News Razer teases Chroma RGB lighting system

Is it just my eyes or a mouse with poor quality multicolored LEDs that leave me not being able to tell the difference between the main color groups.

 

Read "We've run out of ideas, so were putting pretty colour changing lights on stuff until we think of something"

 

So, they took the MX knockoff Kailh switches, and switched the through-hole single colour LED with RGB LEDs. Whoopee.

 

I saw this board I think yesterday, maybe the day before on some facebook or another, maybe hotkeys project. Looks cool, I can appreciate the engineering but the board looks horrid.

Gareth is quite right - they haven't just dropped rgb led in to an existing keyboard design - someone clever has spent quite a while on that pcb.

I am tempted to get one just so I can take it apart and have a look at the pcb.

I think this is way better than the corsair rgb offerings, individually addressable diodes is a cool thing. even if it is using Kailh switches - which, as it goes, are not nearly as bad as they were years ago. While I would never jump for a board with Kailh switches, they aren't actually that bad.

 

My biggest laugh will be if they bring their keyboards out before Corsair. ^^

But if I had to choose, I'd go for Corsair RGB version, I want the non-recessed keys to facilitate cleaning.

 

Not with Neopixels, they're addressed via a single pin and you can network them together into chains of LED's, so quite simple then...

 

Its not as hard as you think when the pixels are individually addressable(Rx +/- TX pins). An arduino with 328p, maybe even an ATTINY85 could handle this.
Even without the indivudual addressable pixels, its still not that hard, a few port multpliers on an Arduino it can be done. Ever seen those RGB LED cube videos on Youtube?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzX_hWKN5ak

Neo Pixel from Adafruit.com
http://www.adafruit.com/product/1559

They say their "Flora" chip hand handle 500 before it would run out of memory.

 

The hilarity of Krapilh switches and their non Gold plating aside, it still begs the question WTF is Corsair is waiting for if these RGB switches if these switches are already being rolled out by their competition. Also, why don't these companies improve the mix keys and add rubber/silicone to the bottom to mask the bottoming out.

 

They are not the same switches I don't think - corsair have clear switches and smd led, I don't think that's the case with teh razer.

Plus the kailh switches can just be swapped out for MX switches.

 

The MX RGB switches use SMD LEDs embedded into the switch, so the LED illuminates more of the keycap as the switch body acts as a lightpipe (the current through-hole LED setup only illuminates at most one side due to the protruding keyswitch stem blocking the other side)

As for addressing the LEDs: Charlieplexing! 110 LEDs can be addressed with with 11 pins using PWM dimming.

 

Whether it is was complicated or simple doesn't matter to me, that is for them as the manufacturer to sort out. I want things to look good and to have the options that I not only need but want too, and for me that includes the options of programmable RGB lighting. Will I use it to it's full extent? Of course not, but I am certain that the colour and brightness will be something that I choose and won't be a generic look.

What I like about the Corsair board is that it is going to link through their software and so, unless I am greatly mistaken, should you choose to use other corsair parts such as one of their 'i' series AIO's, you will easily be able to link them together so when you change the colour of one, they all change. That is something I like the idea of a lot. Push a button and your whole system, including peripherals all change from blue to red...