, thumbsticks and joysticks
27:02SPEAKERused potentiometers, which are like sensors
27:04SPEAKERthat measured the bend of a material inside.
27:08SPEAKERThey've changed the resistance
27:09SPEAKERbased on the bend of a physical material, usually.
27:11SPEAKERThere were a bunch of other ways that they could do that,
27:13SPEAKERbut that was the more common one.
27:15SPEAKERModern thumbsticks in the Switch and the DualSense
27:20SPEAKERhave two touch surfaces.
27:22SPEAKERThey have a mechanism in there that pivots on both axes
27:27SPEAKERand it moves these little,
27:28SPEAKERthey're like little virtual thumbs, basically,
27:31SPEAKERthat move on a little touch surface back and forth
27:33SPEAKERon a linear way on the X and Y axes.
27:36SPEAKERAnd those pushers push down on these touch surfaces,
27:40SPEAKERand that's what detects the movement, those touch surfaces.
27:43SPEAKER'Cause, hey, this is weird, but touch surfaces
27:46SPEAKERare very inexpensive to make now.
27:47SPEAKER- Yeah, weird, guess what else?
27:49SPEAKERThey also wear out as they grind
27:51SPEAKERagainst each other over time.
27:52SPEAKER- Well, so they do wear out
27:53SPEAKERwhen they grind against each other every time.
27:55SPEAKERIn the Switch's case, it was more often
27:57SPEAKERthat dust and particulate got into there
27:59SPEAKERand got stuck on that touch surface
28:01SPEAKERand would interfere with the touching part of it.
28:04SPEAKERAnd then the software couldn't cope with that
28:06SPEAKERonce it got beyond a certain level of dirtiness.
28:08SPEAKER- Yeah, that's speaking of,
28:09SPEAKERI don't know if this is the time to say this,
28:10SPEAKERspeaking of software coping with physical effects,
28:14SPEAKERphysical anomalies.
28:16SPEAKER- Yeah, I think the fact that the shorting out
28:21SPEAKERwas a problem is what started this whole conversation
28:24SPEAKERabout magnetic switches, I think, in a lot of things.
28:26SPEAKERBut yeah, so let's talk about software
28:27SPEAKERfixing your other problems.
28:28SPEAKER- Yeah, my first question about these
28:31SPEAKERwhen we were putting these notes together
28:32SPEAKERis do magnetic switches fix debouncing,
28:34SPEAKERwhich is a phenomenon I have become acquainted with
28:38SPEAKERon this podcast over the last couple months
28:40SPEAKERas my relatively inexpensive but decent key crons
28:44SPEAKERstarted registering a whole bunch of extra inputs.
28:47SPEAKERAnd then as I talked about recently,
28:49SPEAKERI updated the firmware on it,
28:50SPEAKERthinking that would not do anything.
28:52SPEAKERAnd then in fact, it did everything
28:54SPEAKERin the sense that they tweaked the debouncing algorithm
28:57SPEAKERin this thing.
28:59SPEAKER- Yeah, the debouncing happens because the switches,
29:02SPEAKERthe connections aren't perfect, right?
29:04SPEAKER- Yeah, the short version, so I looked it up
29:06SPEAKERand from what I read, the short version is that yes,
29:08SPEAKERthese do basically eliminate the bouncing effect.
29:11SPEAKERBut yes, when you are slamming two pieces of metal together
29:14SPEAKERwith a decent amount of force,
29:16SPEAKERI assume it's everything from the amount of force
29:18SPEAKERyou're applying to like tiny variations
29:20SPEAKERin the shape of the metal, and it's just the impact.
29:24SPEAKERIt's just the impact.
29:25SPEAKER- Yeah, I was just saying on the hard impacts especially,
29:27SPEAKERespecially if you're a hard typer,
29:29SPEAKERthe switches can vibrate on and off of each other
29:31SPEAKERa little bit, even the contacts.
29:32SPEAKER- And enough for current to flow
29:34SPEAKERand not flow multiple times per key press.
29:36SPEAKERAnd so that's what bouncing is and that's what software
29:39SPEAKERand more often firmware is correcting for.
29:42SPEAKER- Yeah, typically I looked on the firmware
29:44SPEAKERfor my like control drop and when you compile it yourself,
29:47SPEAKERrather than using one of the pre-compiled binaries
29:49SPEAKERthat they ship, then you can actually change
29:52SPEAKERthe debounce settings in the firmware.
29:54SPEAKER- The newer firmware I put on this Keychron
29:56SPEAKERalso exposed a debounce setting.
29:58SPEAKERAnd I think it's at like five milliseconds
30:01SPEAKERfrom by default right now,
30:02SPEAKERwhich has basically fixed everything.
30:04SPEAKER- Oh, that's good.
30:05SPEAKER- Yeah, although it did lead me to ask,
30:07SPEAKERsince we're talking about this situation,
30:09SPEAKERit did make me wonder where is the debouncing happening?
30:11SPEAKERLike obviously it's happening in firmware
30:13SPEAKERbecause we're talking about that
30:14SPEAKERand we can see the setting exposed for it.
30:15SPEAKERBut it also made me wonder if the software receiving
30:19SPEAKERthe input is doing any debouncing.
30:21SPEAKER- Probably not.
30:22SPEAKER- Whether OS, also what I looked up is that,
30:26SPEAKERyes, in most cases on operating systems,
30:29SPEAKERthey have to account for a wide range of input devices,
30:32SPEAKERnot just highly precise gamer keyboards.
30:35SPEAKERSo probably most generic USB keyboard drivers
30:38SPEAKERand things like Windows and Linux
30:39SPEAKERare doing some amount of smoothing for that stuff.
30:42SPEAKERAnd the reason this came to mind
30:43SPEAKERis that I've been in my UEFI a lot lately.
30:46SPEAKERAnd I was seeing a lot more like double arrow key presses
30:48SPEAKERin the UEFI than I would ever see in Windows.
30:51SPEAKER- Is this after the update?
30:52SPEAKER- Yeah, this is in the last like week
30:53SPEAKERthat I've been in there. - Oh, weird.
30:55SPEAKER- Like I would be arrowing up and down through the menus
30:57SPEAKERand it would jump a little bit here and there.
30:58SPEAKER- Can you increase that debounce more
31:00SPEAKERor is that a configurable option?
31:02SPEAKER- Yeah, I can tweak it more.
31:03SPEAKERBut the point is it seems like maybe the operating system
31:06SPEAKERdoes a little bit of its own smoothing
31:08SPEAKERon top of whatever's happening in hardware or firmware.
31:11SPEAKER- I mean, it's entirely possible.
31:12SPEAKERI mean, they remember like Windows has to account
31:14SPEAKERfor everything from like terrible scissor keys on laptops
31:18SPEAKERto like dome keys to all sorts of other stuff, so.
31:21SPEAKER- Well, there's gonna be a generic keyboard driver
31:22SPEAKERthat you're going through
31:23SPEAKERthat's gonna handle some of that stuff.
31:25SPEAKER- Yeah, so anyway, there's other stuff
31:28SPEAKERthat's a side effect of these switches too, right?
31:30SPEAKERLike Razer and Wooting both have magnetic keyboards
31:36SPEAKERthat use features that are banned from use in Counter-Strike
31:39SPEAKERand Overwatch and games like that.
31:42SPEAKERThe Razer has a thing called snap-tap.
31:44SPEAKERI think Wooting calls it something tappy
31:47SPEAKERor tappy-tappy or something like that.
31:50SPEAKERAnd the idea is that when you flip that on,
31:53SPEAKERit only prioritizes your last hit input.
31:56SPEAKERSo it releases the previous hits,
31:58SPEAKERwhich doesn't matter in a lot of games,
32:00SPEAKERbut in a game like Counter-Strike
32:01SPEAKERwhere you have movement inertia
32:03SPEAKERand your gun accuracy goes way, way bad
32:08SPEAKERthe moment you are,
32:10SPEAKERgets better the moment you stop moving.
32:13SPEAKERCounter-Strike pros do a thing where they do cross inputs
32:17SPEAKERor opposite inputs called snapping.
32:20SPEAKERIt's simultaneous natural opposing or something.
32:24SPEAKERThe idea is if you're pressing D to strafe right
32:27SPEAKERand you wanna stop, then you don't just let off D.
32:30SPEAKERYou also press A for a split second
32:32SPEAKERas you're letting off D.
32:34SPEAKERAnd it's something that getting the timing on
32:36SPEAKERis one of the things that separates Counter-Strike mortals
32:39SPEAKERfrom Counter-Strike gods, right?
32:40SPEAKER- Yes, also, as with so much of what we talk about here,
32:44SPEAKERit all goes back to Quake.
32:45SPEAKER- It does.
32:46SPEAKER- 'Cause remember the movement in Quake 1
32:48SPEAKERand the amount of momentum you have
32:49SPEAKERwhen you let off the movements?
32:50SPEAKER- Well, and when you did diagonals, yeah, of course.
32:53SPEAKER- So anyway, I can see why this might be a problem
32:57SPEAKERin the professional scene.
32:58SPEAKER- Yeah, so the feature that they added
33:01SPEAKERbasically prioritizes your last used input,
33:03SPEAKERwhich means it removes any overlap between the key presses,
33:06SPEAKERwhich is one of the things you have to learn
33:07SPEAKERhow to deal with on any new keyboard
33:09SPEAKERwhen you're playing Counter-Strike at a high level.
33:11SPEAKERAnd it only replaces, reports, rather,
33:15SPEAKERthe last key that you press,
33:16SPEAKEReven while another key is still pressed.
33:18SPEAKERSo if you're strafing right--
33:19SPEAKER- Yeah, you can effectively just interrupt your movement
33:21SPEAKERby hitting the opposing direction.
33:22SPEAKER- Exactly.
33:24SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna say I turned it on on this keyboard,
33:27SPEAKERI fired up Counter-Strike,
33:29SPEAKERI immediately was able to stop and get,
33:32SPEAKERsomething I've never been able to do before,
33:34SPEAKERI was able to stop and get the perfect headshots
33:36SPEAKERwith an AK, tap, tap, tap, no problem, it was wild.
33:40SPEAKERAnd that was after about five minutes of practice.
33:42SPEAKERSo I understand why they've said, "Hey, don't use these."
33:46SPEAKERIt seems like they're able to detect it in software,
33:48SPEAKERso they are issuing bans on using this kind of stuff,
33:51SPEAKERso don't do it. - Bands?
33:52SPEAKERSeems--
33:53SPEAKER- They're kicking you from games, it's not like a back ban.
33:55SPEAKER- Okay.
33:57SPEAKERBasically, you get a message that says,
33:58SPEAKER"Hey, don't do that," is my understanding.
33:59SPEAKER- Yeah, that's fine, yeah.
34:00SPEAKERJust preventing you from playing the game
34:01SPEAKERwith the device seems fine.
34:03SPEAKERIf it hit at the account level,
34:04SPEAKERthat would maybe be a little much.
34:06SPEAKER- Yeah, and just to be clear,
34:07SPEAKERthis is the thing you have to turn on in the software
34:10SPEAKERfor the keyboard.
34:11SPEAKERI had to log into the software interface and flip it on.
34:14SPEAKERThey call it speed tap in the ASUS software.
34:17SPEAKER- I wonder if they're using
34:18SPEAKERkernel level detection features,
34:20SPEAKER'cause that seems like the kind of thing
34:22SPEAKERthat would not be hard to spoof otherwise.
34:24SPEAKERYou could probably--
34:26SPEAKER- My guess is they're tracking timing.
34:27SPEAKER- They're all kind, yeah, maybe that's what it is.
34:29SPEAKER- Also--
34:30SPEAKER- Wait, but then you would start false positive
34:33SPEAKERcatching people who are too good at this.
34:35SPEAKER- Well, my guess is that you don't do it in a precise,
34:39SPEAKERlike, my guess is that the timing is always the same
34:41SPEAKERevery time when you use the feature,
34:42SPEAKERand when a human does it,
34:43SPEAKERit varies by a couple milliseconds.
34:46SPEAKERI don't know.
34:47SPEAKERAll I know is that, yeah, don't use these features
34:50SPEAKERor you're gonna get yelled at.
34:52SPEAKERIt really, the games that I've seen that it referenced
34:54SPEAKERare for different reasons.
34:56SPEAKEROverwatch, you can do it to completely change your movement
34:59SPEAKERand make you move like you have some sort of weird powers
35:03SPEAKERor cheating, actually.
35:04SPEAKERWhen you watch the videos of people using it in Overwatch,
35:06SPEAKERthey literally look like they're cheating.
35:08SPEAKERIt apparently doesn't matter in Valorant
35:10SPEAKERbecause the movement inertia isn't the same in Valorant.
35:13SPEAKERYou stop almost immediately when you let off.
35:18SPEAKERMy understanding is that it's detected by heuristics,
35:22SPEAKERnot by some sort of kernel-level anti-cheat
35:24SPEAKERor something like that.
35:28SPEAKERSo, and just to be clear, you can use the keyboard,
35:31SPEAKERyou just have to turn the feature off.
35:33SPEAKERThat's what the, yeah. - Oh, oh, oh.
35:35SPEAKERAnd per their rules, you can still,
35:37SPEAKERas long as you've got that off,
35:38SPEAKERyeah, it must be a detection thing, then,
35:39SPEAKERif you can still play with that feature disabled
35:43SPEAKERbut on that keyboard.
35:44SPEAKER- There's nothing fundamentally illegal
35:46SPEAKERabout magnetic switches.
35:47SPEAKERIt's the feature that lets you turn off.
35:50SPEAKERThe other thing they do is they change the input
35:51SPEAKERat which the key stops reporting input,
35:55SPEAKERbut that's a little bit less of an issue.
35:57SPEAKERSo, okay, I think that's everything.
36:01SPEAKERPeople use these sensors in all sorts.
36:03SPEAKERHall effect sensors are everywhere.
36:05SPEAKERYour fridge door likely has a hall effect sensor.
36:08SPEAKERIf it doesn't have a physical switch
36:09SPEAKERthat turns the light on and off that you can see,
36:11SPEAKERif the light just turns on and off when it opens
36:14SPEAKERand turns off when it closes,
36:15SPEAKERthat's almost certainly a magnet
36:17SPEAKERembedded in the door someplace.
36:18SPEAKERYou can test it by getting a big magnet
36:20SPEAKERand running it around your fridge and seeing what happens.
36:24SPEAKERBut the place that we're mainly talking about
36:26SPEAKERare keyboards and mice.
36:27SPEAKERI haven't actually used,
36:29SPEAKERI've used hall effect thumb sticks before,
36:31SPEAKERbut not for any appreciable length of time.
36:33SPEAKERAll of my game pads that I use are still more or less stock.
36:37SPEAKERBut I'm kind of curious about swapping out the TMR sticks.
36:40SPEAKERI mean, for some TMR sticks and hall effect sticks.
36:43SPEAKERI did read a couple of comparisons.
36:46SPEAKERLike there was a person who did the TMR switch
36:50SPEAKERand basically put TMR sticks in one of his joysticks
36:54SPEAKERin one of his dual senses
36:56SPEAKERand hall effect sticks in one of his dual senses
36:58SPEAKERand then reported the differences.
37:00SPEAKERAnd the TLDR was, they both seemed fine.
37:03SPEAKER- Yeah. - Yeah.
37:04SPEAKER- I have to, it sounds like the differences
37:06SPEAKERwould be imperceptible to a human,
37:08SPEAKERbut like the less electricity and stuff is meaningful.
37:11SPEAKER- Yeah, and I think like this is one of those places
37:14SPEAKERwhere human perception is a spectrum
37:16SPEAKERand like there's definitely gonna be people out there
37:18SPEAKERthat can tell the difference, but for the most part,
37:21SPEAKERprobably they're functionally identical.
37:23SPEAKER- It is so fucking frustrating to me
37:26SPEAKERthat none of the console makers have embraced
37:27SPEAKERat least hall effects.
37:29SPEAKER- Yeah. - It sounds,
37:30SPEAKERif it's really that ubiquitous and commodified,
37:32SPEAKERlike, yes, it probably would.
37:33SPEAKERI mean, of course it would add
37:34SPEAKERa little bit of manufacturing costs,
37:36SPEAKERbut as bad as stick drift particularly was on the Switch One
37:41SPEAKERand Sony's last couple of generations of controllers
37:44SPEAKERhave also, I don't know what Xbox has been doing.
37:46SPEAKERI had drift on some of my 360 controllers, but.
37:50SPEAKER- So my 360 controllers,
37:51SPEAKERthe problem I had with them wasn't drift,
37:53SPEAKERit was that the dead zone got wobbly.
37:55SPEAKERSo it would kind of jitter in the,
37:58SPEAKEReven if you weren't touching the sticks.
38:00SPEAKERI actually haven't any problems with dual senses.
38:02SPEAKER- I haven't either, but it's something you see a fair amount.
38:05SPEAKERI've never had a DualShock 4 or a DualSense,
38:08SPEAKERI don't think, develop drift, but I do.
38:10SPEAKERThat's why the stick replacements are fairly common.
38:13SPEAKERYou seem to talk about it. - Yeah, I assumed.
38:14SPEAKER- But it's not as bad as Joy-Cons.
38:15SPEAKERThose are absolutely the worst.
38:17SPEAKERAnd like, I assume Nintendo just made the old Fight Club,
38:22SPEAKERcar crash recall versus settlement calculation.
38:26SPEAKER- I think- - 'Cause you remember,
38:27SPEAKERthey started like a life,
38:29SPEAKERI think the policy was lifetime on the Switch One, right?
38:32SPEAKERThey would replace Joy-Cons with drift lifetime of the unit,
38:35SPEAKERnot like one year warranty style.
38:37SPEAKERAnd I assume it's just the standard thing of,
38:39SPEAKERhey, it's still cheaper for us to just fulfill our MAs
38:42SPEAKERon the people who will bother to RMA than it is to take a,
38:48SPEAKERI don't know what it is,
38:49SPEAKERsomewhere between like 50 cent to $3 extra cost
38:52SPEAKERper unit produced kind of thing.
38:55SPEAKER- It's, yeah, I mean, it seems like on the Switch Two,
38:59SPEAKERthey sealed them better at least
39:00SPEAKERso that you don't get as much dust and crap in there.
39:03SPEAKERBut my guess is that the Hall effect sensors
39:05SPEAKERare significantly more expensive than the touchpad sensors.
39:08SPEAKER- It's a bummer though.
39:10SPEAKERLook, yeah, I mean, it's nice that the aftermarket control,
39:14SPEAKERlike this is why you should buy an 8BitDo controller
39:16SPEAKERinstead of that $80 pro controller.
39:20SPEAKERSo, okay, hands-on time.
39:23SPEAKERI've been testing the ROG Falcata,
39:25SPEAKERwhich is a split 75% gaming keyboard.
39:29SPEAKERIt uses the specific kinds of switches like this.
39:34SPEAKERSo one of the things that's important,
39:36SPEAKERjust like in mechanical keyboard land,
39:39SPEAKERyou have to match your Switch with your keyboard.
39:41SPEAKERMost everybody uses the same standards
39:43SPEAKERfor Switches at this point.
39:44SPEAKERThere are a handful of mechanical Switches
39:46SPEAKERthat are outside of like the Cherry MX,
39:48SPEAKERthree or five supporter snap-in plastic pieces
39:54SPEAKERand two connectors.
39:55SPEAKER- When you say standard,
39:56SPEAKERare you talking about physical form factor
39:57SPEAKERthat would make them interchangeable in the same keyboard?
40:00SPEAKER- Yeah. - Okay.
40:01SPEAKERSo you can just kind of buy any brand of Switch?
40:04SPEAKER- More or less.
40:05SPEAKERThere's like Cherry MX compatible Switches
40:07SPEAKERand then there's some other stuff,
40:09SPEAKERbut the other stuff is relatively small.
40:13SPEAKERWith this, you need to make sure
40:15SPEAKERthat the keyboards match your Switch
40:17SPEAKERbecause the magnet placement matters.
40:19SPEAKERLike the ASUS keyboard and a couple of others
40:22SPEAKERuse magnets on the side of the capsule
40:25SPEAKERand some of them use magnets on the center of the stem.
40:29SPEAKERIt's all over the place.
40:29SPEAKERSo if you have a wooting keyboard,
40:31SPEAKERyou make sure you buy the wooting magnetic switches.
40:33SPEAKERIf you have an ASUS keyboard,
40:34SPEAKERyou make sure you buy the ASUS one.
40:34SPEAKERIf you have the Razer one, you buy the Razer one.
40:37SPEAKERSwitch selection is dramatically lower
40:40SPEAKERthan with mechanical keyboards because for obvious reasons.
40:45SPEAKERYeah.
40:46SPEAKERMost everybody is shipping
40:48SPEAKERwhat are effectively linear Switches.
40:51SPEAKERSo no bump, no click for kind of obvious reasons.
40:56SPEAKERYou know, 'cause the click is a mechanical process
40:59SPEAKERand the Switch actuates at configurable height.
41:03SPEAKERSo like if you, while you can move the actuation height,
41:06SPEAKERyou'll never be able to move where that click happens.
41:09SPEAKERSo you don't probably want to buy clicky Switches for this
41:12SPEAKERuntil you figure out what height you want.
41:14SPEAKERAnd then maybe you find a clicky Switch
41:16SPEAKERthat aligns with the height that you like.
41:17SPEAKERI don't know.
41:19SPEAKERYou can get clicky magnetic Switches for other keyboards.
41:21SPEAKERI haven't actually tried them.
41:22SPEAKERI don't think I would want that,
41:24SPEAKERbut I'm also a linear keyboard Switch guy.
41:26SPEAKER- I like linear, so I've actually,
41:28SPEAKERdo people mix and match?
41:29SPEAKER- Sometimes people put different Switches on their,
41:31SPEAKERlike the WASD and game keys.
41:33SPEAKER- I got this keyboard as a tactile
41:35SPEAKERbecause that's all they have in stock.
41:36SPEAKERI thought I'd never, A, I'd never used one.
41:38SPEAKERSo I had to guess at what I thought I would want,
41:40SPEAKERbut I guessed that I would want linear,
41:43SPEAKERbut they only had tactile at the time.
41:44SPEAKERSo I bought the tactile keyboard
41:45SPEAKERand later bought some linear Switches.
41:48SPEAKERBut by then I have kind of decided
41:50SPEAKERthat I liked tactile enough
41:51SPEAKERthat I sort of mixed and matched.
41:52SPEAKERLike all my, I think all my letter keys are linear currently
41:55SPEAKERand everything else is still a tactile.
41:57SPEAKER- Yeah, I like linear just because of noise.
41:59SPEAKERI like to be able to type a little bit
42:00SPEAKERwhile I'm on the microphone here.
42:04SPEAKERBut yeah, I like, look, if I didn't do podcasts
42:07SPEAKERand didn't use my computer with the microphone on,
42:09SPEAKERI would have the clicky as loud
42:10SPEAKERas most obnoxious fucking Switches you've ever heard.
42:12SPEAKER- Yeah, you know, there's a lot of things
42:14SPEAKERabout one's computing habits that are,
42:16SPEAKERthat flow downstream of having to be on a microphone a lot.
42:19SPEAKER- Yeah, give me a big thonky,
42:21SPEAKERlike I want something to sound like a model 80, you know,
42:23SPEAKERjust thonk, thonk, thonk.
42:26SPEAKER- So yeah, the Switches, there's right now two Switches
42:30SPEAKERon the market for this keyboard,
42:31SPEAKERso I haven't tried the other ones.
42:33SPEAKERThey weren't in stock when I tried to get them.
42:35SPEAKER- What kind of pricing are we talking about on these?
42:36SPEAKERDid you look? - Basically the same.
42:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I looked up, I looked at Keyfron
42:39SPEAKERjust because that's what I have,
42:41SPEAKERnot that they're like the best or anything,
42:42SPEAKERbut they, a full set of like 110 or whatever
42:45SPEAKERwas like 30 bucks for their haul line.
42:49SPEAKER- So these are more in line with like a premium Switch.
42:53SPEAKERWhen I looked at their, let's see, what is it called?
42:56SPEAKERThe TTC Golden Magnetic Switches.
42:59SPEAKERThey were like 10 bucks, eight bucks for 10, I think.
43:02SPEAKER- 10 Switches? - For 10 Switches,
43:04SPEAKERwhich is like basically the same price I paid 10 years ago
43:07SPEAKERfor my silent Bobas on my control.
43:10SPEAKER- Now here's the bigger question.
43:12SPEAKERWhat is wearing out in the Switches
43:13SPEAKERthat necessitates more Switches?
43:16SPEAKER- What do you mean?
43:17SPEAKER- Like, I mean, on the standard mechanical Switches,
43:21SPEAKERit's pretty obvious why they would wear out over time.
43:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
43:24SPEAKER- What is wearing down in the magnetic Switches that-
43:27SPEAKER- Nothing.
43:28SPEAKER- Well, that's what I mean then.
43:30SPEAKERWhat are the scenarios in which you would need replacements
43:32SPEAKERis what I'm asking.
43:33SPEAKER- Oh, if you want like a stronger spring or a weaker spring,
43:36SPEAKERyou want less travel distance or more travel distance,
43:38SPEAKERyou want-
43:40SPEAKER- Oh, so we're talking about buying Switches
43:41SPEAKERthat behave differently and not just Switches
43:44SPEAKERto replace the old worn out Switches.
43:46SPEAKER- Yeah, a hundred percent.
43:47SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what I meant.
43:48SPEAKER- It's a personal preference, not a,
43:51SPEAKERlike the things to wear out are the physical,
43:55SPEAKERmechanical interface of the plastic
43:56SPEAKERrubbing on the other plastic.
43:57SPEAKERAnd since they're usually pre-lubed,
43:59SPEAKERlike they should last a really, really long time.
44:01SPEAKER- Right.
44:03SPEAKER- The, I mean, I guess the magnet could fall out.
44:05SPEAKERI don't know.
44:06SPEAKERIt seems like the magnet's pretty embedded in there though.
44:07SPEAKERSo, the weird thing about the Switches-
44:11SPEAKER- The Switch industry in shambles here,
44:12SPEAKERlike this is the, this is like the razor blade seller
44:16SPEAKERsuddenly not being able to sell more razor blades, right?
44:18SPEAKER- I mean, kind of.
44:19SPEAKERThe keyboards are a little bit more expensive generally
44:21SPEAKERthan a comparable mechanical keyboard.
44:27SPEAKERI think my assumption is that we'll see
44:29SPEAKERmore preference come up and people will start making
44:32SPEAKERmore like tactile and clicky Switches.
44:35SPEAKER- That makes sense.
44:36SPEAKER- The Switches are really weird though, man,
44:38SPEAKERbecause you open, when you look at the bottom of them,
44:39SPEAKERthere's no conductors, there's no like contacts
44:43SPEAKERthat go into the keyboard.
44:44SPEAKERIt's just like three or five plastic pins,
44:48SPEAKERwhich is bizarre to me.
44:49SPEAKER- It's all invisible.
44:50SPEAKER- It's all invisible.
44:51SPEAKER- You can't see electrons.
44:53SPEAKER- The key cap interface is the standard cross though.
44:55SPEAKERSo you can use more or less whatever key caps
44:57SPEAKERyou want on it.
44:59SPEAKERIt's louder than my control drop, but that is,
45:02SPEAKERwith the help of friend of the show, Nathan Edwards,
45:04SPEAKERI picked out some Silent E4 Bobo Whites for that years ago.
45:08SPEAKERAnd they have been consistently the quietest key
45:11SPEAKERmechanical Switches I've ever used.
45:12SPEAKERThere are, I believe there are quieter ones now.
45:15SPEAKERI don't think they make the Silent E4 Bobos anymore.
45:19SPEAKERBut like, it's a little funkier, it's a little clickier.
45:24SPEAKERI mainly, when you bottom out the Switches.
45:26SPEAKERNow, the weird thing about this keyboard
45:29SPEAKERis you don't have to bottom out the Switches at all.
45:33SPEAKERLike you literally, you can just kind of graze your fingers
45:37SPEAKERacross the top as if it's almost like playing a harp
45:40SPEAKERis what it feels like.
45:41SPEAKER- Well, that's configurable, right?
45:42SPEAKERYou could say. - It's configurable, yeah.
45:43SPEAKER- To make you have to do that or close to it if you wanted.
45:46SPEAKER- Yeah, you can, so there's both a,
45:48SPEAKERthis one has a knob on the side that lets you manually
45:51SPEAKERadjust the activation height in software.
45:54SPEAKER- That's nice.
45:55SPEAKEROh, wait, you still have to go into software.
45:57SPEAKERThe knob just doesn't just do it on the fly?
45:59SPEAKER- No, the knob just does it.
46:00SPEAKERThere's like a series of leads on the side
46:02SPEAKERand you twist the knob and it goes up and down.
46:04SPEAKERSo you can make it hair trigger or bottom out,
46:07SPEAKERdepending on which one you want.
46:09SPEAKERIt also has a web interface.
46:10SPEAKERSo you go to the ASUS GearLink site
46:13SPEAKERand it connects to the USB HID.
46:16SPEAKERI looked to see what this spec is called.
46:19SPEAKERThis is the thing that started,
46:20SPEAKERthe first time I saw it was with the VIA firmware,
46:23SPEAKERthe VIA QMK firmware programmer years ago.
46:26SPEAKER- Yeah.
46:27SPEAKER- But it's like, I've used some fractal stuff.
46:29SPEAKERThere's a fractal headset that uses it now.
46:31SPEAKERThere's a fractal like fan hub
46:34SPEAKERand RGB controller that uses it now.
46:38SPEAKERA couple of ASUS devices use it.
46:42SPEAKERLike it's really nice to not have to have
46:44SPEAKERa bunch of software running on them.
46:46SPEAKERLike it's nice to not have to use G hub.
46:48SPEAKER- Yeah, I think it's probably still a net good
46:50SPEAKERboth for not making you install a shitty software stack
46:53SPEAKERand also for being cross platform.
46:55SPEAKERPresuming the like driver interface
46:57SPEAKERexists on other operating systems,
46:58SPEAKERyou can do it on any of them.
47:00SPEAKERIt is mildly concerning if, for example,
47:04SPEAKERthat company were to go away one day
47:06SPEAKERor even if the servers were down,
47:08SPEAKERlike not being able to update your keyboard
47:10SPEAKERbecause their web-based configuration tool
47:13SPEAKERis suddenly unavailable is, you know.
47:16SPEAKER- That sucks.
47:17SPEAKER- There are downsides here.
47:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
47:19SPEAKER- You would hope if they were going out of business,
47:20SPEAKERthey would like release some local option
47:23SPEAKERfor continuing to be able to support your device,
47:25SPEAKERbut who knows?
47:26SPEAKER- Well, so you can also, like on this one at least,
47:28SPEAKERyou can always use Armory Crate on Windows if you want.
47:32SPEAKERBut once I added the UDEV rule that gave my browser access
47:35SPEAKERor my user access to the web, the USB device,
47:39SPEAKERI was able to use the web tool on Linux with Chrome.
47:43SPEAKERNo problem.
47:44SPEAKER- Yeah, so my Keyhorn has the same stuff.
47:46SPEAKERIt uses QMK and they have a web-based tool as well.
47:49SPEAKERI had to install some kind of open,
47:53SPEAKERit's either keyboard or microcontroller driver stack.
47:56SPEAKERI forget what it's called.
47:57SPEAKER- It's a microcontroller driver stack,
47:58SPEAKERprobably for teensy or whatever's in those keyboards.
48:01SPEAKER- I just cannot remember the name of that open source project
48:03SPEAKERbut it supports like a bajillion keyboards,
48:05SPEAKERbut I did have to install that
48:06SPEAKERto make the web interface talk to the keyboard, but.
48:09SPEAKER- Yeah, the thing that I don't know,
48:10SPEAKERI assume people know this,
48:11SPEAKERwe talked about on the mechanical keyboard episode,
48:13SPEAKERbut like a modern mechanical keyboard can have more compute
48:16SPEAKERthan like a computer that you had in the '90s probably.
48:18SPEAKER- Totally, I'd have to look at the specs,
48:20SPEAKERbut I know what ARM CPU is in this keyboard.
48:23SPEAKER- Yeah, there's a bunch of like homebrew projects
48:26SPEAKERthat just use teensies,
48:27SPEAKERwhich are like relatively cheap microcontrollers
48:31SPEAKERthat also have an insane amount of compute on them
48:33SPEAKERfor what they are for something that costs 10 bucks.
48:36SPEAKER- That's the whole thing of compute getting small
48:38SPEAKERand cheap and relatively powerful and that good.
48:43SPEAKER- Yeah, like just to be clear,
48:45SPEAKERI don't think the math to do,
48:47SPEAKERlike it's not like an old plastic dome cap keyboard
48:52SPEAKERwhere the math on that is relatively simple.
48:54SPEAKERIt's just closing circuits
48:55SPEAKERand measuring which circuits are closed
48:56SPEAKERand then sending the right signal to the motherboard.
48:58SPEAKERLike there's real math happening
49:00SPEAKERon interpreting the analog signals
49:02SPEAKERfrom the magnets in the hall of X sensors
49:05SPEAKERand stuff like that.
49:05SPEAKER- And that enables things like extra profiles,
49:07SPEAKERyou know, different layout configurations
49:10SPEAKERfor different OSs and stuff like that.
49:12SPEAKER- Yeah, so this keyboard has multiple profiles.
49:14SPEAKERThe interesting thing about actually using it
49:17SPEAKERis that depending on where you set the actuation
49:21SPEAKERand the dead zone.
49:22SPEAKERSo this lets you set activation point
49:25SPEAKERat a millimeter distance from the bottom,
49:27SPEAKERfrom the top of the key, the zero, the, you know,
49:31SPEAKERthe unpressed point.
49:33SPEAKERAnd you can set a dead zone where nothing happens
49:36SPEAKERand you can set it on both the top and the bottom
49:39SPEAKERand you can do it per key.
49:40SPEAKERSo like you can have different settings
49:42SPEAKERon say your ASDF keys or ASDW keys
49:45SPEAKERthan you do on your other typing keys
49:47SPEAKERor you mentioned profiles, it has on-device profiles
49:51SPEAKERand you can switch between them.
49:52SPEAKERSo you have different profiles for like hair trigger games
49:55SPEAKERand just, you know, using your computer for typing.
49:59SPEAKERI tried a bunch of different actuation points
50:02SPEAKERand my initial thought was,
50:04SPEAKERoh, I want this to be very near the top
50:06SPEAKER'cause like it turns out the latency,
50:09SPEAKERthe input latency on a keyboard
50:10SPEAKERis mostly in the travel distance of the key, right?
50:14SPEAKER- Sure.
50:15SPEAKER- So like you're, if you're talking about,
50:18SPEAKERI wanna have microsecond or millisecond accurate key presses,
50:22SPEAKERhaving to bottom out that key
50:24SPEAKERis a travel of a couple of millimeters and that takes time.
50:27SPEAKER- Now this instantly brings me to the question
50:30SPEAKERof when are we gonna start seeing switches
50:32SPEAKERwith next to no travel on them?
50:34SPEAKER- Well, so they do that.
50:36SPEAKERThey do low profile switches right now.
50:38SPEAKER- Yeah, well, yes.
50:40SPEAKERI mean, this is a low profile keyboard
50:42SPEAKERbut they still have a fair amount of travel.
50:43SPEAKERI'm talking like, I'm talking like millimeters.
50:46SPEAKERLike when are Counter Strike Pros gonna get to the point
50:48SPEAKERwhere they want like millimeters of travel on their keys?
50:50SPEAKER- Sub millimeter travel.
50:52SPEAKERSo the key travel on these keys is three point,
50:54SPEAKERit's about four millimeters, I think, 3.5 millimeters.
50:58SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
50:59SPEAKER- Yeah, that's like how long the stem travel is
51:02SPEAKERon most Terry style key switches.
51:04SPEAKER- Huh, okay.
51:07SPEAKER- My guess is that what you'll do is set the keys
51:11SPEAKERto hit very near the top.
51:13SPEAKERI found that almost impossible
51:15SPEAKER'cause I always kept triggering
51:16SPEAKERwhen I was just resting my fingers on the keyboard.
51:18SPEAKER- Right, well, the other thing there though
51:20SPEAKERis that you still get very, and this is for,
51:21SPEAKERagain, this is the Counter Strike Pro problem.
51:23SPEAKERI would not care about this
51:24SPEAKERbut then you still have a variable amount of,
51:27SPEAKERyou'd have to train your fingers to only press so far
51:29SPEAKERbecause you would be wasting time on travel.
51:30SPEAKERYou don't need to activate the switch.
51:33SPEAKER- Well, that is 100%.
51:34SPEAKERLike that's a big part of using these
51:36SPEAKERwhen you send them to the hair trigger.
51:38SPEAKER- That's where like just having a physical blocker in there
51:40SPEAKERto only have to depress the thing,
51:42SPEAKERhalf a millimeter or whatever would come in.
51:44SPEAKER- I mean, I guess, so it would be easy to take something
51:47SPEAKERand make like a ring that goes around the stem
51:51SPEAKERthat prevents it from going further than X amount.
51:54SPEAKERI don't know that anybody's done that yet
51:56SPEAKERbut that would be wild to see.
51:57SPEAKERI'd be curious about that.
51:58SPEAKER- I bet it's coming.
51:59SPEAKERI'm sure you're not wrong.
52:03SPEAKERDid this make me better at playing games?
52:04SPEAKERI don't, probably not.
52:06SPEAKERI don't feel like it.
52:08SPEAKERIs it nice to be able to control the actuation height
52:10SPEAKERfor the switches?
52:11SPEAKERYes, absolutely.
52:12SPEAKERI find myself bottoming out a lot less
52:15SPEAKERwhen I'm typing fast.
52:16SPEAKERAnd my typing, I do have an occasional false positive
52:19SPEAKERwhere I hit a key just a little tiny bit too hard
52:22SPEAKERand it goes.
52:24SPEAKERBut since that actuation depth is configurable,
52:29SPEAKERwhat I did was I started high and just kept moving it down
52:31SPEAKERuntil I stopped having a bunch of false positives,
52:33SPEAKERlike a 10th of a millimeter at a time.
52:35SPEAKERAnd I ended up at like 1.5, 1.8 for typing keys.
52:41SPEAKERSpace bar, I let bottom out.
52:42SPEAKER- Yeah, even if you never touch any of the configuration,
52:45SPEAKERlike the actuation or activation height, I should say,
52:47SPEAKERor whatever, like this still seems like a net gain.
52:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
52:52SPEAKER- When you factor in that you never,
52:54SPEAKERprobably never have to replace the switches,
52:55SPEAKERlike they don't give out the way the mechanicals do
52:57SPEAKERand so forth.
52:59SPEAKER- I think probably that the keyboard will last,
53:01SPEAKERlike by the time the keyboard is gross
53:04SPEAKERfrom being in close proximity to the human,
53:07SPEAKERI'll be ready to do a new keyboard.
53:09SPEAKER- Nah, just check it in the dishwasher.
53:11SPEAKER- I don't, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't do that.
53:15SPEAKER- People used to do that.
53:16SPEAKER- I know, I know.
53:17SPEAKER- I'm joking, I'm not serious.
53:19SPEAKER- This one has batteries in both sides.
53:22SPEAKERYeah, that would be a bad idea.
53:24SPEAKERA couple other weird features on this that are kind of neat.
53:26SPEAKERYou can, because it's a split,
53:29SPEAKERit has screw mounts on the bottom
53:32SPEAKERand you can tent it if you want.
53:33SPEAKERYou can tilt, you can do a reverse tilt,
53:35SPEAKERlike the old comfort curve.
53:38SPEAKERI quite like it 'cause I have it in like the normal,
53:41SPEAKERtraditional keyboard format when I'm typing
53:44SPEAKERand then, sorry, when I'm playing games
53:45SPEAKERand when I'm typing I can angle it
53:46SPEAKERso I get a natural angle on the keys to type.
53:51SPEAKERSo generally pretty good.
53:52SPEAKERThat switch on the side you can use to alternate
53:57SPEAKERbetween a bunch of different things.
53:58SPEAKERIt has like media controls,
54:00SPEAKERcontrol the rapid trigger sensitivity
54:05SPEAKERwhich that's a whole other feature we didn't talk about.
54:09SPEAKERBut basically if you flip a switch
54:10SPEAKERon the front of the keyboard,
54:12SPEAKERit gives you the ability to like make
54:17SPEAKERthe type-matic key press much, much faster,
54:21SPEAKERif that makes sense.
54:23SPEAKERSo it just keeps typing really, really fast.
54:26SPEAKERSo anyway, the keyboard's nice.
54:29SPEAKERI was kind of blown away by the keyboard.
54:31SPEAKERI was not expecting to be super impressed by it.
54:33SPEAKERI also wanna talk about the new Logitech mouse.
54:36SPEAKERIt's the Logitech Super Strike X2.
54:39SPEAKERIt's a G Pro mouse.
54:41SPEAKERIt's basically the same shape as my old G Pro.
54:45SPEAKERSuper light, it's super light too.
54:48SPEAKERIt's an ambidextrous shape but only with thumb buttons
54:51SPEAKERfor right-handers.
54:53SPEAKERFive buttons I guess, two regular buttons,
54:56SPEAKERthe wheel that's clickable and then two side buttons.
55:00SPEAKERAnd it uses their light speed stuff
55:02SPEAKERfor up to 8,000 refresh rates per second in Windows,
55:06SPEAKERunfortunately only.
55:09SPEAKERBut what they've done is they've taken,
55:11SPEAKERthey put magnetic switches on the two main switch presses.
55:16SPEAKERSo your two main mouse buttons are magnetic switches now
55:19SPEAKERand they've added a haptic bouncer
55:22SPEAKERthat's kind of like the thing in modern track pads
55:24SPEAKERthat aren't mechanically actuated now.
55:28SPEAKERAnd it gives you a lot of the same benefits
55:32SPEAKERas the keyboard, right?
55:33SPEAKERYou can control the actuation height for the switches.
55:36SPEAKERSo I can set it so I just barely graze my finger
55:39SPEAKERon the mouse and it clicks, yeah.
55:42SPEAKER- Mouse buttons are not something I think of
55:43SPEAKERas having much or any travel on them.
55:46SPEAKERThey're kind of on/off but I guess it depends on the mouse.
55:48SPEAKER- There's travel, man.
55:49SPEAKERThere's a little bit of travel.
55:51SPEAKER- It's not like a keyboard where you can really control,
55:54SPEAKERlike it clicks or it doesn't, kind of.
55:57SPEAKERThere might be a little bit of variation in there
55:58SPEAKERbut it's not quite the same thing.
56:00SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like if the keyboard
56:02SPEAKERis a three and a half millimeter travel,
56:04SPEAKERthis is a half a millimeter travel on a mouse switch.
56:07SPEAKERI have one right here I'm gonna pull out.
56:08SPEAKER- And in fact, the feel of the mouse button
56:10SPEAKERis kind of what I was getting at with the super shallow
56:14SPEAKEREsports Pro keyboard switch, right?
56:16SPEAKER- You see that?
56:17SPEAKERI think it may be blurry but-
56:18SPEAKER- Do you get what I'm saying?
56:19SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah.
56:20SPEAKER- Like basically keyboard keys that feel like mouse buttons
56:24SPEAKERand how hard they need to be depressed, that kind of thing.
56:27SPEAKER- So you could make a keyboard
56:28SPEAKERwith a bunch of these little tiny mouse buttons.
56:30SPEAKERI don't know how to get the key caps on there.
56:33SPEAKERBut there's a whole scene in the high-end mouse community.
56:38SPEAKERWe've talked about the mouse review subreddit before
56:40SPEAKERwhere people are swapping out their stock mouse switches
56:44SPEAKERwith increasingly specialized switches that are either,
56:49SPEAKERlike you said, really fast throw, really quiet,
56:53SPEAKERreally more loud, different actuation points,
56:58SPEAKERthe whole thing.
56:59SPEAKERAnd this gives you, again,
57:01SPEAKERa software configurable version of that experience.
57:05SPEAKERUnfortunately with this,
57:05SPEAKERyou have to do it all in the G Pro software.
57:09SPEAKERThe big thing is that you need, it turns out,
57:12SPEAKERyou need the haptic input on the mouse
57:14SPEAKERto know when you've clicked.
57:15SPEAKER'Cause otherwise the switches are so small
57:19SPEAKERand the travel distance is so short that without that click,
57:22SPEAKERyou don't know that you've clicked.
57:24SPEAKER- Like a mechanical click mechanism?
57:27SPEAKER- Well, so that's what the haptic thing is.
57:28SPEAKER- Well, no, that's what I mean.
57:30SPEAKERI ask because on this G502X I have,
57:33SPEAKERit uses I think what they refer to as mechanical optical,
57:35SPEAKERlike they're optical in terms of signal sensing.
57:38SPEAKERBut I believe they just built
57:39SPEAKERa mechanical clicking mechanism in just to make them click.
57:43SPEAKER- That would make sense.
57:44SPEAKER- But they didn't do that here for whatever reason.
57:46SPEAKER- Well, they have the haptic thing in place of that.
57:49SPEAKERSo if you have the mechanical switch,
57:51SPEAKERyou couldn't adjust the haptic.
57:52SPEAKERYou'd still get the mechanical even with the haptic.
57:55SPEAKERSo the haptics, I've had it for three or four days
57:59SPEAKERat this point.
58:00SPEAKERI'm not sure how I feel about the haptics.
58:02SPEAKERThe haptics feel really mushy compared to,
58:05SPEAKERif you think about how a mouse click feels,
58:10SPEAKERlike I'm gonna hold up the microphone
58:13SPEAKERand you can kind of hear it.
58:14SPEAKERThere's an immediate, you know exactly where it actuates
58:17SPEAKERor you know exactly where the click happens
58:20SPEAKERbecause you feel it and hear it.
58:22SPEAKERAnd with the haptics, you can't hear it at all.
58:24SPEAKERIt's very, very quiet, which I do like.
58:27SPEAKERBut the actuation point feels less precise
58:31SPEAKERthan with a traditional mouse switch.
58:34SPEAKERI think my hope is the haptics should be
58:38SPEAKERsoftware configurable so you can have like different,
58:41SPEAKERlike if you think about how a Joy-Con works
58:43SPEAKERor the trigger rumble on a DualSense joystick gamepad works,
58:50SPEAKERthere's a lot of variability in how you can present
58:54SPEAKERthe sound waves that turn into those haptic bumps
58:56SPEAKERon those devices.
58:58SPEAKERAnd my hope is that they'll get to a point
59:00SPEAKERwhere they let you configure what those curves look like.
59:04SPEAKERSo it's less of a hump
59:05SPEAKERand more of a square wave type look.
59:08SPEAKERSo it's on, off, on, off and is very precise
59:10SPEAKERand very, very sharp feeling.
59:13SPEAKERBut the software is not there for that yet.
59:17SPEAKERYou can configure, like I said,
59:18SPEAKERyou can configure the actuation depth
59:19SPEAKERso you can make it so you bottom out the press
59:22SPEAKERor you just barely graze.
59:25SPEAKERAnd I actually quite like that.
59:26SPEAKERI went from, I play a lot of,
59:28SPEAKERI've been playing a lot of Arc Raiders lately
59:30SPEAKERand I've been playing a lot of guns that are semi-auto guns.
59:33SPEAKERAnd even in like Fortnite,
59:35SPEAKERwhere a lot of the guns are full auto,
59:36SPEAKERbut you're meant to, if you're good at the game,
59:39SPEAKERbe tappetappying the shots,
59:41SPEAKERit's remarkable how much more accurate I am
59:43SPEAKERwith the really light touch on the switch
59:46SPEAKERto do the triggering.
59:48SPEAKERLike you can make it so you just barely, barely graze,
59:51SPEAKERalmost like it's a touch surface,
59:52SPEAKERwhich is kind of wild to me.
59:55SPEAKERAnd it has, if you're in Windows and you're running G hub,
59:57SPEAKERyou can change the profiles on the fly
59:59SPEAKERbased on the game you're playing.
1:00:00SPEAKERI generally, on mice especially,
1:00:03SPEAKERadvocate setting and forgetting your settings
1:00:06SPEAKERso that you're locked in
1:00:07SPEAKERbecause you want your brain to inherently know
1:00:11SPEAKERthat moving the mouse as much
1:00:12SPEAKERis gonna make you turn this much
1:00:13SPEAKERno matter what game you're playing.
1:00:15SPEAKERAnd it's better to kind of normalize across,
1:00:18SPEAKERnormalize like one DPI, one set of settings.
1:00:21SPEAKER- Yeah, have you used the onboard memory manager
1:00:24SPEAKERwith this one?
1:00:24SPEAKER- I have, yeah.
1:00:25SPEAKERIt's the same as it always is, yeah,
1:00:28SPEAKER'cause I'm using it right now in Linux.
1:00:29SPEAKER- Oh, do they make that for Linux?
1:00:31SPEAKER- No, I'm using the onboard,
1:00:33SPEAKERoh, the old onboard memory manager, no.
1:00:35SPEAKER- That's what I use instead of G hub to be clear
1:00:37SPEAKER'cause that's just a lighter weight way
1:00:39SPEAKERto manage the mouse profiles and sensitivity and stuff.
1:00:41SPEAKER- So they only gave me,
1:00:44SPEAKERthe mouse is just out as we're recording this now.
1:00:47SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
1:00:48SPEAKER- So I'm using pre-release software
1:00:49SPEAKERand they only gave me G hub.
1:00:51SPEAKERI don't know if the onboard memory manager does,
1:00:52SPEAKERbut I am using the onboard memory profiles
1:00:55SPEAKERto set up how I want it to work in Linux.
1:00:57SPEAKERI do still wish that this had a profile button on the bottom
1:01:00SPEAKERso that I didn't have to bind a key on the mouse
1:01:02SPEAKERto changing profiles.
1:01:05SPEAKERThe next thing to do is I have like three different kinds
1:01:09SPEAKERof mouse switches here that I wanna do some testing with.
1:01:11SPEAKERI have some old KLH reds, which were the kind of default,
1:01:15SPEAKERyou wanna change your mouse switches,
1:01:16SPEAKERwhich is the last time I went through this process.
1:01:19SPEAKERI also got these brown,
1:01:22SPEAKERthey're, I can't remember what they're called,
1:01:23SPEAKERthey're brown with yellow bumps
1:01:25SPEAKERand they're supposed to be the standard
1:01:27SPEAKERfor quiet switches these days, relatively hair trigger.
1:01:31SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna try both of those and some other mouses
1:01:34SPEAKERthat I have and compare them to this
1:01:36SPEAKERfor upcoming PC world stuff.
1:01:39SPEAKERBut yeah, like it's interesting.
1:01:41SPEAKERThe whole thing about this is interesting
1:01:42SPEAKERbecause we talked about the optical mouse sensors
1:01:47SPEAKERlast year or the year before
1:01:48SPEAKERas being a really impactful piece of technology
1:01:51SPEAKERbecause they turned something that was a physical sensor,
1:01:55SPEAKERin the case of mice, it was wheels with slots cut into them
1:02:00SPEAKERthat they could shine light through
1:02:01SPEAKERthat determined that were attached to rollers
1:02:04SPEAKERthat rolled when you move the mouse ball.
1:02:05SPEAKERAnd that was how we moved cursors up until the late 90s.
1:02:10SPEAKERThen the optical sensor came on
1:02:11SPEAKERand turned that into a silicon based process
1:02:14SPEAKERwhere we got all the benefits of camera technology improving
1:02:18SPEAKERand silicon getting faster.
1:02:21SPEAKERAnd that gave us things like mice that are 32,000 DPI
1:02:24SPEAKERor something ridiculous, which just to be clear,
1:02:26SPEAKERunless you have an insanely high resolution screen,
1:02:28SPEAKERa 32,000 DPI mouse is kind of crazy,
1:02:31SPEAKERbut an 8,000 DPI mouse makes a ton of sense.
1:02:33SPEAKERI'm using like 4,000 DPI pretty much all the time
1:02:36SPEAKERon my mouse to get really smooth movement
1:02:38SPEAKERacross my 4K displays, right?
1:02:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm at 3,800, it's nice.
1:02:42SPEAKERAlso crucially, you don't have to clean them.
1:02:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:02:45SPEAKER- Which kind of ties into the thing
1:02:46SPEAKERwith mechanical keyboard switches
1:02:47SPEAKERversus Hall effect or TMR or whatever.
1:02:50SPEAKERRemember how often you had to turn over your ball mouse
1:02:54SPEAKERand take the ball out and clean all the lint out.
1:02:56SPEAKER- And clean the ball and get the gunk
1:02:58SPEAKERthat was stuck on the rollers, ew.
1:03:01SPEAKERBut it also, because moving stuff to software
1:03:05SPEAKERhas traditionally been really good
1:03:07SPEAKERfor giving you more control over it.
1:03:09SPEAKERNow, the tactile stuff,
1:03:12SPEAKERI'm really curious how this ends up working.
1:03:14SPEAKERI don't think this tactile solution
1:03:15SPEAKERthat they have in this Logitech mouse
1:03:17SPEAKERis ever going to replace the feel of a mechanical interaction
1:03:21SPEAKERin a clicky switch or a tactile switch.
1:03:23SPEAKER- But it's also possible that their haptic implementation
1:03:27SPEAKERis just not up to snuff yet
1:03:28SPEAKERbecause I think about the trackpad on current MacBook Pros.
1:03:31SPEAKER- It's true.
1:03:32SPEAKER- And that is basically good enough to fool your brain
1:03:35SPEAKERinto thinking that, I still to this day am shocked
1:03:38SPEAKERthere's no mechanical actuation going on
1:03:40SPEAKERwhen I press on that touch pad
1:03:41SPEAKER'cause it feels indistinguishable
1:03:43SPEAKERfrom back when they did use mechanical touch pads
1:03:45SPEAKER15 plus years ago.
1:03:47SPEAKER- It's 12 years since they switched to the haptic one
1:03:51SPEAKERas I recall.
1:03:52SPEAKERAnd yeah, you're absolutely right.
1:03:53SPEAKERLike that is indistinguishable from the old way of doing it.
1:03:57SPEAKERNow, the weird thing about that
1:03:58SPEAKERis they haven't really done it for anything
1:03:59SPEAKERexcept for mimicking that old physical behavior, right?
1:04:04SPEAKER- So maybe we'll get into this soon,
1:04:05SPEAKERbut I don't know about the previous AirPods,
1:04:07SPEAKERbut the new AirPod Pros also feel basically
1:04:10SPEAKERlike I'm pressing a real switch,
1:04:11SPEAKERbut they have a little scooped and dented
1:04:14SPEAKERkind of touch area - Oh yeah, the twos do that too.
1:04:16SPEAKER- that actually feels like a switch you're pressing,
1:04:18SPEAKERbut they also kind of convincingly feel
1:04:21SPEAKERlike you're pushing a bump. - It's a bump.
1:04:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:04:24SPEAKER- Well, yeah, so anyway, that's kind of it.
1:04:27SPEAKERI'm curious to see what,
1:04:29SPEAKERlike I don't think these are gonna replace
1:04:30SPEAKERmechanical switches and everything
1:04:31SPEAKER'cause there's more cost, frankly.
1:04:33SPEAKER- Yeah. - So this is gonna be
1:04:34SPEAKERan upgrade forever, I think, probably.
1:04:36SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess in some contexts it makes sense
1:04:38SPEAKERfor these to be a premium option.
1:04:40SPEAKERBut again, with like the default controllers on consoles,
1:04:43SPEAKERit would be a real bummer if they never adopt this
1:04:46SPEAKERjust because of the parts wearing out.
1:04:49SPEAKERControllers have gotten very expensive
1:04:51SPEAKERfor like the default first party ones, to be clear.
1:04:53SPEAKERLike the new Joy-Cons are $100.
1:04:56SPEAKER- It's wild to me.
1:04:57SPEAKEREven before tariffs, the Switch 2 Pro Controller was 80 bucks.
1:05:02SPEAKER- Yeah. - And like I feel-
1:05:04SPEAKER- Full sense also about 70, 80 bucks,
1:05:06SPEAKERdepending on color and stuff. - Yeah, 70 bucks, I think,
1:05:08SPEAKERyeah. - Like that's pretty expensive
1:05:09SPEAKERfor something that wears out that aggressively.
1:05:12SPEAKER- I also, I mean, especially when they're selling
1:05:14SPEAKERpremium controllers and those premium controllers
1:05:17SPEAKERaren't using the fancy sticks either,
1:05:19SPEAKERI'm curious about why that doesn't happen.
1:05:22SPEAKER- Yeah, and on the flip side,
1:05:24SPEAKERa lot of the 8BitDo controllers that do use Hall and NCMR
1:05:27SPEAKERare cheaper than those. - Yeah, well, who knows?
1:05:32SPEAKERI mean, look, this is the first time in my life
1:05:34SPEAKERthat the third-party controllers have consistently been
1:05:36SPEAKERbetter than the first-party controllers.
1:05:37SPEAKER- Yeah. - 'Cause like,
1:05:38SPEAKERif you think about, I think about going over
1:05:40SPEAKERto a friend's house in the N64 PlayStation era
1:05:43SPEAKERand I saw that they had a bunch of weird color controllers
1:05:45SPEAKERthat they bought at Walmart and I was like,
1:05:46SPEAKER"Oh man, this is gonna be a bad time."
1:05:48SPEAKERAnd these days, if I go someplace
1:05:50SPEAKERand I see 8BitDo controllers, I'm stoked, so.
1:05:53SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:05:54SPEAKER- I'm curious to see how people continue to use these,
1:05:58SPEAKERis I guess the kind of TLDR. - Yeah.
1:06:01SPEAKER- And I don't think, like, this Falkata keyboard is nice.
1:06:04SPEAKERThey have a regular non-split version as well
1:06:06SPEAKERthat also uses the magnetic switches.
1:06:08SPEAKERI think if I were buying one of these,
1:06:10SPEAKERI would buy one of the ones
1:06:11SPEAKERthat's a little bit more user configurable
1:06:13SPEAKER'cause I wouldn't mind having more access to the firmware,
1:06:15SPEAKEReven at the expense of the keyboard configuration interface
1:06:22SPEAKERbeing pretty nice on this and using the web thing.
1:06:26SPEAKERTo your point earlier, I think we,
1:06:28SPEAKERI started to talk about this.
1:06:29SPEAKERYou can still, in addition to using the web interface,
1:06:33SPEAKERon Windows, they have a mouse companion
1:06:34SPEAKERthat lets you do things like change the profile
1:06:36SPEAKERbased on the application that's running,
1:06:38SPEAKER'cause obviously the web-based interface can't do that.
1:06:40SPEAKERIt also notifies you if there's a software update,
1:06:43SPEAKERor you can just configure it
1:06:44SPEAKERusing their main ASUS gamer software, what is it called?
1:06:54SPEAKERGod, I'm completely blanking.
1:06:55SPEAKERIt's the thing that you use to control the lights
1:06:57SPEAKERon your motherboard, too,
1:06:57SPEAKERif you don't use open RGB or something like that.
1:07:00SPEAKERArmory crate.
1:07:01SPEAKER- Oh, I started to say armory crate.
1:07:03SPEAKERI mean, that's the thing
1:07:04SPEAKERthat pulls, like, motherboard drivers and stuff.
1:07:06SPEAKERI didn't realize that was also their gamer utility.
1:07:08SPEAKER- So that controls fan speeds, lights.
1:07:12SPEAKERLike, if you have a ASUS AIO, it controls that.
1:07:16SPEAKERIf you have, you can do firmware updates and everything.
1:07:19SPEAKERIt's basically like they're all in one.
1:07:21SPEAKERI think it's not great software.
1:07:23SPEAKERI don't generally run it on my computers if I can avoid it.
1:07:26SPEAKERBut that is your option if the web interface goes away,
1:07:30SPEAKERis to get an old version of armory crate.
1:07:31SPEAKERThis still supports your device.
1:07:33SPEAKERAnd yeah, I'd love to know
1:07:34SPEAKERwhat you all think about this stuff.
1:07:35SPEAKER- I'm curious, like, I was curious just to try it
1:07:38SPEAKERbecause I hadn't used any of these switches before
1:07:40SPEAKERand was curious to see if, you know,
1:07:43SPEAKERsoftware is better than hardware.
1:07:45SPEAKER- Yeah, it's cool to see stuff advance.
1:07:47SPEAKER- Yeah, good technology, not bad technology.
1:07:51SPEAKERThat's it for us this week, I guess.
1:07:53SPEAKERAs always, this is a listener-funded podcast.
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1:07:57SPEAKERSo if you would like to support the show
1:07:58SPEAKERand make sure that we keep doing this,
1:08:01SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.
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1:08:05SPEAKERwhere for $5 a month,
1:08:07SPEAKERyou get access to the fabulous Tech Pod Discord,
1:08:10SPEAKERwhich is full of beautiful nerds just like you,
1:08:12SPEAKERas well as the monthly Patreon exclusive episodes
1:08:16SPEAKERwhere Brad and I talk about ongoing projects
1:08:19SPEAKERand sometimes we take extra questions
1:08:22SPEAKERif we have a bunch of good questions one month,
1:08:25SPEAKERsmall topics that don't fit into a normal episode
1:08:27SPEAKERthat may be too small to talk about in a normal episode.
1:08:30SPEAKERI think we initially thought that this might be one of those,
1:08:32SPEAKERthese mechanical keyboards, magnetic keyboards, rather.
1:08:35SPEAKER- No, there's plenty of meat here.
1:08:37SPEAKER- And then, yeah, it ended up being really interesting
1:08:38SPEAKERwhen we kind of dug in a little bit.
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1:08:46SPEAKERWe appreciate each and every person who supports the show,
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1:08:52SPEAKERto your patrons, including Jason Lee,
1:08:54SPEAKEREnnui Felicitas Rips, Andrew Slosky, Jordan Lippitt,
1:08:58SPEAKERFiends One Through Four, David Allen, James Kamik,
1:09:02SPEAKERand Pantheon, makers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
1:09:05SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.
1:09:06SPEAKER- Thank you.
1:09:08SPEAKER- That'll do it for us this week.
1:09:09SPEAKERWe'll be back next week
1:09:10SPEAKERwith another edition of the Tech Pod.
1:09:11SPEAKERUntil then, please consider the environment
1:09:14SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.