J8 HE

OK, there's a bunch of layers here. 0. VIA and VIAL and ZMK Studio are open source. If the QMK or ZMK source is published and up to date you can build and flash a new image, and modify it. If it's a pure QMK/VIA or QMK/VIAL board you can either self-host your own copy of the VIA or VIAL repo. Same w

I see they have released the new "Ultra" lineup, which (amongst other improvements), advertises greatly improved battery life. that's because they're using ZMK instead of QMK. ZMK is technically a better design, but it is not quite as featureful and Keychron's implementation is really weird. Instead

At least don't buy the Q or V series, the design seems to have problems that lead to socket failures after a few months and their tech support is notoriously abusive. They have also ghosted people whose keyboard was lost in shipping. I would buy the K or J series if I were to buy Keychron, or get a

Keychron J2 or J8 HE is no worse than most and Launcher is better than most software.

I missed your requirements about needing to fit into Keychron's QMK boards. That's the "terrible software..." bit. :( Yeh, I'm familiar with Sunder, not only is it super expensive, but it's also out of stock as is normal for limited run custom kit. There was someone in OLKB who was working on open s

Keychron J series a hit too

They both have QMK firmware, which is a huge advantage over most magnetic boards, and means you don't need to go through any shenanigans other than possibly tweaking UDEV permissions on Linux. They said the J2 source code would be online in their Github soon. The K2 HE code is already there: https:/

Anything with QMK firmware, it's 2026, there's so many great keyboards with QMK firmware it seems a shame to put up with proprietary firmware restrictions and weirdness. Keychron: I have a K2 Pro and it's a lovely tank. I have a couple of J2s and have been hacking on the firmware. The Q and V have h

Keychron has two brand new magnetic boards on Amazon recently, which is why there are no reviews. The J2 HE is based on the Jamesdonkey J2 case, and the J8 HE seems to be the Keychron V1 case. I expect the PCBs and firmware are similar to the other Keychron magnetic boards... I would go with the J2,

I would suggest a Keychron J series board (they came from an acquisition of another company and seem to avoid the quality problems of their mainstream lines) and replace the switches with silent switches, Outemu Silent Yellow Jade are good.