Per-key backlighting is here

TL;DR: Update to the newest Agent and set the backlighting of keys to your heart's desire!

The UHK 60 v2 has been supporting functional backlighting from the get-go, which is loosely speaking per-key backlighting, but functional backlighting colors are tied to the configuration of keys, so it hasn't been possible to set colors independently of key mappings until now.

Let's see how to use Agent's new and shiny (pun clearly intended) per-key backlighting feature.

First, update to the newest Agent and let it update your firmware.

Next up, navigate to the new "LED settings" page.

In the "Functional backlighting colors" section, you can adjust the eight functional backlighting colors if you want to stick to functional backlighting.

The newly added "LED fade timeout" option disables the LEDs after the specified idle interval. (This option has been available as a smart macro variable).

If you want to finally switch to per-key backlighting, choose the "Per-key backlighting" option in the "Backlighting mode" section of the page and check out one of your keymaps.

As you can see, there's a color palette on the top of the page, and by default, all keys are white. Now let's pick a color and start painting.

When hitting the "Save to keyboard" button, the colors will be updated on your UHK. Key colors are saved per keymap and per layer.

You can easily add new colors, adjust existing colors, and remove any colors. Just hover over the palette, and read the instructions in the tooltips.

When the paint mode is inactive (none of the colors are checked), you can drag key colors to the palette to overwrite existing palette colors or add new colors.

Talk to you later!

New orders ship in a week

Hi there,

This is a short update to let you know that new orders ship in a week. If you ever wanted to buy your UHK but were afraid of the historically long shipping delays, fear no more as we finally have stock.

And if you got your UHK, tweet about it, or it didn’t happen! We’re always delighted to hear about Ultimate Hackers as they receive their orders.

Talk to you later!

The UHK forum is waiting for you

Ultimate Hackers rejoice; we have a forum! Feel free to sign up and mingle, even if you're not single.

Asking for a forum has been a recurring theme among the community, and understandably so, as there are countless ways to configure the UHK, especially with the introduction of smart macros that open up a new world of possibilities. Twitter doesn't cut it for long, thoughtful discussions.

We needed a forum with outstanding usability that supports easy-to-follow, thematic conversations. Given these criteria, the choice was obvious to me: Discourse.

Discourse is an open-source forum engine made by the community for the community. I've been participating in many Discourse forums, and my experience has been exceptionally frictionless; Discourse is designed extremely well from the inside out.

I've recently taken some time to set up a self-hosted Discourse instance, then tweaked it a bit. Members started to flock in, and it's becoming quite a buzzy place, even unannounced.

What is the UHK forum about?

This forum is about all things UHK, except:

  • Customer support – Please submit your issue via our contact page instead.
  • Sales – If you want to sell your UHK, please use r/mechmarket?q=uhk or another marketplace, as we prefer to make the forum a useful source of information about the UHK, not a marketplace.

Based on the current threads, most members are looking for advice regarding configuration settings, and quite frankly, we could use some help from experienced users answering these questions. Still, regardless of what you're interested in, you're welcome to join.

I hope you'll enjoy the forum. Let's be excellent with each other, and we'll see you there!

UHK 60 v1 backlight upgrade kit

TL;DR: We've just released the UHK 60 v1 backlight upgrade kit, containing keycaps, LEDs, and a keycap puller. Soldering is needed to install the LEDs.

Ages ago, we promised to release the backlight upgrade kit for the UHK 60 v1. In the meantime, we've been busy releasing the modules, the UHK 60 v2, and catching up with production amid Covid and the chip shortage. But now that we've caught up, it's time to release the kit, so let's discuss the details.

On the bright side, pun clearly intended, the sides of the keycaps are also lit, not just their top side. As a matter of fact, the backlighting of the sides is more consistent than the top sides.

On the flip side, these keycaps are laser-etched ABS keycaps that may last years but won't last forever, and the black paint may wear off eventually. We plan only to use PBT keycaps going forward, but this kit is such a niche product, even for us, that it didn't make financial sense to pay for the tooling of custom PBT keycaps. (The UHK 60 v2 PBT keycaps are not recommended to be used with this kit because UHK 60 v1 LEDs are located at the bottom of the keycaps versus the UHK 60 v2 LEDs, which are located at the top.)

The kit contains keycaps for both ANSI and ISO UHKs, and it doesn't contain Mac and Windows keys, only Super keys.

The UHK 60 v1 only supports single-color backlighting. Namely, we provide white LEDs, and you have to solder them. Soldering is quite time-consuming, so we don't offer a soldering service but provide installation instructions.

Thank you for reading this short announcement. We hope we put a smile on the faces of some UHK 60 v1 owners. Talk to you later!

German, Nordic, Plain, and OS keycaps

Hallo, hallå, and hei! We're excited to introduce new PBT keycaps, including:

  • German,
  • Nordic,
  • Plain ANSI and ISO (just like the Blank option, but without the dots),
  • OS keycaps include two Cmd, Opt, and Windows keycaps to make you feel more at home if you're a Mac or Windows user.

Let me emphasize that these are not cheap ABS but durable PBT keycaps. PBT keycaps featuring non-English symbols are rare, and we've paid dearly for their tooling to bring them to life. These keycaps are backlit-friendly, the same type that the UHK 60 v2 has. The legends are easy to read even when they’re not backlit. The surface of these keycaps never gets shiny with use, and their legends never fade.

You can purchase the German, Nordic, and Plain keycap sets as part of your new UHK or as a separate keycap set.

The OS keycaps are only available as a separate product. We won't make them available as a product option for the UHK because we already offer too many product options, which makes manufacturing slow and error-prone.

Let's see some photos of the new keycaps in their full glory.

German
Nordic
Plain ANSI
OS keycaps: Mac
OS keycaps: Windows

We haven't forgotten about the UHK 60 v1 backlight upgrade kit that we promised ages ago, and we'll announce it in a separate update.

Lastly, I'm delighted to say that we've caught up with pending orders, and new orders will ship in a week.

Talk to you soon!

How to use modifier layers

Let's say you want to map Ctrl+C to Shift+1.

First up, add the Shift layer to your keymap:

On the Shift layer, map the 1 key to Ctrl+C:

The modifier layer (in this example, the Shift layer) automatically becomes active when you press the relevant modifier key. If a key on the modifier layer is unmapped, the UHK will fall back to the base layer and compose its mapping with the modifier.

You're probably already done, but there's one more thing. By default, modifier layers can be activated by both left and right modifiers. If you want to use only the left or right modifier to activate a modifier layer, you can change the modifier layer triggers via smart macros:

You're done!

Setting LED fade timeout

Update 2023-08-19: Now the "LED settings" page contains the "LED fade timeout" setting, so you don't have to use smart macros to use it.

Some of you want your UHK to automatically turn off its LEDs after some idle time, which can be configured by setting the leds.fadeTimeout smart macro variable in the $onInit macro as follows.

You can learn more about smart macros.

We realize that this setting is not as accessible as it should be, and we'll make it easier to adjust it in later Agent versions.

UHK Survey and production progress

Hi there, and welcome to this short and slightly late monthly UHK update!

We've created a survey that you're welcome to fill out regardless of whether you have a UHK. You can directly affect the development of the UHK and the creation of new models this way.

Speaking of manufacturing progress, we've almost caught up, as the oldest pending order is about a week old. Unfortunately, we're out of palm rests again, but luckily, we'll get a new palm rest batch about two weeks later, and we'll fully catch up with orders then. Consequently, we expect new orders to ship in about three weeks. We'll keep you updated via the delivery status page.

If you got your UHK, tweet about it, or it didn’t happen!

Thanks for reading this update! We’ll talk to you in a month.

UHK 60 v2 production progress

Happy new year, and welcome to this short monthly UHK status update!

We have assembled all pending orders, but we can't ship the ones that include palm rests because we'll only receive palm rests in January in multiple small batches. We plan to ship every pending order in January, and we'll update the delivery status page every weekend.

Please note that we can't make partial shipments for orders that contain palm rests. We appreciate your patience!

We’re delighted to hear from UHK 60 v2 customers as they receive their orders. If you got your UHK, tweet about it, or it didn’t happen!

Thanks for reading this update! We’ll keep you updated on all things UHK and plan to publish the next update at the end of January.

UHK 60 v2 production progress

Hi there, and welcome to this short and slightly late monthly UHK status update!

We’ve been effectively catching up with pending orders in November and closing the gap. We expect to catch up fully in January.

New orders are expected to ship in January, and we’ll update the delivery status page every weekend.

Following are some recent tweets, starting with Tony's beautiful palm rest build.

Thanks for reading this update! We’ll keep you updated on all things UHK and plan to publish the next update at the end of December.