If you use a mechanical keyboard or if you have researched mechanical keyboards, chances are you might have heard of Das Keyboard in which some of their models have been favored by StarCraft gamers. The company has recently announced their latest keyboard in the form of the Das Keyboard 5Q.
Right off the bat as you can see in the video above, the 5Q is unlike other Das Keyboards we’ve seen in the past. For starters it looks very different and finally brings about LED lighting to its keys, something that we’re sure Das Keyboard owners have lamented about the lack of in the past. However the biggest change is the fact that the 5Q is a cloud connected keyboard.
What this means is that users can set it so that information from the web can be streamed onto the keyboard. For example you can set it so that certain groups of keys will glow for certain things, like to track your stocks, or on auction websites to notify you when someone outbids you, and so on. The idea being that the ambient lights on the keyboard means that you won’t have to keep checking your screen as the keys lighting up will already tell you what’s going on.
Of course at the end of the day, the 5Q is still a Das Keyboard at heart. This means mechanical switches but instead of the typical choice of using Cherry MX switches, Das has opted to create their own which they’ve dubbed the Gamma-Zulu, which according to them was developed together with Omron, a keyboard switch manufacturer from Japan.
The Das Keyboard 5Q is currently on Kickstarter trying to raise funds, so if you’d like to lend a helping hand, you know where to go. The keyboard has a retail price of $229 but early birds can get it for as low as $139.
Filed in . Read more about Crowdfunding and Kickstarter.