Hi there, and welcome to this UHK update!
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.
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’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 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.
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 (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."
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!
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