New Hall Effect Switch/Keyboard from Steelseries

[mikyo]

SteelSeries just announced a new line of keyboards with Hall Effect switches.

https://steelseries.com/apex?utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=hardwarecanucks

Looks like lots of marketing BS. Release date is mid june for full size, late september for TKL.
In the description of the switch its described as an "Analog Hall Effect Magnetic Sensor", but I don't see any marketing indicating it can be used in games to curve the amount of input like the Wooting One.

Thoughts?

[TeacherGeek]

Well, according to this review, it's not analog. It's about changing the actuating point to your liking.

[Findecanor]

Hmm...
- Two magnets per switch?
- Actuation distance 0.4 - 3.6 mm
- Made by Gateron. (Is is "Gateron OmniPoint" or "Steelseries OmnPoint" ?)

[Sintpinty]

I really wonder what its heaviness will feel like, maybe the same but not that heavy? 

[Konrado]

these are not hall effect. the new steelseries switches are just optical

[Findecanor]

Only the alphanumeric area is adjustable.
Sensing loop runs at 0.7 ms, out of sync with USB apparently.

[tp4tissue]

Does this have analog ?

[Sintpinty]

Does this have analog ?

All i know is that it is an optical switch.

[Kevadu]

these are not hall effect. the new steelseries switches are just optical

The LTT video quite explicitly calls them Hall Effect and every bit of coverage I've seen at least talks about magnets.  Where are you getting this information that they're optical?

[aleck]

SteelSeries just announced a new line of keyboards with Hall Effect switches.

https://steelseries.com/apex?utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=hardwarecanucks

Looks like lots of marketing BS. Release date is mid june for full size, late september for TKL.
In the description of the switch its described as an "Analog Hall Effect Magnetic Sensor", but I don't see any marketing indicating it can be used in games to curve the amount of input like the Wooting One.

Thoughts?

If I'm not wrong, it doesn't have any analog function like the Wooting One (that uses Flaretech switches), but is an optical switch, so the overall latency is almost none (and that makes the 1000hz polling rate finally useful) and has adjustable actuation points, so you can configure it to actuate at 2mm when no specific program is open, but when a program (let's say fortnite) that has been configured to change the actuation of certain keys, is opened, the keys change their actuation point to let's say 1.2mm (or whatever actuation you want) to actuate faster when gaming and blah blah Cherry MX Silver Speed bull****.
I'm wondering if they can be considered as a Hall Efect switch though.

[rajendra82]

On steel series website https://steelseries.com/blog/adjustable-mechanical-switches-104 you will find this information:

Using magnetic fields (also know as Hall effect), OmniPoint switches measure the exact distance that a key is pressed at all times. This allows each key to be adjusted to the exact point at which you want it to register.

They are clearly using the Hall effect to measure the distance between the two magnets, but not using the distance as an analog input but rather as a set digital trigger point for actuation varied in software on a per key basis. I suppose they could have chosen to directly send the analog distance as an axis input to the computer if this was of much benefit. They are also clearly not an optical switch at all.

[Sintpinty]

I seriously wonder what it's going to feel like if you put it at the lightest setting. What's the lightest setting that you can put it on to?

[MarbleKeeb]

It seems there quite a few manufacturers working on "Hall Effect" switches, Input Club, Wooting :
https://www.keychatter.com/2019/03/14/hall-effect-and-analog-in-one-keyboard-input-club-dares/