No this isn’t an ad. Fuck their keyboards and their shitty software and horrific customer support

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Honestly, I really hate glowing keyboards I go out of my way to avoid them. Same with fans and cases with a LED lightshow built in.

    The problem is that it’s so hard to find components that constantly don’t glow all the time. Even my computer has a LED fan in it, because it was all I could find for cheap. Fortunately it’s a old “metal box” type case so except for a vent on the side the glow is almost unnoticeable… but occasionally when the rooms dark I’ll see the slight glow seeping out and get annoyed all over again that a tiny fraction of the power my PC is using is for lighting up a closed box.

    • thejoker954@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Im the opposite. Rgb keyboards are the only rgb components I actually like as it can actually serve a function.

      An rgb keyboard with good programming software is invaluable. Being able to color code your keys based on game/function is great.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Build your own, then instead of a 150 dollar keyboard you can have a 350 dollar keyboard that also has lights.

  • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Never understood that hype for everything RGB. I had two shitty mouses (mice?) with RGB, and it was annoying as fuck.

    • drivepiler@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The implementation of RGB LEDs for things to glow dimly in your preferred color? Neat. Flashing between the three primary colors tastlessly? Why… just why…?

  • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    What I find more funny is the mechanical keyboard trend of smallkeyboards (no numpad) with custom everything (keycaps/switches) without any lighting being hundreds of dollars.

    • minibyte@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Or it has “lighting” but for some unseen reason, everything but the keys are lit up with leds. No actual backlighting.

      Thanks, that’s not helpful.

    • pathief@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It’s not lightning that adds up to the price, it’s stuff like aluminum case, quality mechanical switches and yes, keycaps.

      Unfortunately these gamer keyboards have the worst keycaps you’ve ever seen, the cheapest Chinese switches money can buy and the highest amount of telemetry on that oh so important software. It’s pretty disgusting.

      The mechanical keyboard trend has been around for a while and it’s really worth checking out if you use a keyboard for 8 hours a day.

        • pathief@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          It really is crazy. I’m happy that keyboards are becoming more mainstream. Too many people use shitty keyboards! Invest in your tools, people!

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I hate how hard it is to find a low profile mechanical keyboard.

        Or just one with more features than just “it has keys”

  • citrusface@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Seriously? Y’all are buying steel series? Oof.

    Keychron offers superior keyboards for a 4th of the cost.

  • thesmokingman@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    I bought two different Bluetooth controllers from them. The first one had a known issue with the shoulder buttons. Like an idiot, I bought a second one. Same problem. SteelSeries support told me it was a known issue and they wouldn’t do shit.

    I refuse to support SteelSeries.

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      They literally stole mine.

      It stopped working so I sent it in for RMA. They emailed me back saying they didn’t have any more in stock to replace it with, so they gave me a gift card instead.

      For 60 bucks.

      They didn’t have any products for that little at the time, except that controller. Which was out of stock. It would have been fine if I could just wait for it to be back in stock…

      But guess what, the gift card expired, WITHIN A MONTH.

      It was literally impossible to spend on anything without using even more money to buy some other steelseries product I didn’t want or need, and I couldn’t just keep it and wait until the next time I needed something, either.

      I tried to explain this to support, I got completely ignored.

      I have made it a point to tell this story every chance I get, and to never buy ANYTHING from them, ever again.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      The fuck, how is that legal?

      Your product that you sold me doesn’t work.

      Yeah that’s a known issue, suck shit.

      I mean…what?

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        Steelseries customer support consists of rigid adherence to anti-consumer policies and malicious glee when doing so does absolutely nothing to solve a problem.

  • DefederateLemmyMl@feddit.nl
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    4 months ago

    Don’t buy shitty gaming keyboards with shitty software and shitty styling from shitty gaming companies.

    Buy a decent mechanical keyboard from a reputable keyboard producer. Make sure it has VIA/QMK support and you will not need shitty software. Many also come with RGB, if that’s what you want.

    If you can avoid falling into the trap that is “the mechanical keyboard hobby”, you will be set for at least a decade.

  • comador @lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    After just 2 weeks with an Aerox 5 wireless, I refuse to buy anything Steelseries again myself.

    Bought it on their website, they refused my in-warranty 30-day refund until I talked with support. After dealing with their troll support for over a week, I then resubmitted for a refund and was initially denied because it was past the 30 days. I then had to argue I wanted the refund weeks prior.

    Steelseries are just shit products now with a shit support.

    Ended up buying one of the last Microsoft Mice only because it has reliable kailh button switches.

    • Stamets@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      Not to mention their Engine garbage crashes constantly and has barely any real illumination support. The shit about booting with certain applications works like 25% of the time. No idea why I trusted people and bought this crap. Only thing I like about it is the volume scroll wheel and the media button. Outside of that, meh. Actually the wrist rest is good but not exactly unique to them.

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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    4 months ago

    Weird that I feel a bit opposite compared to a lot of comments. I think maybe they find hassle with:

    • Crappy proprietary software.
    • Forced rainbow spin they can’t turn off.
    • The feeling this makes the component cost more.

    Or other things.

    I like the lights though. There’s a custom Linux app specially for Corsair keyboards, so that works for me, but everything else listens to OpenRGB!

    Soft ambient glow? Easy. Turning ALL of it off? Click. Making it bounce to music? Preset.

    Responding to temperatures is useful but I think that might require a little more scripting.

    For the longest time my 3090 wouldn’t be read by OpenRGB, but eventually they figured it out. :)

    • fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Responding to temperatures is useful but I think that might require a little more scripting.

      Hardware Sync Plugin can help with this: https://openrgb.org/plugins.html

      Adds a new tab in openrgb where you can set a hardware item, a light output and then make a color (and brightness maybe?) gradient by just inputting a few numbers and colors, and openrgb will do all the fading in between. I have my GPU temp set to my motherboard light. Compared to my rainmeter setup, it’s easier to get a general vibe at a glance and more eye catching if it gets unusually hot.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        4 months ago

        That’s absolutely awesome! I haven’t checked the plugins in a while. :) Thanks for the share, friend!

        Yeah, I feel like it’s almost intuitive if my case lighting is reporting its temperature. In that case if things start turning all red, something is up. Lol

        In Win10, I used Corsair’s iCUE to have my numpad lights report individual core temps. (And numpad enter was my GPU I think)

        So hopefully I can find a way to do something similar here. :)

        I don’t think CKB-Next can do that 🤔

        • fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          I think you could do that with openrgb and both the visual map plugin (same link as I posted before) and hardware sync. I haven’t specifically tried it, but from what I have done, I think it’s quite doable.

          Use visual map to create individual control over numpad lights (as opposed to keeping them grouped up with the rest of the keyboard, which gives less options), and then in theory you should be able to map any temp reading to any key that you’ve separated from the group.

          There’s more than just temps as options too. Poking through, I saw stuff like power draw and clock speeds, ram usage/availability, and ethernet throughput. Could be fun to map stuff like that, though likely that would have less utility in most situations.

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    Am I the only one who looks at the specs first and only see the RGB as a bonus?

    Lit up keys are important, colour isn’t.

    • fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      RGB ram and other PC internals are definitely a scam, but you can put them to use if you already have them.

      I use OpenRGB (an rgb program) to set my built in motherboard rgb light to be a color gradient based on my GPU temperature (ie: minimum temp is cyan, and fades green/yellow/red for higher temps). Not distracting cause it doesn’t ever have major temperature changes in a short time, and it’s pretty convenient as a general monitor when I’m playing games.

      Definitely not a selling point for rgb internals, but a neat usage if you already have it.

      I love rgb on my keyboard though. Color coded keys are a godsend for me to break up letters/numbers/punctuation.

      • DrownedRats@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s not a scam, its an accessory. It’s not going to make your ram faster or make you better at gaming but no one is claiming it will. Sure, its definitely overpriced for what you get but you’re delusional if you don’t think every company is doing that, rgb or not.

        At the end of the day, some people just like to play with colourful lights and its not like you’re being forced to pay for rgb you don’t want, you can just build without it and save some money.

        I don’t really get the big deal about it. Personally I prefer a clean dark build without the flashy lights but again, that’s personal preference. I wouldn’t want to force anyone to give up something they like.

    • Stamets@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      I wish I could. It doesn’t support my keyboard properly. Then again I’ve got some macro stuff going on too.

      • Nurgus@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        OpenRGB has a great API and command line interface for all your automation needs. Shame about your kb.

  • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
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    4 months ago

    I hate that my graphics card has some kind of lights I can’t turn off. I’ve never been interested in any of that stuff

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Sometimes those lights are controllable via software that isn’t included in the main driver package (especially if it’s not lights the reference card has). When I still used led controlling software (I think it was the ASUS one), it was able to also control the lights on my GPU. You can change the colour(s) or just turn it off entirely.

      You might even be able to turn them off and then unload the software and remove it from your startup, though it depends on whether the lights are controlled via firmware that persists on the device or if they need to be actively controlled by software running on the system. It varies from device to device.