Laser Keyboards – Do they REALLY shoot first?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,548 words · ~7 min read
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the accepted wisdom for a long time has been that if you want a truly enthusiast
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class typing or gaming experience you need a mechanical keyboard and with
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features like superior build quality satisfying tactile feedback and quicker
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response times perhaps there was only one thing that
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could actually have made them even better and that would be freaking laser
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beams
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ek waterblox's all-aluminum fluid gaming
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lineup offers great custom grade water cooling performance for an affordable
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price learn more at the link in the video description
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optical key switches like the ones that we are looking at today promise
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extremely quick response times and shorter actuation distances than popular
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mechanical key switches from manufacturers like cherry
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but for some reason they remain a niche item the fact that the big boys of
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current keyboard manufacturing like Corsair and logitech haven't picked them
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up yet probably isn't helping
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so we turned to bloody tesoro and wooting the only three companies we
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could find that are currently incorporating them into their keyboards
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to see if this technology has a bright future let's start with a quick look at
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how they work currently there are two main types of optical switches one uses
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a plunger that blocks a beam of light and when the key is pressed a gap in the
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plunger moves down and allows the light beam to hit a sensor that registers a
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key press two of our keyboards the bloody b720 and the tesoro excalibur se
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spectrum use this process with the bloody switches branded as light strike
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abbreviated as lk for some reason while the tesoro uses
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swappable switches from gatoron gataron
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gaturon either way both keyboards incorporate
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waterproofing as well a nice value for you mountain dew fanatics the second
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main type flaretech instead uses an upwards firing beam to determine how far
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downward the key has been pressed meaning instead of simply registering a
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key as pressed or not the keyboard can
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instead register a partial key press
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similar to how an analog trigger on a game controller can be pushed only part
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way down to accelerate a little bit more slowly than a full press in a driving
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game so our third keyboard the wu ting one is available with these flaretech
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switches in two flavors red linear switches or blue clicky ones which are
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user swappable and we'll start with a closer look at this one wuting actually
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markets this granular level of input sensitivity control as analog which is
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not technically correct because the keyboard is really just registering one
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of 256 distinct states of pushed
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downness but for the sake of helping users understand the tech we see why
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they did this and in practice the action is very smooth i doubt that most users
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would actually even be able to notice the difference let's demonstrate how this works with
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forza 3. here you can see how pushing down the keys that are mapped to the
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steering wheel only part way results in a much more gradual turn while a gentler
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throttle press also allows finer control over acceleration neat huh
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you'll also find a surprising amount of customizability in wooting one's
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software package which is called and no do not adjust your headphones you heard
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me right wutility not only can you remap keys to
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functionality like triggers on a gamepad but you can set up multiple analog
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profiles with different sensitivity curves since you might want the keys to
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react differently depending on whether you're piloting a tank in battlefield or
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controlling a soccer player footballer in fifa something to note is
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that this analog functionality doesn't actually kick in until after the two
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millimeter actuation distance which is similar to most cherry mx switches so
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while wooting is looking into the ability to build a hair trigger capable
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version in the future for now the utility can only be used to
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make the actuation distance longer if you prefer less sensitivity in
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something like a turn based game or if you're just
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typing and of course all this additional functionality doesn't mean the wu ting
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one is automatically the best option in every scenario let's move on to the
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bloody b720 its lk switches lack the
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fancy analog functionality but it boasts a very short actuation distance of 1.5
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millimeters the shortest of any of the keyboards in our roundup to see if
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there's a tangible benefit we had our resident cs go wizard edsel test out
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each of the keyboards and while he didn't feel that the wooting or tesoro
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were appreciably different from common cherry mx reds he really liked the quick
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response of the bloody saying that while
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the difference wasn't huge it definitely
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was noticeable kind of like going from a 144 to a 240hz monitor in his words and
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we didn't even tell him the actuation point specs before he tried it out so
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give bloody some credit here they're claimed to have the world's fastest key
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response might just be true at least when
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comparing to other optical solutions the mx speeds claim a slightly shorter
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actuation distance at 1.2 millimeters
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and although edsel didn't think this made a difference in game responsiveness
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he did think the lk switches were a bit heavier so keep that in mind if you use
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a light touch on your keyboard and this leads us into our impressions
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of overall build quality and usability in our opinion the wooting one walked
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away the clear winner in this department its deck is quite rigid which often
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indicates a well-made keyboard and its understated brushed finish and subtle
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logo at the bottom give it a higher end appearance not to mention i really liked
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how this thing felt under my fingers it was soft but in a good way kind of like
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typing on boobs for whatever it's worth and then when you use the clicky
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switches it was sharp and satisfying the
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bloody with its giant blood-soaked logo
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on the other hand practically screams we
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tried to make this look as gamer as possible at any cost
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and the keys felt a bit mushy for my liking though ed didn't seem to mind so
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that's something to note and the build quality overall seemed solid if
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unexceptional unfortunately i can't say the same about the tesoro i was able to
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twist the keyboard way too much even with a minimal amount of torque maybe
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that's what they meant by break the rules at 92 dollars it isn't a bad piece
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of hardware it just simply doesn't do anything better than the other two the
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bloody however presents an interesting alternative to mx speed switches thanks
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to its very competitive price of 75 bucks u.s
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the wu ting one is by far the most interesting one we checked out today
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possessing a unique feature set with solid build quality and customizability
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but i would probably only shell out the
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160 euros it'll cost you if the games
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you play specifically benefit from their pseudo analog functionality or if you
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want a typing experience that matches your tacky mouse mat
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LTT thanks for watching guys this video
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desktop and everything it's a good way to keep track of everything we're doing
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if you want to see stuff to buy check out the link in the video description there's an amazon link down there and
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there's also a merch store link for some cool shirts that aren't this one
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anyway yeah check out this video which is uh
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seeing the first video i ever made which was on my own and it never got uploaded
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anywhere and it was on a ducky keyboard from like way back my mom filled it
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filmed it on a flip hd camera in our kitchen at the time
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see you later