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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: tp4tissue on Sat, 19 October 2024, 23:23:33
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There was an obscure post 6 years ago on Reddit.
But now it's an actual product.
The switch center has a metal rod, the rod goes through a printed coil on the PCB, the AC current in the coil actively monitors the change in the field.
Pretty cool, it says the main benefit is standardizing switches so anyone can make a hotswap version, as opposed to hall effect which is extremely difficult to standardize.
It also mentions greater stability, Tp4 is not sure why this is inherently more stable, perhaps they mean they can achieve a tighter tolerances making the metal rods vs magnet slugs.
Anyway, Pretty cool. Pretttty expensive, Direct from Aliexpress for $160ish.
I mean, all things considered, Fully suspended gasket mount, supports 8k polling wired, 4k polling wireless, 300h, 10000mah. You can give your money to razer and buy their old jank for a whole lot more. And holy crap does this keyboard use an insane number of chips. You can see the back of the board pcb in the teardown video below, 1min 52 sec.
[attachimg=1]
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And holy crap does this keyboard use an insane number of chips.
I received my A83 yesterday. Keys feel different and amazingly smooth. The backlit is only around the keys. The fonts are not illuminated.
For a real review, check this kid video Good thing he found the software for it https://www.aescolife.com/aHub (https://www.aescolife.com/aHub)
With all the great packaging, there is no manual/instructions to change settings of the fly.
Back to the insane amount of chips. The software to customize the keyboard is 300Mb. That is scary kind of crazy. I'm a paranoiac conspiratinist. As far as I know, this keyboard could be doing a lot more than just keyboarding. (keylogger or worse) I hope not. So I just ran an ChatGPT assessment based on the extend USB information produced by USBTreeView: Summary of the results
🚫 What You Don't Have (Good Signs)
You do NOT have:
❌ Mass Storage Interface
❌ USB Network / RNDIS / CDC ECM
❌ Audio Interface
❌ Vendor-Specific mystery interface
❌ DFU flashing interface always active
❌ Webcams or imaging device classes
❌ ACM Serial port that could act as command channel
Those are exactly the vectors attackers use to hide exfiltration.
None are present.
🛡 Risk Assessment
Based on USB descriptors alone, this device:
Almost certainly is NOT a hardware keylogger or spyware keyboard.
Gaming keyboards with macro/RGB features often show:
multiple HID interfaces
large HID report descriptors
weird naming or reused VID/PID
bloated Windows config apps
It's all consistent with a cheap Chinese ODM gaming board.
Consistent with cheap Chinese ODM gaming board. :))
But but... It was not cheap and it doesn't feel cheap.
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> The software to customize the keyboard is 300Mb
Either it's open-source or I don't want it. In a way even USB is a security risk, I guess. I am not sure how easy it is to tell the operating system that a particular device shouldn't suddenly become a mouse example or type at 20 characters per second (what stops a keyboard to execute rm -rf /*) , for example.
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Update - I bought a Keychrnon K8 HE TKL after a couple of weeks of hating the Aesco A83. I'm too used to conventional TKL layout.
If anyone in Canada interested in a 2 weeks old Aesco a83... PM me. Nice board... Not for me.