Wooting One keyboard tested against Logitech G Pro Keyboard

[ad8e]

[EDIT: see viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5540&p=42961#p42961 for further results. The Wooting One's electronics are less performant than initially measured, so it no longer deserves the glowing recommendation in the bottom of this post. It is still a decent keyboard.]

I bump tested the Wooting One (Linear55) against my Logitech G Pro Keyboard (Romer G tactile), using this software: https://github.com/ad8e/input-polling-test. I set the Wooting One on its "Tachyon Mode". I also disabled Xinput but I'm not clear what that affects.

Result: overwhelming victory for Wooting One, 9 - 20 ms advantage. Tried Ctrl vs Alt, then Alt vs Control.

Interpretation: this test sucks, the victory is not reasonable. Bump testing will have unfair advantages for the keyboard with lower actuation force, since the keys are lightweight and fixed force, and the lighter key will give way. This is compared to your finger, which doesn't give way. I expected this problem in advance, and designed another test.

Next test: took an empty toilet paper roll (basically a cardboard tube), flattened it. The goal was to have a long rigid object. Then I rest it on two keys, one from each keyboard, so that it's tall but not wide. Then I press down on the top center of the roll. Hopefully, this depresses both keyboards equally fast. The goal of using a long and narrow connector is to reduce rotational problems for uneven pressing.

Result of toilet paper roll test: this test sucks but it's much better than the bump test. The roll is stiff enough, but it's not long enough. That makes it hard to get an equal force on both keyboards. A longer cardboard object would fix this issue. As my finger inches toward one keyboard, that keyboard gains an advantage. Even so, the Wooting One seems to have 0 - 5 ms advantage over the Logitech.

Conclusions:
Keyboard recommendations.
1. Wooting One, Linear55, $140. This is the new standard.
Its Wootility software actually closes when you exit it, it doesn't hang around like the Wacom Intuos drivers.
Key wobble is less of a problem on my Wooting than on my Logitech G Pro, because on the Wooting, the key tilts and actuates anyway despite unevenly depressing. So the force needed to actuate doesn't change much no matter where you press it. That's a good thing.
As for its analog sensitivity, I am going to ignore it completely.
Reviews say that old models have more key wobble, and newer models were improved. Because of reseller inventory reasons, I decided to buy it straight from Wooting's store, knowing that their most recent stock has the reduced key wobble. The Clicky55 keys have more wobble than the Linear55.
My current model is equal volume to my Logitech G Pro; other people have complained about loud pings.
2. Logitech G Pro, Romer-G tactile: this is not obsolete, because its price is $110 vs the Wooting One's $140. However, it has multiple problems that make it a significantly inferior keyboard when the price is not considered.
The tactile point and operating point are dislocated far apart, so it's worse than having no tactility at all. This means the keyboard will feel annoying, since it's lying to your fingers. From an ergonomics design viewpoint, this is a big no-no.
Key wobble binds keys, and pressing any key off-center will require significantly more force than usual.
3. Corsair K70/K65 Rapidfire: this is obsolete now. It's no longer on the Pareto frontier because its price is $140, it has no speed advantage, and it has a reputation for breaking down.
4. Cherry MX 6.0: this is simply out of stock. I have no idea what its price is, but its latency is worse than the other keyboards listed here.
5. Logitech G513 Carbon, Romer-G Linear. We don't know how this performs but it might do well. If someone has too much money, he can buy one and benchmark it against the Wooting One. I dunno if this is worth either the effort or the money.

[Q83Ia7ta]

Thanks for the test! I just wanted to buy another Logitech G Pro as a backup but now I doubt.

[ad8e]

When typing on the Wooting One, maybe its 9 - 20 ms advantage over the Logitech G Pro is fair. It is enormously faster because of the lower actuation force and the non-binding wobble, rather than the electronics. The Logitech G Pro's claimed 45 g force is randomly a 45 - 100 g force depending on where you touch the key; this causes slowdowns.

If you already have a bunch of keyboards, want a backup, and want it to be a Logitech keyboard, maybe you should consider the Logitech G513 Carbon with Romer-G Linear, instead of the Logitech G Pro. Nobody has tested the G513, so it might suck hard, but as a backup, a chance of sucking is acceptable. It's $90 refurbished at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3P3KNL/, more affordable than the $140 Wooting One. If you want tactility, then you might also try the Wooting One Clicky55, if you find positive reviews of the physical Clicky55 keys. I don't know much about the Clicky55 though, and its devs have stated that "The blue switch, due to construction, will always have more movement space" (key wobble). Whether that is significant is unknown to me. At least the underlying electronics are guaranteed to be good.

[mello]

Wooting also has a relevant blog post on their website: What influences keyboard input speed

[ad8e]

That's part of why I decided to test the Wooting, and the other part was Sunjun Kim's measurements. But Wooting One's manufacturer doesn't make any end-to-end latency claims. Other manufacturers, like Bloody, tend to report (misleadingly) only their very best subsystem with meaningless numbers like 0.2 ms, which is why the measurements must be of the whole chain.

As a side note, my Wooting One fails to work if I use it to wake up my system, and must be unplugged and replugged...

[sharknice]

Wooting also has a relevant blog post on their website: What influences keyboard input speed

That's an awesome article.

Also with regards to pushing the key in the center to reduce physical actuation time concave keycaps help a lot because they guide your fingers to the center of the key. The Logitech G910 Orion Spark has concave keycaps with higher actuation linear switches.

[ad8e]

I just realized they referenced Sunjun Kim's article "Impact Activation Improves Rapid Button Pressing", which claims that putting the actuation point at the bottom of the key travel will improve accuracy. That article is not trustworthy: its methodology has a major flaw (participants are blind to key activation mechanism), its timing feedback is poor, and its results are very strange (100 ms windows failing to be accurately pressed). The Wooting One's optional setting to have actuation at the bottom of its key may not improve accuracy at all. Also, because of sensor inaccuracy, sometimes the deepest depression levels cannot be achieved, and the threshold must be set a little bit higher, but this is not a big deal.

Actuation point is normally set near the top anyway on the Wooting, for fast performance.

"In average, the input lag caused by a 60hz monitor will be 8.5ms." -> don't round it like that

Claimed 4.2 ms latency measurement -> that was of beta firmware only. Nobody has been willing to say that it applies to the current firmware.

[mello]

As a side note, my Wooting One fails to work if I use it to wake up my system, and must be unplugged and replugged...

From what i have read, their customer support is great, they reply quickly and you can even submit ideas and suggestions. They also seem to be working on and constantly improving their software called Wootility. Also, you could probably even invite their designer and engineer to talk about input lag measurements here on the forums.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WootingKB/
https://trello.com/b/NpKEdAgB/wooting-roadmap
contact: [email protected]

Today i have read and watched a lot of reviews about this keyboard and from all the hype it looks like it really might the best one out there. Youtube review from Chyrosran22 (his entire channel is about keyboards!) about Wooting One is great, and he has also made a video where he stated that Wooting One is the best gaming keyboard available today. I think i will buy Wooting Two (the one with numpad, should be exactly the same as Wooting One) or Bloody B975.

[ad8e]

As a side note, my Wooting One fails to work if I use it to wake up my system, and must be unplugged and replugged...

From what i have read, their customer support is great, they reply quickly and you can even submit ideas and suggestions. They also seem to be working on and constantly improving their software called Wootility. Also, you could probably even invite their designer and engineer to talk about input lag measurements here on the forums.

I posted this topic to their discord, so they're probably already aware of it.

For the failure to wakeup, a moderator said the problem was known but not reproducible, and BIOS-related. I then figured out how to reproduce it reliably (wake up my system using the keyboard) on my Lenovo T530. Waking up my system using other techniques leaves my Wooting One working. The developers are not yet awake so I'll wait to see what they say.

The way I discovered the Wooting One was by investigating if analog keyboards existed, for musical purposes. They do, and the Wooting One isn't the only one. The analog specs aren't good enough to be usable for music, so I was about to write it off, but then I discovered the engineering work they put into scanning. Since typing is also an important usecase for me, I decided to purchase one for testing, and it does well.

I suspect Wooting's main target audience will be gamers rather than typers. It's easy to understand the importance of low latency, but it's much harder to understand the improvement in scanning behavior. Most people are not aware of how inconsistent the other keyboards are, so the Wooting's scanning work will be hard to market. I also wasn't aware a while ago; I assumed that most keyboards would be good enough, and was unpleasantly surprised after testing those other keyboards.

I agree with Chyrosran22, the Wooting is the best gaming keyboard today that has been tested. The other possible contenders, like the B975, don't yet have the testing done. The B975's key travel is 3.5 mm, which is farther than the Wooting's, which should cause at least a 4 ms difference. A gamer might care about that, but a typer won't. Last time when I compiled the latency info of keyboards, Bloody had a different Lightstrike keyboard (not the B975) with only a few special keys with different switches. That was one of the worst keyboards in the entire market, even comparing to OEM keyboards.

[Morkai]

Has anyone tried glorious gmmk? Specs claim N-Key Rollover Full NKRO, and reviews confirm this without issue.
However, no specs about latency and no review i found tested it. Personally like their mouse a lot, but can't judge the keyboard by that so..

It seems ideal if latency is good, could for example use mx cherry low profile speed. (wooting one seems great, but id prefer low profile).

Doesn't have any macro bs etc.