Photo credit: Tested
Unlike other keyboards, Massdrop’s CTRL mechanical keyboard boasts a hot-swappable board, which means it comes with a full set of switches, but users can switch them out with any MX-style switch of their choice. Plus, it has per-key RGB lighting using SMD components on the circuit board, enabling your switch choice to take advantage of that. If you want to actually see the lights, you’ll want to use switches that are either transparent and / or have light pipes for SMD LEDs. It already includes several pre-programmed LED effects, but you can also make changes to everything, thanks to the powerful firmware. Continue reading for another hands-on video, more pictures and information.
“What truly sets the CTRL apart from the other retail keyboards out there is the powerful QMK firmware. You can adjust the layout and function layers of this keyboard to suit your needs, and Massdrop even has a handy online configurator that allows for reasonably deep customization. One of my favorite QMK tricks is setting the caps lock key to toggle a function layer when held down, but it acts as a standard caps lock when you press and release. You can do that in the online configurator, but you can go even deeper by building your own layout in QMK on your computer. However you do it, the layout file you flash to the CTRL ensures it will work the same way no matter what device it’s plugged into,” reports Tested.