[HN Gopher] What Influences Keyboard Input Speed
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       What Influences Keyboard Input Speed
        
       Author : MrJagil
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2021-06-02 06:14 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.wooting.nl)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.wooting.nl)
        
       | milkey_mouse wrote:
       | Based on the title, I had hoped this article would be a study of
       | fast typists to determine the most efficient typing styles. While
       | this article is not that, if you also came to the comments
       | looking for something like that, such studies do exist:
       | 
       | https://userinterfaces.aalto.fi/136Mkeystrokes/
       | 
       | An interesting conclusion is that "non-standard typists" are
       | catching up to touch typists on standard keyboards. This matches
       | my personal experience as someone whose teachers thought cursive
       | would forever remain more relevant than typing...
       | 
       | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002075925.h...
       | https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/10/18/todays-self-taught-ty...
        
       | miguelmurca wrote:
       | > You know that argument that people used to have about 30 fps
       | versus 60 fps? "The human eye can't see the difference" and you
       | don't need more than 30 frames per second. By now you know
       | better.
       | 
       | What a weird opener; if there's a topic that's plagued by
       | anecdotal evidence it's this.
        
         | milkey_mouse wrote:
         | I think that's the author's point. They aren't endorsing the
         | "human eye can't see the difference" thing, it's just become a
         | myth gamers love to debunk. I've heard more people mention it
         | mockingly/sarcastically than I've ever seen claim there is no
         | difference between 30 and 60 fps unironically.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | Maybe, but it sounds like this article is written more for a
         | discerning competitive gamer than someone interested in the
         | internals of a keyboard. To that point, you'd have a pretty
         | hard time arguing that they'd be at a competitive disadvantage
         | for playing at a higher refresh rate.
        
         | munchbunny wrote:
         | The paragraph immediately following what you quoted gives links
         | to the papers and analysis that support these conclusions.
         | 
         | Bit of an odd opener, but at least the author backs it up.
        
       | Scene_Cast2 wrote:
       | Some folks here might be familiar with QMK. I did a bit of
       | tinkering with an Atmel-based split keyboard with a traditional
       | matrix design (just like almost all custom mech keyboards).
       | 
       | My findings: the scan rate is around 200-2000hz (number of times
       | a single key is checked per second). Having a split does lower
       | this number, so does enabling i2c for either split communication
       | or RGB.
       | 
       | I measured latency with an oscilloscope by checking the speed
       | from having a key scan to a NumLock LED lighting up on the
       | keyboard. It is variable, from 5ms all the way to 30.
       | 
       | I hear that ARM is way better in this regard. And ZMK might be
       | better, too.
        
         | MivLives wrote:
         | Wouldn't ZMK be slower due to having to handle bluetooth?
         | 
         | Do you have the full data for each QMK feature written out
         | anywhere? Or is just roughly something like, more features
         | turned = more lag.
         | 
         | Did you get faster input when you only used one side of the
         | split?
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | This is a fantastic article, and a really good breakdown of how
       | keyboards process inputs. Honestly though if 60ms is _the worst_
       | that has been seen on modern keyboards (a wireless one, at that),
       | then I 'd say we're doing pretty good. 60ms is only ~5 frames of
       | delay on a 60hz display, which means your input should register
       | at frame 6 or 7, worst case scenario. That's honestly not bad,
       | and still lower than a lot of wireless game controllers on the
       | market (and some internet connections, for that matter).
        
       | SloopJon wrote:
       | This is from 2018, with an update from 2019. It primarily focuses
       | on the Wooting one, which is "sold out forever."
       | 
       | The key touted advantage of the Wooting one keyboard seems to be
       | optical switches with an adjustable actuation point. It also uses
       | a multiplexer for each row of keys, which is somehow faster than
       | a scan matrix.
       | 
       | I don't see an actual test result for the keyboard that includes
       | all of the latency factors discussed. The closest is a link to a
       | tweet by Sunjun Kim. Unlike Dan Luu's measurements, which
       | actually pressed a key, Sunjun triggered the optical switch using
       | an LED, resulting in latency of 4.2 to 9.6 ms, depending on the
       | firmware.
       | 
       | According to this post, key travel can add up to 10 ms, which the
       | adjustable actuation is supposed to minimize. That would put the
       | total latency at 10 to 15 ms, which is around what Dan Luu
       | measured for Apple's Magic Keyboard.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-06-02 23:01 UTC)