Behind the scenes #204

Keyboard Builders’ Digest / Editorial

Behind the scenes #204

Behind the scenes with the December best-seller switches, the Elytra, Epomaker RT82 evaluations, plus open-source tasks, keyboard artwork, meetups, distributors, reductions.

dovenyi
Revealed January 10, 2026

Hey, what’s up everybody!

I’s been some time. Welcome again for one more recap and behind-the-scenes write-up – with a bit much less tasks from the DIY keyboard scene, extra evaluations of closed-source industrial tasks this time, however largely as a result of creators spent the final weeks with Christmas and New 12 months stuff I assume. (After which I went to vacation as nicely, off-grid for some days.) I hope you will get again to designing quickly, as a result of churning out unique content material was fairly fatiguing. 😀

(Yep, I’ve a little bit of a backlog too. Stored bookmarking tasks, however let me course of the output from the previous week or so later. Just like the Keyther.)

If you’re new to kbd.information, you’ll be able to learn how this began out and what that is all about these days. In case you like what you see, subscribe to the e-newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to maintain this in any other case free and ad-free challenge alive.

Chef’s selection

Some posts price sharing

• To your curiosity, listed here are December’s high mechanical switches, the neighborhood’s present favorites based mostly on a pattern of 1 million switches offered by variety distributors and producers offering their information. It appears I am getting higher at this, it took simply 7-8 hours to place this collectively. 😀

• This beautiful board is the Elytra by ElimKeys. Cut up, wi-fi, low-pro, good alu chassis, cute hard-shell carry case – strolling within the footsteps of my favourite, the Cornix. Properly, a Kickstarter challenge, however with out a lot dangers: prepared for mass-production. There are beta samples on the market, as you’ll be able to guess from my evaluate. 😉

• Distressed by the dearth of content material round Christmas, I wrote a year-end piece: about my favourite keyboards from these I examined in 2025 – my high decisions in a few made-up classes. 🙂

• I wrote a bunch of assessments in December, e.g. about this inexpensive 75% board from Kemove: Dierya DK81E with gaskets, rotary knob, and good lights.

• One other evaluate: The Cybrix 29 by KiiBOOM is a wired 29-key hotswappable Corridor-effect gaming (half-)keyboard with a lot of RGB results.

• Yet one more take a look at? In case you discover shows on keyboards too meh, then possibly the retro-looking Epomaker RT82 will increase your coronary heart price. It comes with a removable TV – by way of pogo pins.

• A diodeless unibody break up by Peter J. A. Cock: Slump52 with quantity pad.

• Rafael Furlanetto Casamaximo launched his wi-fi 65% voidPointer with uncovered diodes.

• An open-source Corridor-effect unibody break up keyboard: TrueStrike42 by Choi Byungyoon.

• The wi-fi Cheap03xD is an inexpensive open-source break up by Lander03xD.

• The 2025 model of lya Leonov‘s Lapa, an ergo break up keyboard-mouse.

• New Silakka within the works. A challenge by Squalius-cephalus.

• custom-keycaps.com – a brand new German service. XDA profile, per-key customization, a lot of choices.

• Aroum‘s Venture UFA – ZMK firmware porting for industrial wi-fi gaming mice. The result’s a factory-quality mouse with an open, totally configurable firmware, Bluetooth assist, and excessive polling charges.

• Swap sound preview. Needless to say there are lots of components contributing to the ultimate sound, however such a instrument nonetheless might help some individuals I assume.

• A toplist of boards based mostly on sentiment evaluation of reddit feedback. By NoodleSpringke3.

Keyboard artwork

• Epomaker RT82, Elytra – already reviewed.
• Simply arrived: one other KiiBOOM Phantom 81 Lite, this time the blue one with the cake theme, plus cute kitty caps. Photographs later.

Donations

For all of the donation choices take a look at the donation web page!

Meetup database

The meetup database serves as each a calendar and an archive, so be at liberty to ship me upcoming occasions and even ones from the latest previous to make this assortment as complete as attainable.

• Colorado MechMeets January 2026 meetup, January 17, Erie, CO, US
• DC Mini-Meetup, January 24, Washington, DC, US
• KeyCon 2026 [placeholder], June 13, Chicago, IL, US

Vendor information & Reductions

Be happy to make use of the KBDNEWS low cost code at 190 keyboard retailers worldwide! And don’t hesitate to report any points! 🙂

New retailers and up to date updates to the database of keyboard distributors:

• Swap Couture set to closed. (Thanks Gullible_Bridge and FansForFlorida.)

Developments

• Admin stuff replace to make compiling the change posts extra streamlined.
• I’ve coded and arrange some spiders/parsers to gather some attention-grabbing information for later use. They have been working for greater than a month now, however I nonetheless want an extended time span.

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That is all for in the present day. Thanks for checking by. As all the time: Continue learning and constructing!

Till subsequent time,
Tamás

Revealed on Sat tenth Jan 2026. Featured in KBD #204.

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