Do you hate light spilling onto back-plates of LED back-lit keyboards?

[Lunatique]

I have searched high and low for LED back-lit keyboards that don't have the lights spilling onto the back-plate (ideally, with RGB switch), but it seems like all the keyboard manufacturers are doing it on purpose.

The whole point of having LED backlit keys, is to first and foremost have the legends light up and be seen clearly in dark/dim lighting, but if the back-plate is also lit up brightly, that spilled light actually competes with the legends and creates distraction, which makes the legends much harder to see clearly, since they are no longer the only thing that's lit in the dark.

I can't be the only one who hates spilled light onto the back-plate, right? There must be others around here who also prefer to have only the legends light up and no light spills to the rest of the keyboard?

Is this both a trend as well as a mechanical limitation of how mechanical keyboards need to be designed? I have never seen this problem with rubber-dome LED back-lit keyboards.

[Lunatique]

Another annoyance, is how many of the LED back-lit keys only light up the top half of the legends on keys with shift functions. That is just bad design to begin with and should have been addressed at the root level at the drawing board.

Are there actually any well designed LED back-lit mechanical keyboard?

And please don't say LED back-lit keyboards are pointless, because it definitely isn't for some people--especially those who like to play games in the dark (such as horror games, where playing in the dark is so much more fun), or watch movies in the dark.

[Defect]

My Ducky is fine when I turn it to the lowest brightness setting.  I never use backlighting though, other than when I get bored and flash it on for a minute.

Also on a side note I recommend red LEDs as they will affect your eyes less (lower energy)

[Findecanor]

Part of the problem with light-bleed is that Cherry MX has the LED on the side of the switch, in-between it and the cap. Another part is that most caps are made of white translucent plastic with black paint only on the outside, where the light reflects off the white plastic down onto the plate.

Both Logitech and SteelSeries have come out with keyboards recently with new switches with the LED in the centre. However, SteelSeries QS1 switch (made by Kailh) has a translucent top and the plate is the top of their keyboard like on Corsair keyboards, which shows off the light on the sides of the switch.
Both manufacturers also use silly caps of cloudy white plastic, and the sliders are also cloudy. Even the Logitech has some light-bleed.

Deck Keyboards used to make their backlit keycaps with only the centre and stem in translucent plastic and the skirt in black plastic. They have later gone over to double-shot ABS keycaps (opaque black and translucent white), where the skirt is still black. However, there is still quite a bit of light bleed and Deck is using a special font that not many people like ...
Vortex has also made doubleshot PBT+POM keycaps for backlit keyboards.
It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of these different keycaps to see if they incur less light-bleed than the painted translucent caps.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Another annoyance, is how many of the LED back-lit keys only light up the top half of the legends on keys with shift functions. That is just bad design to begin with and should have been addressed at the root level at the drawing board.

Backlit keyboards weren't invented when the Cherry MX switch was introduced in 1983 :-)

One of the things I liked about the KBParadise V60 is that they rotated all the switches so that the LEDs are at the fronts of the switches (instead of at the back as with the Poker II), meaning that front-printed legends are illuminated; I used to get really annoyed with my Poker II as the front printing for the Fn layer was so poorly lit that I couldn't read the legends and it was a pain trying to figure out the Fn layer. Now I just run it at maximum brightness and enough light is reflected from the inside of the keycap that it gets around the fact that the LED is at the side of the switch with the shell and slider blocking the light.

People are indeed going back to the drawing board on this, as the following companies now make switches targeted towards even backlighting:

Matias (the first to the market)
Cherry, with the MX RGB
Omron, with the Romer-G
Kailh, with the PG-something series used by Steelseries

It's become a really big deal for switch makers to sort this problem out, which I agree with you looks really terrible, doubly so when the keycaps have those cramped "all uppercase" legends to ram the glyphs around the optimal backlit spot. I really hate that! KBParadise compromised the best to my mind: LEDs at the front, illuminating the lowercase glpyhs and the front printing.

I also don't care for backlight bleed around the keys either, which the Romer-G switch is supposed to help with as it tries to guide the light entirely to where it's wanted, and blocked from going anywhere else. Of course, some of these approaches mean a new keycap mount.

[Oobly]

I actually really like it, mainly due to the fact that none of the keycaps I use any more are backlit (because 98% of backlit caps are rather crap, really, the only ones worth their salt IMHO are the PBT/POM doubleshots from Vortex). I like the visual effect of the backglow off the plate. Besides, I would never use a keyboard in such low light that backlighting for seeing the legends is needed. Bad for your eyes.

[Lunatique]

Backlit keyboards weren't invented when the Cherry MX switch was introduced in 1983 :-)

When was Cherry MX RGB is relatively new though, so it seems like that could have been the perfect opportunity to do the RGB right at the drawing board, if they really wanted to solve the problem.

One of the things I liked about the KBParadise V60 is that they rotated all the switches so that the LEDs are at the fronts of the switches (instead of at the back as with the Poker II), meaning that front-printed legends are illuminated; I used to get really annoyed with my Poker II as the front printing for the Fn layer was so poorly lit that I couldn't read the legends and it was a pain trying to figure out the Fn layer. Now I just run it at maximum brightness and enough light is reflected from the inside of the keycap that it gets around the fact that the LED is at the side of the switch with the shell and slider blocking the light.

That is indeed a smart approach, but only for the Fn layer. The symbols on the numbers row is still not addressed, unfortunately.

People are indeed going back to the drawing board on this, as the following companies now make switches targeted towards even backlighting:

Matias (the first to the market)
Cherry, with the MX RGB
Omron, with the Romer-G
Kailh, with the PG-something series used by Steelseries

It's become a really big deal for switch makers to sort this problem out, which I agree with you looks really terrible, doubly so when the keycaps have those cramped "all uppercase" legends to ram the glyphs around the optimal backlit spot. I really hate that! KBParadise compromised the best to my mind: LEDs at the front, illuminating the lowercase glpyhs and the front printing.

I also don't care for backlight bleed around the keys either, which the Romer-G switch is supposed to help with as it tries to guide the light entirely to where it's wanted, and blocked from going anywhere else. Of course, some of these approaches mean a new keycap mount.

Romer-G's back-lighting looks the most even and have the least light spillage so far. Too bad TKL is not really a priority for a lot of these big companies.

I actually really like it, mainly due to the fact that none of the keycaps I use any more are backlit (because 98% of backlit caps are rather crap, really, the only ones worth their salt IMHO are the PBT/POM doubleshots from Vortex). I like the visual effect of the backglow off the plate. Besides, I would never use a keyboard in such low light that backlighting for seeing the legends is needed. Bad for your eyes.

For a couple of hours of playing a horror game or watching a horror movie, it's not going to do any real harm to your eyes. But if you worked in total darkness for prolonged periods with only the computer monitor as the sole light source, then that's going to create fatigue for the eyes and probably other lasting problems (unless you're vigilant about resting your eyes periodically).

I can appreciate that some people just want the lighting effects for aesthetic reasons, and unfortunately, it seems all the back-lit mechanical keyboards are better used for that purpose right now than for actual illumination of the legends.

[spale]

Hate to sound like an old grandpa, buy you really shouldn't use your computer in completely dark environment. Its a bit pointless to speak about something that is "good for the eyes" if your only light source is a monitor.

And generally, that light show under keyboard is marketing stupidity.

[Sniping]

I like the light reflecting off of the plate.

I usually have my light on at night anyways, and I don't look at the legends, so LEDs are strictly aesthetical for me.

[Lunatique]

Hate to sound like an old grandpa, buy you really shouldn't use your computer in completely dark environment. Its a bit pointless to speak about something that is "good for the eyes" if your only light source is a monitor.

And generally, that light show under keyboard is marketing stupidity.

I would never work in the dark--it's terrible for the eyes. I always have a soft/diffused light source by pointing a lamp towards the ceiling (while keeping the light source (light bulb) out of view so there's no glare.

But for gaming and movie watching, I think it's fine, unless that's all you do all day long. A couple hours a day is not going to hurt you. We go to the movie theater and watch movies in the dark too--no one ever freaked out about that.

And I totally agree that the crazy light show effects is just for people who are perhaps a little too easily entertained... 

[Findecanor]

One of the things I liked about the KBParadise V60 is that they rotated all the switches so that the LEDs are at the fronts of the switches (instead of at the back as with the Poker II), meaning that front-printed legends are illuminated;

The KBParadise V60 looks good! Really nice with backlit front legends. I so hated cramped upper-case legends on backlit keyboards.

I would otherwise prefer it if backlit keyboards for Cherry MX switches had the switches facing left so that they illuminated left-justified lower-case and upper-case at the same time.

Then, in the next step, I wish Cherry (or someone else) updated the Cherry MX switch design to add a second LED on the opposite side of the stem, and with proper shielding to avoid light-bleed. The LEDs could be SMD on the board but with a light-guide of transparent plastic (like in the centre of the Omron-G switch) above each LED.
Then you could either have all four corners lit up at once while retaining keycap compatibility or you could opt to illuminate a different set of legends (in a different colour if you liked) when you hold down the Fn key.

[Valen]

Are you the same Lunatique in Head-Fi? I like your post.
I don't think there is a way to 100% fix the light bleeding onto the back-plate, the problem is in the design. I tried taping the side of the LED and leaving only the top exposed but the reduction was limited. Reducing the brightness helps but it is also limited.

[Lunatique]

Are you the same Lunatique in Head-Fi? I like your post.

One and the same.

I don't think there is a way to 100% fix the light bleeding onto the back-plate, the problem is in the design. I tried taping the side of the LED and leaving only the top exposed but the reduction was limited. Reducing the brightness helps but it is also limited.

I though about doing some modding too, but I think it's too much work since the overall design of the switch plate, case, keycaps, etc are all culprits, so it will take a whole different design at the root level to get rid of the problem. I'm still waiting for someone to do something with Matias's LED switches--I don't know why no one'd done it yet. I asked someone at MAX keyboards about using Matias and they said re-tooling for the Matias switches would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's too costly.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

My Poker II as at work, in a well-lit office. At night, you'd see the front printing even with dim backlighting.

What do you believe that Cherry should have done differently with the MX RGB? Are you saying that Cherry should have created a whole new design and new keycap mount (as Omron did, for example) or are you saying that there are mistakes with the MX RGB?

[Lunatique]

What do you believe that Cherry should have done differently with the MX RGB? Are you saying that Cherry should have created a whole new design and new keycap mount (as Omron did, for example) or are you saying that there are mistakes with the MX RGB?

No company wants to spend more money than they need to for R&D of a new product, so often they just bolt something onto the old product to save money. And we all know the symptoms of bolted on features onto old products--be it in hardware or software.

And yes, what Logitech did with Romer-G is exactly what needs to be done to address the problem, instead of just bolting a LED light on an existing switch and then changing the housing to transparent. I guess only big companies have that kind of budget to R&D a new design and sell their own exclusive products, while others have to make do with whatever is available to them, which results in a whole slew of products that have inherent drawbacks built into them from the get-go.

If Logitech made TKL keyboards with Romer-G switches, then I wouldn't have even posted this thread--I'd just buy one.

[SpAmRaY]

I would assume cherry didn't 'fix' the problem because they don't see it as a problem.

[ADFX_Pixy]

I actually like the "glowing effect" that comes from the backlight shining on the backplate.

[Lunatique]

I would assume cherry didn't 'fix' the problem because they don't see it as a problem.

Perhaps, but when looking at it from the perspective of how keycap legends are designed and implemented in the large majority of keyboards, it has to have crossed Cherry's engineers' minds that the LED implementation will not light the shift-function legends properly. So even if the light spill onto the back-plate is "on purpose" for people who like a light show, the problem with evenly illuminated legends is still not addressed.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Of course, what you need to remember is all the hype over the Novatouch: a chance to get Topre switches and use Cherry-compatible keycaps. Every new switch risks fragmenting the keycap market.

I'm holding off judgement on this all unless, at some highly unlikely point in the future, I get to try out all these new switches and compare them. It doesn't sound like Omron did much for example to address the tactility concerns of Cherry MX, and I doubt Kaihua will achieve that either. If you're going to inflict another keycap mount and PCB hole arrangement etc on the world, you may as well wait until you've figured out how to make a decent switch. At least Matias made a point of addressing both issues—illumination and feel—simultaneously, while other companies seem to have forgotten that the feel of the switch is more important than anything else!

[hwood34]

I actually like the look, you notice all the colors much more, and looks a lot cooler IMO

[Firebolt1914]

I actually really like it, mainly due to the fact that none of the keycaps I use any more are backlit (because 98% of backlit caps are rather crap, really, the only ones worth their salt IMHO are the PBT/POM doubleshots from Vortex). I like the visual effect of the backglow off the plate. Besides, I would never use a keyboard in such low light that backlighting for seeing the legends is needed. Bad for your eyes.

Exactly my stance, I love the way the light 'pools' up in the bottom of my keyboard when I'm using these PBT caps.

[taylordcraig]

You shouldn't be looking at your keyboard to use it. Weren't you the guy who wanted to eat at the keyboard too?
It's time to realize just what your keyboard was made to do, and just what you should do at the kitchen table.

I actually really like it, mainly due to the fact that none of the keycaps I use any more are backlit (because 98% of backlit caps are rather crap, really, the only ones worth their salt IMHO are the PBT/POM doubleshots from Vortex). I like the visual effect of the backglow off the plate. Besides, I would never use a keyboard in such low light that backlighting for seeing the legends is needed. Bad for your eyes.

Exactly my stance, I love the way the light 'pools' up in the bottom of my keyboard when I'm using these PBT caps.

I also love the way the light comes up between my caps, not ideal for reading legends, but looks great.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I also love the way the light comes up between my caps, not ideal for reading legends, but looks great.

How much detritus collects in between the keys on your keyboard? Backlighting acts as floodlight illumination for all the filth that the keyboard acccumulates.

[hwood34]

I also love the way the light comes up between my caps, not ideal for reading legends, but looks great.

How much detritus collects in between the keys on your keyboard? Backlighting acts as floodlight illumination for all the filth that the keyboard acccumulates.

I guess I'm the only pespn here who doesn't live in a super dusty house and eat crackers over  my boards

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This is on my desk at work, and it's not full of food. Annoyingly, some of the stuff that goes between the keys sticks rock hard to the mounting plate. My home keyboard is probably a lot worse, but thankfully it's not backlit :-)

[ggb667@gmail.com]

I do hate this.  I painted my under key board plate black and experimented with modeling clay(too fiddley), take, too messy sticky, paint (too thin), and black caulk (best results so far) around every individual key.  I think a plastic shroud to enclose the switch and channel the light up is what is needed.  We plan on 3d printing one for my Gateron switches.