Questions about Hall effect keyboard

[tjjrx7]

Hello Everyone.

I have been eyeing the newer hall effect keyboards such as the XMIT / acepad keyboards, and I had a few questions.

A friend of mine said that with hall effect switches you can do a half press in games which allows your character to move more slowly. In other words, he suggests that since the switch can monitor how far you have pressed the key that you can precisely control character movements in game.

Is this even remotely true? I feel like there would still have to be a definite actuation point for typing, or there has to be some really fancy control software to be able to do that.

If it is true, does anyone know if the Xmit keyboard switches can be purchased on their own for a DIY application? I would love to have a 75% keyboard.

[Kevadu]

You're talking about having analog keypress input.  I have never heard of any Hall Effect keyboards doing this...it might theoretically be possible since it's not contact based but I don't think it's actually been done.

It has been done for optical switches, however.  Specifically check out Wooting's keyboards.  It does requiring some configuration to get it to work, though.  Games aren't going to natively recognize analog input so you normally have to make the keyboard emulate a gamepad or something.  Alternatively you can set it to produce two different outputs depending on how far you press (which isn't technically completely analog but it does give more control).  Expect to spend a lot of time fiddling with things to get it just right.

[AlbertoGP]

A friend of mine said that with hall effect switches you can do a half press in games which allows your character to move more slowly. In other words, he suggests that since the switch can monitor how far you have pressed the key that you can precisely control character movements in game.

That depends first on the specific Hall effect sensor used, and then on the controller.

Roughly speaking, the Hall element delivers a voltage that varies with the magnetic field intensity which could be used to estimate the position of a magnet mounted on the key slider, but sensors designed for digital output include a Schmitt trigger that sends the full signal when the magnetic field reaches a certain value, and goes back to zero when it goes below.

Therefore, if the sensor used in the keyboard delivers digital output, there is no way the controller can detect different positions of the key.

If the sensor delivers analog output, the controller might use that to simulate an analog gamepad for instance the way the Wooting One does with its optical sensors.

I have no idea which sensor is used in XMIT / acepad keyboards.

[chyros]

Hall effect keyboards have analog signals, but they are converted to digital to be workable. There are no Hall effect keyboards that I know of that can do what you ask. The only ones I know of that do that are optoelectric keyboards such as the Wooting.