I fell for it. Fuckin' SteelSeries
I fell for it. Fuckin' SteelSeries
No this isn't an ad. Fuck their keyboards and their shitty software and horrific customer support
Honestly, I really hate glowing keyboards I go out of my way to avoid them. Same with fans and cases with a LED lightshow built in.
The problem is that it's so hard to find components that constantly don't glow all the time. Even my computer has a LED fan in it, because it was all I could find for cheap. Fortunately it's a old "metal box" type case so except for a vent on the side the glow is almost unnoticeable... but occasionally when the rooms dark I'll see the slight glow seeping out and get annoyed all over again that a tiny fraction of the power my PC is using is for lighting up a closed box.
Im the opposite. Rgb keyboards are the only rgb components I actually like as it can actually serve a function.
An rgb keyboard with good programming software is invaluable. Being able to color code your keys based on game/function is great.
To each their own I suppose.
Build your own, then instead of a 150 dollar keyboard you can have a 350 dollar keyboard that also has lights.
And the D button will never work. But that's why you pay extra
Hand wired 4 life! That way, if a key doesn't work, you can just add more solder until it does.
If you go 40% or less then it’s only $100! (Without key caps) 😂
Never understood that hype for everything RGB. I had two shitty mouses (mice?) with RGB, and it was annoying as fuck.
The implementation of RGB LEDs for things to glow dimly in your preferred color? Neat. Flashing between the three primary colors tastlessly? Why.. just why..?
What I find more funny is the mechanical keyboard trend of smallkeyboards (no numpad) with custom everything (keycaps/switches) without any lighting being hundreds of dollars.
Or it has “lighting” but for some unseen reason, everything but the keys are lit up with leds. No actual backlighting.
Thanks, that’s not helpful.
It's not lightning that adds up to the price, it's stuff like aluminum case, quality mechanical switches and yes, keycaps.
Unfortunately these gamer keyboards have the worst keycaps you've ever seen, the cheapest Chinese switches money can buy and the highest amount of telemetry on that oh so important software. It's pretty disgusting.
The mechanical keyboard trend has been around for a while and it's really worth checking out if you use a keyboard for 8 hours a day.
I hate how hard it is to find a cool mechanical keyboard WITH a numpad these days!! Seriously
I hate how hard it is to find a low profile mechanical keyboard.
Or just one with more features than just "it has keys"
Seriously? Y'all are buying steel series? Oof.
Keychron offers superior keyboards for a 4th of the cost.
100%.Keychron keyboards are some of the best.
Keychron seems really nice, but it's about $80 more for the +numpad Keyboard I bought from Steelseries on sale 4 years ago. That said I would have loved to customized my keyboard to the extent they do.
Lol what a corporate shill delete my comment ya lost a potential customer sad
Ya can't silence what I believe is crap lol keep shilling
I bought two different Bluetooth controllers from them. The first one had a known issue with the shoulder buttons. Like an idiot, I bought a second one. Same problem. SteelSeries support told me it was a known issue and they wouldn’t do shit.
I refuse to support SteelSeries.
They literally stole mine.
It stopped working so I sent it in for RMA. They emailed me back saying they didn't have any more in stock to replace it with, so they gave me a gift card instead.
For 60 bucks.
They didn't have any products for that little at the time, except that controller. Which was out of stock. It would have been fine if I could just wait for it to be back in stock...
But guess what, the gift card expired, WITHIN A MONTH.
It was literally impossible to spend on anything without using even more money to buy some other steelseries product I didn't want or need, and I couldn't just keep it and wait until the next time I needed something, either.
I tried to explain this to support, I got completely ignored.
I have made it a point to tell this story every chance I get, and to never buy ANYTHING from them, ever again.
The fuck, how is that legal?
Your product that you sold me doesn't work.
Yeah that's a known issue, suck shit.
I mean....what?
I live in the US. I don’t really get any protections.
Edit: found the Reddit thread I used to fix it back in the day; it was a very well-known issue
Steelseries customer support consists of rigid adherence to anti-consumer policies and malicious glee when doing so does absolutely nothing to solve a problem.
Don't buy shitty gaming keyboards with shitty software and shitty styling from shitty gaming companies.
Buy a decent mechanical keyboard from a reputable keyboard producer. Make sure it has VIA/QMK support and you will not need shitty software. Many also come with RGB, if that's what you want.
If you can avoid falling into the trap that is "the mechanical keyboard hobby", you will be set for at least a decade.
After just 2 weeks with an Aerox 5 wireless, I refuse to buy anything Steelseries again myself.
Bought it on their website, they refused my in-warranty 30-day refund until I talked with support. After dealing with their troll support for over a week, I then resubmitted for a refund and was initially denied because it was past the 30 days. I then had to argue I wanted the refund weeks prior.
Steelseries are just shit products now with a shit support.
Ended up buying one of the last Microsoft Mice only because it has reliable kailh button switches.
Not to mention their Engine garbage crashes constantly and has barely any real illumination support. The shit about booting with certain applications works like 25% of the time. No idea why I trusted people and bought this crap. Only thing I like about it is the volume scroll wheel and the media button. Outside of that, meh. Actually the wrist rest is good but not exactly unique to them.
Weird that I feel a bit opposite compared to a lot of comments. I think maybe they find hassle with:
- Crappy proprietary software.
- Forced rainbow spin they can't turn off.
- The feeling this makes the component cost more.
Or other things.
I like the lights though. There's a custom Linux app specially for Corsair keyboards, so that works for me, but everything else listens to OpenRGB!
Soft ambient glow? Easy. Turning ALL of it off? Click. Making it bounce to music? Preset.
Responding to temperatures is useful but I think that might require a little more scripting.
For the longest time my 3090 wouldn't be read by OpenRGB, but eventually they figured it out. :)
Responding to temperatures is useful but I think that might require a little more scripting.
Hardware Sync Plugin can help with this: https://openrgb.org/plugins.html
Adds a new tab in openrgb where you can set a hardware item, a light output and then make a color (and brightness maybe?) gradient by just inputting a few numbers and colors, and openrgb will do all the fading in between. I have my GPU temp set to my motherboard light. Compared to my rainmeter setup, it's easier to get a general vibe at a glance and more eye catching if it gets unusually hot.
That's absolutely awesome! I haven't checked the plugins in a while. :) Thanks for the share, friend!
Yeah, I feel like it's almost intuitive if my case lighting is reporting its temperature. In that case if things start turning all red, something is up. Lol
In Win10, I used Corsair's iCUE to have my numpad lights report individual core temps. (And numpad enter was my GPU I think)
So hopefully I can find a way to do something similar here. :)
I don't think CKB-Next can do that 🤔
Am I the only one who looks at the specs first and only see the RGB as a bonus?
Lit up keys are important, colour isn't.
Yeh I want to see the keys in the dark because I'm a dogshit typist and scared of the big light on the ceiling.
The way I see it my computer shouldn't be visible and by keyboard should blend in with the desk as much as possible.
My favorite gag from My Deer Friend was the "gaming antler" that just glowed rainbow colors.
Are you a Disney princess?
I'm your biggest fan
Keyboard is one thing. I actually have some slight use for individually customizable RGB on keys, RGB mouse starts to lose me, but at least it is within the range of things I interact with on my computer, But anything past that point, and I'm actively avoiding it as a scam
(Looking at you RGB RAM)
RGB ram and other PC internals are definitely a scam, but you can put them to use if you already have them.
I use OpenRGB (an rgb program) to set my built in motherboard rgb light to be a color gradient based on my GPU temperature (ie: minimum temp is cyan, and fades green/yellow/red for higher temps). Not distracting cause it doesn't ever have major temperature changes in a short time, and it's pretty convenient as a general monitor when I'm playing games.
Definitely not a selling point for rgb internals, but a neat usage if you already have it.
I love rgb on my keyboard though. Color coded keys are a godsend for me to break up letters/numbers/punctuation.
It's not a scam, its an accessory. It's not going to make your ram faster or make you better at gaming but no one is claiming it will. Sure, its definitely overpriced for what you get but you're delusional if you don't think every company is doing that, rgb or not.
At the end of the day, some people just like to play with colourful lights and its not like you're being forced to pay for rgb you don't want, you can just build without it and save some money.
I don't really get the big deal about it. Personally I prefer a clean dark build without the flashy lights but again, that's personal preference. I wouldn't want to force anyone to give up something they like.
I suspect there's a huge chasm in this between older gamers and younger ones - much better something with better performance (say higher and more precise DPI on a mouse) and robustness (i.e. it doesn't break within a year) than the same kind of flashy light show as a battery powered kids toy.
From my point of view flashy lighting on a mouse is like flashy lighting in a power drill: why are you adding failure modes and weakenning the robustness of a tool to make it look more like a kid's toy?!
What's wrong with liking both form and function in an item? Especially because I hardly use a mouse or keyboard in a way that I would call it a "tool" like a power drill. That's great if you need something like that, but a lot of us are more casual users and would appreciate something that matches our taste when it's displayed on a desk all day. Your power tools don't just sit out on your computer desk all day, do they?
I have been rocking an off brand Chinese mechanical tenkeyless (a must for my space) keyboard for 10 years now and a Logitech triathlon M720 mouse secondhand for a slightly shorter amount of time. A great combo for me and the keyboard can be lighted or off in any color I choose. It doesn't constantly strobe at you unless you want it to.
It's not wrong in a moral sense.
The "wrongness" is in it being a significant conflict of form and function both because mice and keyboards are heavilly used and the changes for form make them less robust and because the standards of communications for those devices were made to support the function not the form hence special software is needed to support the non-standards stuff that's only there for form.
Beautification of heavilly used manual tools is highly constrained by robustness needs and ergonomy considerations and in this specific case, by the standards themselves that support those tools (i.e. USB-HID).
Also at a personal level I find blinking lights to be a cheap form of design because it's so simple and cheap to implement (I can make a device with configurable multi-colored light cycles with all of a 1x RGB LED, 1x $.05 microcontroller and 1x push button - it's pretty much an Arduino entry level project) and requires very little artistry.
There are some trully beautiful ways of using light and then there's the typical kind of use of light in "game" mice and keyboards which is visually very basic, probably both because the people designing mice are not that great designers in the artistic sense and the "work of art"-level design wouldn't work within the ergonomic and price constraints for mass produced mice. (I suspect trully beautiful mice can be made, possibly including striking artistic lighting, but that probably requires much more expensive base materials than plastic - things like titanium or fine woods - combined and shaped in complex ways thus with much more expensive processes for manufacturing the housing)
I find it increasingly hard to find decent stuff without that.
I needed a backlit keyboard. A rainbow one was the cheapest backlit one I could find. Good enough for my "other" PC. The gaming one had a backlit one with mechanical switches but I got that on the cheap too.
That's the only reason I got an RGB keyboard. I wanted a backlit keyboard, and RGB was the only option. At least I can keep it white when I do want it lit.
RGB accessories are made so you can choose which colour you want and have all accessories matching.
They aren't meant to be set to rainbow unless they are on display and want to show what colours it is capable of.
I should have clarified that mine are cheap in a way that there is no way to change the color. It seems they just used single colored leds of different colors that are installed in this rainbow pattern. I would've changed them to something else if I could.
I will never give up my 1989 Model M..
Never ever. But if you do, give it to me.
I too once held to that ideal, but after typing almost exclusively on Model M keyboards for 40+hrs a week (Unix Sysadmin + gamer ) for 30+yrs I started to feel some strain in my fingers and hands.
About a year ago I switched to the SS Apex Pro with adjustable magnetic switches and I've been pretty happy with it so far. Yeah the software is kind of stupid but the actuation points can be adjusted and saved into several different profiles from the keyboard without the software, so I've been pretty happy with it so far.
Regarding RGB: Uninstall all the shitty software and install OpenRGB instead.
I wish I could. It doesn't support my keyboard properly. Then again I've got some macro stuff going on too.
OpenRGB has a great API and command line interface for all your automation needs. Shame about your kb.
Steelseries is absolute dog water with keyboards, same with Razer. If you want a good mech for cheap, get an Epomaker, or build your own. I personally got a barebones for like $10 from a thrift store, put $35 of Gateron Milky Yellow switches in, then got some nice keycaps for $15. Sounds/feels nicer than anything you can buy off a shelf, and it doesn't come packaged with shitty software for basic functionality.
Once upon the SteelSeries keyboards were pretty good, I had a split one that I swore I'd use forever. One day a windows update flagged the driver as suspicious, and I was left with a keyboard that clicked and clicked but did nothing. MS support said it was up to SteelSeries to update their drivers, and SteelSeries basically told me to get fucked.
I don't want pretty lights on my keyboard. I want all the keys in the wrong spots so people who don't touch type have an aneurysm when they use my computer.
My problem is less whether they work OOTB, more the fact that the switches tend to be poor quality and soldered to the motherboard. If one breaks, you have to break out the soldering iron. Finding exact replacements for some proprietary switches is also almost impossible short of getting a broken unit for parts. A pack of your preferred switches will always feel better to use and easier to replace. WS Morandis and Gateron Milky Yellows are my favorites and 104 of those clost less than 95% of premium keyboards from big brands.
Some even come with proprietary keycaps for some keys (looking at you Razer). That means if their shitty ABS caps fade or smooth out, you're stuck with them unless you buy replacements directly from them.
Anyways I'm just a keyboard nerd so your mileage may vary.
I had a steel series mouse.
The build quality? Excellent.
Design quality? Great
Software? Almost seemed intentionally insultingly bad.
I hate that my graphics card has some kind of lights I can't turn off. I've never been interested in any of that stuff
Sometimes those lights are controllable via software that isn't included in the main driver package (especially if it's not lights the reference card has). When I still used led controlling software (I think it was the ASUS one), it was able to also control the lights on my GPU. You can change the colour(s) or just turn it off entirely.
You might even be able to turn them off and then unload the software and remove it from your startup, though it depends on whether the lights are controlled via firmware that persists on the device or if they need to be actively controlled by software running on the system. It varies from device to device.
Thank you! I'll see what I can find
My steel series headphones blow ass, but my mouse.... My Rival 300 has been through a lot, so much that the rubber on the sides has a spot worn down to the plastic where my thumb grips it, and its still doing great a decade later.
But yeah, fuck their software.
I have the Aerox 3 and I really like the mouse.
I really don't like their software. Why can't I see the battery level in percentage? Who wants to guess??
People like pretty things.
Sounds like they went to shit between when I bought my last one and now. That's a shame, will need to find another company now
I've been a gamer and intensive pc user most of my 45 years of my life, and my experience in the last years regarding input devices:
- razer sucked 20 years ago and sucks still
- never buy no-name input devices for more than minimal investment, even if the featureset sounds nice
- logitech (my brand of choice for a long time) is only held afloat by their brand name, not by their hardware quality anymore (the last good mouse i had was the mx-5, the last keyboard the G11)
- but there are exceptions: my roccat keyboard works like a charm, and my current roccat mouse is robust and comfortable (but no RGB compatibility with anything else -.-)
Logitech mice can still be decent if you're comfortable with opening it up and replacing or doing maintenance on the button switches. Had to do my G900 after owning it for about 4 years (though that was with several months of noticing the left button was going before doing something about it). It was a similar story with my G7 20 years ago.
Though using better switches in the first place would have only added dollars to the cost. It's ridiculous that a 3 figure mouse doesn't come with high quality switches.
Razor hardware can be ok (I really like my wireless headphones from them), but their software sucks. And I once bought a razor mouse when my old one died and that same day decided to buy another new mouse and keep the razor one as a backup. The scroll wheel was both loud and would skip some turns.
Their software is even worse. It had an auto update and for some reason always had an update any time I restarted, but would still frequently just "lose" the devices it was supposed to control. The devices would still be working fine, you just can't go into the software to adjust any of the settings for them, which meant all it was going was showing ads (because of course it had ads; business majors just can't stand something having attention without trying to use it to sell more shit or something).
Read customer reviews for pretty much any device from a known brand or not. Focus on the distribution of ratings and what the 2-4 star ratings say to reduce the number of fake reviews. There are unknown gems out there (I mean, a mouse or keyboard isn't a very complicated piece of technology and can be done well for cheap), and we're also deep in the age of enshitification and planned obsolescence.
i don't care how good a keyboard is, if the only option is RGB lights i'm not buying it
I don't mind keys with blue glow letters, but the crazy flashy RGB nonsense is just so goddamn distracting.
My 25 dollar steel series keyboard is fine I can turn blue lights off and I also have a areox wireless mouse works flawlessly and a wireless headset like a older one with micro USB charging and all works gud the software is ight compared to my last gear corsair I'd say steel series is ight now are they good to buy now maybe not especially for the price of some of thier stock. But all in all, my stuff works how I want it and sucks that others got worse experiences. Also lol meme.
Last two times I've bought a keyboard, I struggled to find one without LCD. Like really. So idk if that's on the demand or the offer.
Literally how.
Meanwhile I have two BTC dome with slider keyboards I've picked up before their price got hiked on the retro market (people figured out they're pretty good keyboards and some have pretty good keyboard matrixes, and don't even have membranes (unless you're the tech illiterate that calls the rubber domes as "membranes")).
I swear by das keyboard. I bought mine over a decade ago, it's still going strong. I guess my only problem is, they don't ever get my money because I'm not buying new keyboards.
My main use for a keyboard's RGB is syncing it to rhythm games, really puts me in the mood seeing it flashing to the rhythm in my peripheral vision.
SteelSeries always seemed like the new-age version of Corsair. I used to have Corsair everything and got disillusioned with the build quality and software functionality loss over the years, and when SteelSeries came into play I watched some of my friends do the exact same dive. It seemed like they were a decently priced, decent quality peripherals brand when they started, but now it seems like they shared the same fate. I'm definitely done with brand loyalty, and I trust what I build more than anything I buy.
I want a wireless mechanical keyboard that takes AA or AAAs
Wow am I the only one who’s had good experiences with them? Ran an apex 3 and sensei raw for years and loved it so much I made the upgrade to the rival 310 and apex pro, which I’ve been happy with ever since. Granted I don’t use their software cuz there’s open source stuff that’s better, so no comment on the engine, but otherwise it’s been flawless.
TBH It's really hard to find a keyboard without that "feature" unless you build one yourself or buy a cheap plastic bargain bin keyboard.
I have a 30+ year old IBM Model M as my desktop keyboard, and a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro from the 90s that's connected with a long cable from my PC to my bedside nook. So so so much better than Bluetooth or RGB vomit. That said, to each their own!
The entry level cheap as fuck logitech black keyboard thank you! You won't get my razr naga though I'm too used to it
Got the look right and everything with this meme
I've had good experiences with their wired mice + soft, but I've never had a keyboard from them
I'll get the Ducky one 3 when it's half off. There is no reason for it to cost £120
Ahh of course no, but does it sound like food? Because if so, I would love to type on inedible cronches.
I bought such a keyboard because it was a cheap mechanical keyboard, they cost around 200 euro for a good one because we have a hyper specific layout :'(
One thing that annoys me with RGB lit peripherals is that the "rainbow" default mode is meant to advertise that it is RGB so you know when you buy it you can easily make it the color scheme you want. But too many people leave it on that default mode after they've bought it which makes you wonder if they even know they can customize it.
Growing up is realizing you don't want RGB products
I got that 8bitdo retro mechanical keyboard and it is great. I don't know how it rates against more expensive keyboards but it was well worth the ~$100 (plus obviously I just had to get the numpad too)
Came here to say this. Only downside is that it's not backlit, but it's the only genuine mechanical keyboard I've ever owned and I've got zero complaints.
I did not get the mouse though lol.
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I paid extra to have mine look and sound like a 40yo kb.