Since the UHK 80 started shipping, reviewers around the world have spent serious time with it — and we love that each one approaches the keyboard from a completely different angle. Five recent YouTube reviews caught our attention. Together they cover ergonomics, modularity, the software, daily comfort, honest critiques, and even a quiet, meditative product showcase. Here’s a quick tour.

TechBroll — a balanced reviewer’s take

Marvin from TechBroll reviewed the original UHK six years ago, so the UHK 80 lands in front of someone with real history with the line. His review is structured and one of the most thorough on the technical side: he walks through the floating-key design, the tri-mode connectivity, the USB-C ports on both halves, the OLED display, the tool-less flip-out feet, and the walnut palm rest.

He’s especially complimentary of Agent, calling the key remapping "absolutely insane" and singling out per-module fine-tuning and the connection priority feature.

He’s also direct about trade-offs, which we appreciate. He found the trackpoint and trackball harder to use for precise movements than the touchpad — though it’s worth noting that, interestingly, the trackball and trackpoint modules are actually more popular among our customers than the touchpad, so this one really does come down to personal preference.

He also misses the detachable palm rest from the UHK 60 for moments when a more compact form factor would be nice, and he notes that the swapped Mod/Space arrangement on the left thumb cluster takes adjusting to — a fair observation we’ve heard from others coming from a traditional space-bar habit. His framing throughout is that the UHK 80 is a power-user tool: you’re investing money, time, and patience, and it pays back in flexibility unmatched by anything else he’s tried.

Cheese Turbulence — "the modular keyboard"

Cheese Turbulence’s review is witty and self-deprecating, but underneath the jokes it’s the most software-focused take of the five — and the one that goes deepest into what makes the UHK 80 unusual.

He benchmarks it against the other modern splits he’s reviewed — MoErgo Go60, ZSA Voyager, Naya Create — and lands on a label that stuck with us: "the modular keyboard." On-the-fly splitting without a restart, swapping modules during use, and optional everything (battery, dongle, Riser) so you only pay for what you want.

He goes deep on Agent: near-instant flashing without compiling firmware first, in-app explanations that help newcomers, smart macros (he wrote one to change trackball speed while a modifier is held), and per-layer module behavior — the same trackball can scroll on one layer and act as a pointer on another.

He even went a step further and modified the firmware itself to put Bongo Cat on the OLED display, with help from Claude Code. It’s worth noting that the UHK isn’t really meant to be hacked at the firmware level in the traditional sense — the intended way to customize its behavior is through smart macros, the UHK’s own scripting language — so reaching into the firmware the way he did is a lovely showcase of what LLMs now make possible.

His main critique is that accessory costs add up — his daily-driver configuration came to $639. But his bottom line is that the UHK 80 is the most flexible keyboard he’s ever tested — "a sandbox to play around in" — and that he kept finding new ways to make it his.

Aivars Meijers — three weeks in Bangkok

Aivars is an iOS developer based in Bangkok who normally alternates between a Happy Hacking Keyboard at home and a Dygma Defy on the road. His video started as a day-in-the-life vlog and accidentally turned into a UHK 80 review, because three weeks in, the UHK 80 had taken over both roles.

What stood out for him was how comfortable it was to actually carry into a coffee shop — the linear switches blended into the ambient noise more than he expected. He tested all three pointing modules and landed on the touchpad as his favorite (the trackpoint, he admits, just isn’t for him).

He mapped one of the key cluster’s keys to Space and mostly uses the mouse layer for scrolling and arrow navigation. Riser 80, he notes, is solid but too heavy to travel with, so he sticks with the included flip-out feet on their lowest setting.

He’s refreshingly honest about not using most of the keyboard’s customization features — "my brain is not big enough" — and closes with a warm line: don’t buy it if you’re being financially responsible, but if you’ve got room in the budget, give it a try, and don’t blame him if you become a keyboard geek.

wabi-sabi — a quiet showcase

This one isn’t quite a review in the conventional sense. It’s a slow, meditative product showcase from a Japanese channel built around the wabi-sabi aesthetic — relaxing music, no narration, captions appearing one by one as the keyboard and each accessory are presented on screen.

The chapters walk methodically from unboxing to package contents, specifications, features, sound test, and a brief closing verdict. Nothing is hurried. Each module is shown in turn — Riser 80, touchpad, trackpoint, key cluster, trackball, dongle — and each detail is allowed to land: the stainless steel plate, the plate-mounted pre-lubed stabilizers, the Kailh Box Brown switches the reviewer chose, the OEM-profile PBT keycaps, the OLED display doing its thing.

When the closing verdict arrives, it’s quietly enthusiastic. The reviewer is amazed by how customizable the keyboard is — any missing function can be addressed by adding a module, and every key and button is fully configurable.

The typing feel is excellent, the hot-swap support makes switch changes a breeze, and the Riser 80 enables a comfortable tenting setup. The honest downside they note is that Riser 80 and the modules are sold separately, so a fully equipped UHK 80 costs more than the base unit alone.

But once you adjust to it, they say, the UHK 80 can become a "keyboard for life." If the other videos document what the UHK 80 does, this one simply lets you sit with it for a while.

Hoshinomi — the first Japanese review

Hoshinomi (星のミ) is a Japanese programmer who became fascinated with split keyboards as they trended in Japan. He’d previously paid around 50,000 yen for a hand-assembled split, but it disconnected twice a day over wireless, and the broader DIY scene in Japan felt more about tinkering than reliability.

He gave up on that keyboard, found the UHK 80, emailed us, and pointed out that nobody in Japan had reviewed it yet. So we sent one over.

His take leans hard into the ergonomics story. He walks viewers through what split keyboards do for long-session programmers — open shoulders, neutral wrists, less neck strain — and he’s especially enthusiastic about tenting, calling it the feature he can’t go back from.

He praises that the standard flip-out tenting feet come included, that Riser 80 takes the angle all the way up to 60°, and that the dongle gives him the reliable wireless connection his previous split couldn’t.

His verdict: the most complete keyboard he’s used out of the 300,000+ yen he’s spent on keyboards over the years. The learning curve is real — about three days where typing is genuinely hard — but after a week, he says the keyboard "feels like part of your body."

Thanks, and what’s next

Huge thanks to Marvin, Cheese Turbulence, Aivars, the wabi-sabi channel, and Hoshinomi for the time and care they put into these reviews. Hearing how the UHK 80 fits into very different workflows — a long-time keyboard reviewer comparing it against the field, a self-described tinkerer modifying the firmware for fun, a digital nomad bouncing between coffee shops, a Japanese aesthetics channel quietly letting the keyboard speak for itself, and a Japanese developer optimizing for long coding sessions — is exactly the kind of feedback we love.

If you’ve made your own UHK 80 review, written or video, we’d love to see it. Just reply to this update or share it on the forum.

Talk to you soon!

We just contributed a bug fix to the Linux kernel — and it started with a scrolling problem on the UHK. Here's the story.

In 2024, scrolling on the UHK via modules and mouse keys already worked well, but then @rightaditya appeared on GitHub and submitted a pull request to implement high-resolution scrolling on the UHK 60.

High-resolution scrolling is a generic HID feature developed by Microsoft, then ported to the Linux kernel. I didn't know about this feature. @benedekkupper, our USB/Bluetooth expert, ported this feature to the UHK 80, bringing high-resolution scrolling to all UHK models.

After using high-res scrolling, it became immediately obvious how jarring ordinary scrolling felt by comparison. I use the trackpoint module all day, and scrolling became buttery smooth and a joy to use. As a desktop user, it makes a huge difference when scrolling through web pages in the browser or source files in an editor.

But then I noticed that scrolling was extremely slow after I suspended and resumed my PC. At first, it looked like a typical firmware bug until Benedek not only realized it was a Linux kernel bug but also submitted a kernel bug fix. Benedek noticed that although we had just hit this bug, others have been living with it for 7 years!

We didn't expect the fix to be merged anytime soon, assuming a sizeable backlog, but to our surprise, it was merged, and is now part of kernel 6.19!

Interestingly, more recent Windows versions produce a near-identical error after suspend or reboot, which is more difficult to remedy, but disabling Fast Startup has been a proven workaround for some.

We're still a small company, and the thought that we've contributed to Linux, which is running on billions of devices, blows my mind. We're super proud of Benedek.

A kernel patch from a keyboard company. We'll take it! And yes — we're aware of the irony that a mouse bug was fixed by a keyboard company.

As always, let us know what you'd like to hear about in next month's update.

As a casual gamer, I want to share some of the things I’ve been doing with my UHK to improve my gaming experience.

Double-Tap Weapon Selection

Every once in a while, I slay demons in Doom Eternal, and I have always found it challenging to pick the exact weapon I want to use. My left hand is always on the WASD cluster, and my right hand is always on the mouse.

The numbers 1 to 8, highlighted in red, are mapped to weapons. Even when using the UHK in merged mode (the two halves connected together), the distance between the WASD cluster and 8 is far too large, so it makes sense to map all the weapons to numbers 1 to 4.

Let’s leave 1 to 4 unmodified when single-tapped, but when double-tapped, let’s make these keys emit 5 to 8. To implement this for key 1, I use the following smart macro:

ifDoubletap final tapKey 5  // double-tap: super shotgun
tapKey 1  // single-tap: combat shotgun

(To create a smart macro in Agent, you have to create a macro, click on the "Add macro action" button, and select "Command".)

Parameterized Macros

The above macro works great, and I could copy-paste it and modify the numbers for the other keys, but there’s a better way by using parameterized macros:

ifDoubletap final tapKey &macroArg.2  // double-tap
tapKey &macroArg.1  // single-tap

Now we can reuse this macro for the other number keys by simply changing the arguments.

Lazy Double-Tap

Our macro is excellent for first-person shooters because as soon as you hit the key, the weapon is immediately selected, and when you hit the key again, the other weapon is selected.

But this behavior is unwanted in MOBAs and MMORPGs, where you often want to choose between two related actions without accidentally triggering the first one. For example:

• Single-tap: Cast a healing spell on your targeted ally
• Double-tap: Self-cast the same healing spell

For such a behavior, we can use the following macro:

ifGesture timeoutIn 200 $thisKeyId final tapKey &macroArg.2  // double-tap
tapKey &macroArg.1  // single-tap

This macro will not emit the single-tap character when double-tapping the key, only when the timeout has elapsed.

Keymap Inheritance

When creating a new keymap, it’s tempting to start with your default keymap, such as the "QWERTY for PC" keymap, and override the desired keys. But this way, you won’t be able to easily tell which keys were overridden in your new keymap.

Even worse, when having to change the default keymap, you’ll have to override all the keymaps in which you relied on the default keymap. There’s a better way: keymap inheritance.

Instead of starting with a default keymap, start with an empty keymap and inherit from a base keymap. This way, you can override the desired keys in your new keymap and leave the rest blank.

Let’s say your base keymap is the "QWERTY for PC keymap", which has the "QWR" abbreviation.

Now, create a blank keymap and let’s name it "Doom Eternal" with the "DOE" abbreviation. To inherit from the "QWERTY for PC" keymap, create the following smart macro in Agent:

replaceKeymap QWR
overlayKeymap current

This smart macro has a special name of $onKeymapChange DOE, making it a macro event that is automatically executed when switching to the Doom Eternal keymap.

• The replaceKeymap QWR command replaces the current keymap with the "QWERTY for PC" keymap.
• Then the overlayKeymap current command overlays the nonempty keys of the "Doom Eternal" keymap on top of the "QWERTY for PC" keymap.

You can go crazy and create multilevel inheritance this way, such as using a base keymap, creating a descendant Gaming keymap, and then creating a descendant "Doom Eternal" keymap on top of the Gaming keymap.

If you want to delve into the world of smart macros, check out its user guide and reference manual.

That’s It for Now

I hope this article has given you some ideas on how to use your UHK to improve your gaming experience or just organize your keymaps better.

We’re excited to share more about the power of macro-related features in future articles, as there’s so much more you can do with them.

Talk to you soon!

New UHK 80 units now ship with a stunning wooden palm rest made of American walnut!

If you don't have a UHK 80 yet, now's the perfect time to get one. If you already have a UHK 80 with a rubber palm rest, you can purchase the wooden palm rest in our webshop—simply remove the old one and snap the new one into place. No tools required, takes just seconds.

The UHK 80 rubber palm rest is now discontinued.

Why the change, and why now?

When designing the UHK 80, we wanted to achieve a more industrial aesthetic, which led us to the original rubber palm rest.

That changed in May when Karel crafted a DIY wooden palm rest. We immediately saw how much more premium it looked. We also discovered that the rubber palm rest costs about the same to produce as a wooden one, despite feeling like a less premium material.

Additionally, we've received reports of some UHK 80 rubber palm rests bubbling in the middle region. We believed we'd fully resolved this issue months ago, but it still occurs occasionally. (We honor replacements under warranty, and we'll soon be reaching out directly to affected customers who contacted us via email.)

We're committed to providing products that are both extremely durable and beautiful. All of this naturally drew us back to wood—and this time, we've found an exceptional supplier who creates beautiful palm rests.

UHK 60 vs. UHK 80 Wooden Palm Rests

Curious how they compare? Here are some photos:

Closing Words & What's Next

Thanks for reading this update! We hope you're as excited about the wooden UHK 80 palm rest as we are.

We have stock of all products, so if you've been waiting—shop now!

I used to send these newsletters monthly, but I'll admit I've fallen behind—the last one went out a year ago. I'm committed to reviving them and have some topic ideas in mind, but I'd love your input. If you have suggestions, want to show off your setup, or would like to write a guest article, just reply to this email.

Talk to you soon!

The first ten UHK 80 keyboards have left our facility today!

The 3,000mAh batteries have been stuck at DPD China for a long time, so we're not yet shipping UHK orders containing batteries. We asked our battery supplier to send another batch via DHL, which is expected to arrive in early January. By then, all UHK 80 keyboards without batteries should be shipped.

Currently, we're only shipping UHK 80 keyboards with black cases, as we haven't received other colors yet. We expect other colors to arrive around mid-January. If you want to expedite your order by changing to a black case and your UHK contains batteries, please wait until the batteries arrive, which we'll announce. Since we might receive the colored cases around the same time as the batteries, changing case colors doesn't make sense yet unless your UHK doesn't contain batteries.

We follow our first-come, first-served principle as closely as possible and always ship the earliest orders first, but the above exceptions currently apply. We expect to fulfill every UHK 80 order by the end of January 2025.

In the meantime, we've merged the UHK 80 codebase into the official firmware and Agent repositories and are rapidly improving them.

I'll keep you updated weekly via the delivery status page and monthly via these updates. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

We plan to start shipping in late November, so don’t delay; pre-order yours today! It's first come, first served. Please note, however, that depending on the number of pre-orders, delivering all keyboards may take weeks or months. See the “delivery timeline” section at the end of this post.

Let's dive into what makes the UHK 80 truly special.

Layout and switches

The UHK 80 layout is based on the UHK 60 layout with two significant changes.

We went from a 60% layout to an 80% tenkeyless layout, so Escape, F1 to F12, and a navigation cluster were added. Thanks to the new floating key design, the outer edges of the UHK 60 are not present, making the UHK 80 more space-efficient, so it’s only 25 mm or 1 inch wider than the UHK 60. The double-left and double-right keys above the left and right keys jump left and right by word by default. Consequently, the right Shift and Control became smaller by 1U, which is still comfortable to reach.

We increased the number of thumb keys to eight. All the top four thumb keys utilize 1.5U convex keycaps. As for the bottom thumb keys, instead of the two mouse-like microswitches beneath the UHK 60 case buttons, we now use four Kailh Choc v2 switches with ergonomically shaped keycaps, providing maximum thumb comfort.

We only use backlight-friendly double-shot PBT keycaps for all layouts. The legends are easily readable even when the backlight is disabled.

When purchasing a UHK 80, only the MX switch type is choosable, and the Choc switch type will be provided accordingly:

• Choc brown (tactile) for regular brown, box brown, and silent brown
• Choc blue (clicky) for regular blue and box white
• Choc red (linear) for regular red, box red, and silent pink

If you want a different Choc switch type, you can purchase one from our webshop and swap it.

Connectivity options

The UHK 80 has several connectivity options. Like its predecessor UHK 60, you can connect it using USB-C (or USB-A via the provided adapter). In addition, it also supports wireless connectivity with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and UHK USB dongles. Up to 20 wireless devices can be paired to the UHK 80.

For wired connections, both halves of the UHK 80 have USB-C ports. Currently, only the right USB port is usable for host connections, but both will be equally usable after a later firmware upgrade. You will also be able to connect the USB ports to different hosts and switch between them. Unlike the UHK 60, the USB ports are not in small compartments, and can be accessed easily.

You can purchase the UHK 80 with or without batteries included. Regardless, every UHK 80 supports wireless connectivity.

The spiral cable is no longer required. If it’s not connected, the halves communicate wirelessly. If it’s connected, it’s used for communication and charging between the halves.

The spiral cable is now made of polyurethane, no longer braided, and we removed undesirable extra twist with a reversal of the pinout. These changes enhance elasticity, improve the aesthetics when connected, and maximize the extended length to 45 cm or 1.5 feet. The modifed pinout, however, makes it incompatible with the UHK 60.

Integrated palm rests

Many of our customers said that the palm rest is ergonomically essential, so we integrated a rubber palm rest into the UHK 80.

This design allows for a slightly slimmer form factor and provides great value since the price of the keyboard includes the palm rest instead of requiring a separate purchase. This palm rest has a similar feel to the UHK 60 rubber palm rest. No wooden option will be provided.

The OLED display

The segment LED display of the UHK 60 has served us well, but I felt it was time for a big upgrade and replaced it with a gorgeous 2.08-inch 256x64-pixel 16 grayscale OLED display.

Given the UHK 80's many features, there’s plenty of useful information to display. In the top bar, from left to right, you can see the connection status of the keyboard halves, the state of Caps Lock and Num Lock, and the batteries' charge level. The keymap name is featured in the middle of the display, followed by the name of the current host connection at the bottom.

Riser 80

Four hot-swappable feet are provided with the UHK 80, allowing about 5 degrees of tenting, positive and negative tilting. If you want to use a higher angle, you can purchase a Riser 80.

Riser 80 allows for adjustable tenting at precise 5-degree increments, ranging from 10 to 60 degrees, and boasts the same robustness and quick folding/unfolding design as Riser 60. As a bonus, it’s now slightly lower and has thumb screws allowing for toolless assembly.

Given that the right keyboard half is wider than the left, it makes sense to set a lower angle for the right Riser half than the left half so the height of the keycaps is more even. I recommend 20 degrees for the left half and 15 degrees for the right half.

Wireless USB dongle

The UHK Dongle can be separately purchased if you want wireless USB connectivity. It plugs into USB-A or USB-C (using the provided adapter). You can purchase multiple dongles, pair them to your UHK 80, and use them to switch between many hosts.

You want a dongle either if you intend to use your UHK 80 wirelessly with some of your hosts that don’t support BLE or if the responsiveness of BLE doesn’t satisfy you. BLE works great, but mouse movement is noticeably more responsive and smoother via the dongle.

Batteries

To my knowledge, the UHK 80 has the largest batteries of all the split keyboards. The left half features a 3500 mAh LiPo battery, and the right has a monstrous 5000 mAh battery. The larger battery is justified in the right half because it has proportionally more LEDs.

If you’re on the road and want to maximize your battery time, you better disable the LEDs, as they’re huge power hogs. In this case, the batteries should last about a month.

If you set the LEDs to maximum brightness and no LED timeout, your UHK will only last a day.

The batteries are easily replaceable; we’ll provide them separately on our webshop. The replacement procedure requires no tools and takes about five minutes.

The UHK 80 supports 3A fast charging. To max out the charging speed, use two USB cables, one for each half. If you’re not in a hurry, one USB cable and the spiral cable are sufficient.

Full hardware reconfigurability

Some keyboards offer many product options, but require you to choose well at the time of purchase because you're stuck forever with what you chose. That's not the case with the UHK 80: you can upgrade and change product options as your needs evolve.

If you always use your UHK 80 with your PC, don't choose the “include batteries” product option because batteries cost extra, are harmful to the environment, and only last about 2-3 years. If your life situation changes, you can buy them separately, and voila, your UHK will run off batteries.

The same flexibility applies to every other product option, such as case color. You can even change from an ANSI layout to an ISO layout and vice versa. Given the hot-swap sockets, changing switches (even Choc switches) is a no-brainer, as are keycaps.

Agent and firmware status

Agent already works great with the UHK 80 and all the modules.

You can go to the Configuration screen, select your UHK 60 and migrate your configuration to your UHK 80 with a single click. Agent will add default mappings for the extra keys not present on your UHK 60.

I’ve been using my UHK 80 for over a month, and it already works great via USB, BLE, and the dongle. However, there are still bugs and missing features. We’re still working on switching host connections via keys. A bug causes a random key to be virtually held until another key is pressed daily. Battery percentage readings are inaccurate, and there are a few other small bugs. The firmware and Agent progress has been phenomenal, and I expect us to fix the most pressing issues in some weeks or months.

When UHK 80 delivery starts, at the latest, I’ll merge the private UHK 80 firmware and Agent repos, migrate their issues to the official public repos, and release new firmware and Agent versions supporting the UHK 80. All our code will be in the open, and upcoming releases will continue to support the UHK 60.

Tester testimonials

Here are some opinions from our testers about the UHK 80:

“The UHK80 is everything I loved about my UHK60, but now with more features and more keys! Even as a heavy user of layers and macros, the additional keys is a very welcome addition, allowing me to surface more to my base layer and continue down the rabbit hole of optimizing my workflow with hardware-bound automation. The integrated wrist rest, wireless halves, OLED screen, and added 2.4 GHz/Bluetooth connectivity make this an even more significant upgrade over my UHK60v2 and handily takes its title as my all time favorite keyboard.” - Zetaphor

"The UHK80 is a triumph! The build quality is so high that it takes a leap above the venerable UHK60, which was my benchmark for a professional developer’s keyboard. Having the extra keys on the bottom of the keyboard that are in the thumb-zone are so useful! And having an extra row of function keys is great for coding. There are so many premium touches, such as the OLED panel and smaller Shift key sizes. Having the option to get custom keycaps from YUZU is one more way you can make this keyboard yours!" - Nazmul Idris, R3BL CEO & Engineer

“The new UHK-80 is a game-changer for enthusiasts and professionals alike. Having owned, modded and loved the original UHK v1 until this day, I was thrilled to see the evolution in this latest model. The standout feature for me is its true wireless capability, which is a significant improvement over my previous BT-500 wireless mod. The keyboard connects seamlessly via Bluetooth and/or RF, and the two halves themselves are now truly wireless. The build quality is exceptional, and the upgraded display is a significant step up, making it easy to see necessary information at a glance while giving the keyboard a more premium look. While it retains the beloved modules of its predecessor, the addition of extra thumb keys is a welcome enhancement. Hats off to László and the Ultimate Gadget Laboratories team for their meticulous craftsmanship and evident passion. This keyboard is not just an upgrade; it’s a solid improvement in every way.” - Roger

"I thought the UHK60v2 was perfect, but the UHK80 really surprised me. I'm wheelchair bound, so I have to constantly shift my sitting position. With all the new connection options, extra keys, and the ability to pair the halves wirelessly, I can sit as wonky as I want and the UHK80 can move with me." - Phil (pcooke9)

“The UHK 80 is by far the best keyboard I have ever used. I liked the previous UHK designs, but I always missed the function keys. Now they are back, and the new form factor is significantly more pleasant to type on. I also like the fact that I can now use the keyboard wirelessly — with each half being completely independent!” - Jan

Delivery timeline

The UHK 80 is already FCC and CE-certified, the plastic and rubber molds produce nearly production-grade components, and we’ve purchased almost every part for 1,000 keyboards. Very few components are missing: Currently, only the batteries are in transit. Our PCBA contractor is refining the stencil to assemble more PCBs, and our molding contractor will make more cases.

Given our on-demand manufacturing operation, the assembly procedure is the bottleneck. We can assemble hundreds of keyboards weekly, which is usually sufficient, except when our webshop is inundated by orders, as hopefully will be the case now.

Depending on the number of orders, it can take weeks or months for us to complete the orders. If justified, we will hire contractors to speed up assembly. Ordering more parts in time won’t be a problem.

Once UHK 80 delivery starts, which is expected in late November, every order, including UHK 60 orders, will be put into the same fulfillment queue, so UHK 60 orders won’t ship in a week as they currently do.

I’ll update the delivery status page weekly and write monthly updates about our progress.

What about the UHK 60?

The UHK 60 and its accessories and spare parts are here to stay. We plan to upgrade it eventually, but not anytime soon.

Thanks, and closing words

There you have it, the UHK 80! If you have made it this far, we salute you!

As you can see, the UHK 80 is not an evolutionary, incremental upgrade like the UHK 60 v2 was but rather revolutionary, and it’s taken a lot of work to develop it.

Karel, Robi, and Benedek, thank you for developing the UHK firmware and Agent! Most people wouldn’t believe that three part-time developers are sufficient for this task unless they’re as excellent and dedicated as you. Seeing your constant progress and spotless work ethic puts a smile on my face.

Max, Jan, Gary, Roger, Nazmul, Nadia, Phillip, and Peter, thank you for testing the UHK 80! Your feedback has helped us tremendously in discovering and fixing numerous bugs. Thanks to you, UHK 80 customers will have a much more pleasant experience.

Last but definitely not least, a huge thanks to our wonderful customers! You’ve been supporting us from the get-go throughout the years. Thanks for your support, believing in us, and all the kind words and encouragement you provided. It may sound cliche, but you’re the very reason the UHK exists, and we can pursue our passion.

Thanks for reading this long announcement! Talk to you in a month!

We wanted to offer custom UHK keycap sets a while ago but ultimately decided it was not our primary focus. Fortunately, though, Yuzu came to the rescue. With their web-based configurator, it's easy to create a custom UHK keycap set of different colored keys and custom legends of multiple colors. They offer a very versatile service for a reasonable price. Let me show you an appetizer:

A friend of mine, Max, designed the above keycap set. He's truly a keycap aficionado. The following is his article describing his keyboard journey, the challenges of finding alternative UHK keycap sets, and the preferences that led him to create this keycap set. He'll also show the Yuzu configurator and many photos of his custom keycap set.

You can also find Max active on the UHK forum as maexxx.

Custom Keycaps – and how I learned to love Yuzu

by Maximilian Hantsch (maexxx)

I’ve always been a fan of keyboards, of good keyboards. With good I mean: pleasing to type on. I want proper feedback for my fingers. I want switches that click, or deliver a tactile bump, and I want keycaps that guide my fingers to the correct spot on the key to facilitate true touch-typing.

As a kid, I had learned touch-typing on actual mechanical typewriters, but my real journey started in my teenage years with an IBM Model M keyboard with its buckle-spring clickety-click switches. Boy, it was joy to type on this! First, it would require so much less force than the mechanical typewriters I had used before, and second, I would exactly know when each key triggered – by sound and by feel. This was where I spent all my time learning about computers and coding my first programs. I also used other home computers, but none of them had keyboards worth mentioning. 😉

But then the world changed, and the long, tedious span of rubber-dome keyboards swamped the market. This was the 1990s and 2000s, and the world was taken over by cheap 10$-a-piece keyboards. I missed proper typing!

Luckily, times have evolved. We now have a vast selection of proper mechanical keyboards again. We can choose our switches (clicky, tactile, linear, smooth, fast etc.), our keyboard layouts (full-size, TKL, 60%, 40%, split, ...), and of course, we carefully select the keycaps that we put on those switches (Cherry, OEM, SA, DCS, XDA, MDA, MT3, you-name-it...).

I embarked on my own journey of trying to find what I like most. I transitioned from full-size over TKL to 60% boards, and eventually ended up at the UHK v1 (original crowdfunding). Today, I also use a UHK60 v2 with some extra modules.

I have always pimped my keyboards for style. Here are some of my designs in different colourways (incl. all-black), and different keycap profiles (there are OEM, Cherry, XDA, DSA, SA and MT3 in my collection...).

In addition to style, my keyboard journey also involved two more changes, both of which started long before the UHK, and both aim towards more effortless typing:

1) I switched my keymap from QWERTY to Colemak; a debatable change: it requires a serious effort for relearning your touch-typing. I was a solid 80-or-so wpm QWERTY typist, and only several months of practice got me back to that speed on Colemak. I believe it was worth it (it feels just so much more comfortable), but your mileage may vary.

2) I started using additional layers. The Colemak keymap already changed CapsLock to Backspace, and I added a secondary function to use it as a mod layer switch when held down. This idea originated from the “extend” layer which DreymaR from the Colemak forums had promoted (go check it out: https://dreymar.colemak.org/layers-extend.html).

I implemented these using a combination of Colemak as the host keymap, and adding layers using tools such as AutoHotKey, xkb, keyd, and kanata, and finally – once I got my UHK – through Agent and the UHK layers. Check out my github repository for full documentation (https://github.com/mhantsch/maxtend).

The UHK follows along the idea of being able to reach functionality (navigation, media control, mouse control, number entry, …) without moving your hands away from the home row resting position. Using layers, adding that “extend” key (CapsLock) layer was the single best improvement to my keyboard. Layers for the win!

I have always wanted to express my style and functionality (Colemak, layers) directly on the keyboard. Until recently, my choices were limited:

• Most 3^rd party keysets are offered for QWERTY layouts only. This limits me to the few ones that come with a “Colevrak” extension pack (extra $$$!) or flat profiles that use the same keycap shape for all rows of the keyboard (XDA, DSA). (With a flat profile, I can just swap keys between positions without destroying the row profiles.)
• The UHK has an unusual size of keys on the right side. This requires the purchase of additional extension packs (“Extras”, “40s”, “Exotic” etc.) for keycaps in the correct size (more $$$). Even if you can find them, it’s almost impossible to get them with the correct labels and/or the correct row profile. Famously difficult are the top row Backspace, right side Control, Space bars, and convex keycaps for the key cluster.
• Forget about getting individual keycaps that show my extra layers.

But now, the world has changed. Enter yuzukeycaps.com.

Yuzukeycaps offer an affordable solution to invididual keycaps: an online editor supporting (amongst others) the UHK layout (including properly shaped caps for the key cluster module!), giving you lots of options to design your keycaps (colours, fonts, icons), and they deliver decent quality (PBT, Cherry profile, sub-dye) within a few weeks.

Finally I could design my own keycaps that show the layers of my keyboard, and fit the layout of the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. I was excited!

Their web-based designer app allows detailed positioning of legends and icons in multiple colours, offers template support for consistent and uniform labelling across keys, and even handled a complex keycap design such as my "Maxtend" layout.

Of course, their editor works for ANSI and ISO versions of the UHK, and you can add the key cluster if you need it. The bottom keys of the key cluster as well as the space bars are convex just like the original UHK caps.

Templates allow you to place legends consistently across multiple keys. You can either use existing pre-defined templates, modify them, or create your own.

For each key, you can fill the text legends and select icons from multiple icon galleries as well as choose the colour for each item.

Once you are pleased with the preview of your design, you can send off your order. For the very affordable amount of US$ 93 (including international shipping) Yuzu was producing my own custom keycaps!

A few days after I had submitted my design, Yuzu surprised me again with photos of the freshly produced keycaps, allowing me to proof-check their production before releasing them for shipment. A week later or so, I had them in my hands, and I could finally see and touch what I had only visualised in dreams.

This Yuzu keyset really completed my “Maxtend” layout, and I am very happy with the results.

Disclosure: Ultimate Gadget Labs offered to reimburse me for the keycaps ordered from Yuzukeycaps in exchange for writing this review. This doesn’t change my opinion, though: If you want individual keycaps for your UHK, Yuzu is the way to go.

Neither Ultimate Gadget Labs nor I receive any kickback from Yuzu.

Agent and the UHK firmware have been getting increasingly powerful, but we haven't done a good job showcasing these capabilities. Luckily, John came to the rescue and created an excellent YouTube tutorial featuring the following points:

• 00:00 What are smart macros?
• 01:02 Dual function backtick
• 02:58 Special macros for initialization and keymap changes
• 03:55 OS-specific settings by keymap
• 04:47 Capslock shift
• 05:38 Record macro and playback to avoid tedious repetition
• 06:31 Reassign keymap during alt-tab to close apps with one hand
• 07:52 Function keys EVERYWHERE
• 09:04 Delete line and easy-to-use macro wizard form
• 09:24 Mouse jiggler to avoid screen timeouts
• 10:48 Gaming macro shift walk tap or hold
• 11:25 One shot modifier for fluid typing
• 11:58 Creating your macros, community support, and GPT4

John has also made these macros available on a dedicated GitHub page, so you can easily copy-paste them into Agent.

Speaking of Agent, we've been adding some new features worth mentioning, especially in the context of smart macros. See the following screenshot.

As you can see, we've added syntax highlighting and autocomplete. Autocomplete is thoroughly implemented, using the actual grammar and a generic parser. As such, its completions should be close to 100% contextually accurate. It's also worth mentioning that Agent pulls the grammar of the exact firmware revision actually used.

Agent also displays the error of a macro I intentionally made when saving the configuration. Clicking on the error makes the cursor jump to the relevant position of the affected macro. Thanks to these improvements, writing your macros is easier than ever.

Smart macros are a big deal because they enable features traditionally only possible with QMK and ZMK in a highly integrated manner without installing a toolchain. If you want to learn more about smart macros, the following resources should be useful:

• smart macro user guide - a light introduction to basic concepts, including many examples
• smart macro reference manual - an exhaustive (although dry and formal) list of all commands
• The forum's "my configuration" and "configuration question" categories contain many examples and are the place to share your ideas and get help with their implementation.
• Agent has an integrated, interactive smart macro reference that mostly describes configuration commands. See the "smart macro reference" tab on the right side of the previous screenshot. This side pane will eventually include all the smart macro documentation.

Finally, I want to share two recent UHK reviews. The first was made by John, and in his true style, he's done a deep dive featuring Riser, the palm rests, the modules, the keycaps and switches, and many layout-related and smart macro-related topics, even gaming.

Evan has also made a UHK review, largely featuring the ergonomic benefits and accessories of the UHK, especially the modules.

That's it for now! I hope you found this update useful. Talk to you later!

We've released Agent 4, which features dedicated module configuration pages, a new "typing behavior" page, and additional settings on the "mouse key speed" page.

I think it’s a huge release because even though the newly exposed settings were available via smart macros, I’m sure many of you didn’t use them due to their complexity. Now, they’re super easy to use.

If you use smart macros that already set the newly exposed settings, they’ll overwrite these settings, so make sure to delete the related smart macro commands.

Now, let me show you the settings pages.

Module configuration

Notice the puzzle icons just above the modules. You'll be taken to the relevant module configuration page if you click on one of them. Alternatively, you can click on the desired module under the Modules menu in the side menu.

A lot is going on, but fear not; hovering over the little question mark icons reveals tooltips that explain the settings.

You can adjust the speed and acceleration of modules and fine-tune axis locking settings to prevent unintended movements on the non-dominant axis while scrolling or using the caret mode. There are also some module-specific settings. Most notably, you can tweak the touchpad's pinch-to-zoom and drag-and-drop behavior.

On the right side of the screen, you can assign per-layer navigation modes. The navigation mode describes what the module does when moving its pointer device. For example, the cursor mode moves the mouse cursor. The scroll mode scrolls, just like the scroll wheel of a mouse. The caret mode moves the text cursor, which is useful in editors.

Typing behavior

The advanced secondary role resolution strategy is useful if you want to use secondary roles on alphanumeric keys, in which case the simple resolution strategy tends to interfere with writing.

With the keystroke delay setting, you can add artificial delay to keystrokes, which can be useful for some applications, especially for RDP clients that have problems accepting fast input.

Mouse key speed settings

The newly added axis skew settings allow you to move/scroll faster horizontally than vertically or vice versa, which can be useful for ultrawide monitors or moving through multiple workspaces.

When moving diagonally with mouse keys, vertical and horizontal speeds add up. However, when checking the "compensate diagonal speed" option, the diagonal speed will match the horizontal/vertical speed.

Further improvements

In addition to the above, the firmware keeps evolving. It now automatically recovers from occasional trackpoint drifts after a few seconds, and we've improved compatibility with some KVM switches.

I hope you're as excited about these developments as we are and that they'll make your UHK even more useful. Speaking of the UHK, we have stock of every product and ship in a week, so don't delay; buy today.

Talk to you later!

Riser only works with a wooden or rubber UHK palm rest, and it's compatible with both the UHK 60 v1 and UHK 60 v2.

Its robust construction features an all-metal design, weighing 620 grams. The powder-coated steel plates are equipped with rubber feet, preventing any desk slippage and ensuring stability.

Riser is designed for effective usage, allowing you to swiftly open or close it in roughly three seconds for each keyboard half. This is in stark contrast with some other tenting solutions that demand a long ritual involving the meticulous folding and unfolding of numerous tiny feet into precise positions each time they are set up or packed away. Although the initial configuration and angle testing take more time, requiring a minute per keyboard half and a screwdriver, the convenience in daily use is unmatched.

For those new to adjustable tenting, we recommend starting at a lower angle and gradually increasing it to find your ideal position.

An additional benefit of Riser is its seamless integration with your UHK. When closed, your keyboard lies flat on the table, even with the halves merged. When opened, Riser maintains its position securely, ensuring no unintended unfolding, even when elevating your UHK.

Let us close this announcement with two photos of Riser.

We hope you'll enjoy Riser as much as we enjoyed making it, and we're confident it will enhance your typing experience. We have stock of all of our products and ship in a week, so don't delay; buy them all today!