Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Karolina Grabowska
Original keycaps are expensive, even by the already premium standards of mechanical keyboards. A designer set can cost anywhere from $70 to over $100 depending on what kind of plastic it's made out of, while some clones are as cheap as $20.
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Read More »“As a creator, it is frustrating to see a copy of a project you invested hundreds of hours in ... being ripped off” Even once a design is ready to go, it can take a year or more before some popular factories have the capacity to handle a production run. So even when a place like Drop is reordering keycaps based on existing designs, they might not be ready for as many as 18 months. Clones get out the door quickly and cheaply by cutting these corners, and it shows. HipyoTech, a mechanical keyboard-focused YouTuber who’s in the process of producing his debut set of keycaps, tells me that when he’s compared clones side-by-side with original keycaps, he’s found they’re typically made of thinner plastic and suffer from fit issues when trying to install them on top of switches. Their lettering might also appear fuzzier, and colors can be inaccurate. “In general, you’re getting a worse product when you buy a clone,” the YouTuber tells me. But there’s a big reason many people turn to these knockoffs: “Price and availability,” Biip says. Original keycaps are expensive, even by the already premium standards of mechanical keyboards. A designer set can cost anywhere from $70 to over $100 depending on what kind of plastic it’s made out of, while some clones are as cheap as $20. Perhaps more importantly, though, clones are often readily available in a way that many original designs simply aren’t because of the limited production runs inherent in their group buy process. It’s difficult to find an original set of Olivia keycaps today without diving into aftermarket sales, where prices can be inflated by 2x or more, but you can get a similar looking knockoff delivered in two days on Amazon. It’s hard to quantify exactly what impact keycap clones are having on the market. Drop’s chief operating officer Jeffrey Holove tells me that the overall health and growth of the keycap market makes it hard to work out the negative impact imitators might be having. “When the overall trend is steeply up, it’s hard to say how much it’s been impacted here and there by clones,” he says. Making it even more complicated, there isn’t widespread agreement on what qualifies a set as a clone. In the case of Briggs’ and Biip’s designs, many of the clones are shameless, lifting entire color schemes along with their search-critical names. Other creators are accepting of keycaps that use similar colors to existing designs, but think they cross a line if they copy “novelties,” keycaps with unique designs that deviate from typical key lettering. “It’s hard to say how much it’s been impacted here and there by clones” HipyoTech agrees with this latter definition. “Broadly, my hardline stance is that if something copies novelties, then that makes me upset,” he tells me. “That’s fundamentally stealing traditional artwork and then selling it for your own gain.” But in other cases, the ethical lines are more blurred. Multiple companies now produce versions of 9009, a design based on a 20-year-old Reuters terminal keyboard. And much of this hobbyist community is made possible thanks to an expired patent for Cherry’s MX switch, which allows numerous companies to produce their own cross-compatible switches. Keycap imitators I spoke to seem broadly unconcerned with facing any legal repercussions for apparently copying existing color schemes. Epomaker, a company that produces several clones of popular keycaps that it sells under the same name as the originals, called the similarities “a coincidence,” while another company accused of making clones, Akko, said it believed itself to legally be in the clear so long as it doesn’t copy novelties. “There is probably no way to patent color in any industry,” the company’s business manager tells me. Biip’s DSA Milkshake. Image: Biip / NovelKeys A set of keycaps produced separately with a “Milkshake” color scheme. Image: HK Gaming
1956 1956-Steinway along with the other American piano manufacturers all agreed to abandon ivory and start using plastic for keys.
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Read More »This brazen attitude might be because, despite the potential for lost sales, many of the original designers I spoke to weren’t interested in going after clones of their work. In fact, Briggs told me that imitators can actually be useful for her as a designer, giving her not just an indication of the demand for her designs, but also the kind of quality that’s possible from alternative factories at cheaper price points. “If anything, it’s good for me, because it incentivizes me to look for alternative manufacturers to run future sets with,” Briggs says. The designer added that if she ever runs Olivia or Olive again, she’s more motivated now to find a more affordable manufacturer to offer “something that people can still get a good amount of quality in, but at a much cheaper price point.” Others pointed out that the kind of person who buys a more affordable clone might never have bought an original set of keycaps in the first place. Original keycaps can be expensive and vanishingly difficult to get. And although clones are frequently lower quality, and often ethically dubious, they’re affordable and readily available — two qualities that matter a lot when you’re just getting into a niche hobby. “It’s okay that people can’t or don’t want to buy an expensive keycaps set” “I remembered the moment I entered the hobby, when I didn’t wanna spend $300 on a keyboard, $100 on switches or keycaps,” Biip says. “It’s okay that people can’t or don’t want to buy an expensive keycaps set. There must be some attractive cheap options so anyone can be happy.” Mito, another popular designer behind sets GMK Laser and GMK Pulse, agrees. “I think people hold material possessions with too high of a regard and forget that not everyone can afford $100+ for decorative keys,” he tells me in an email. “If by chance people can afford them that’s ok, but if not, just get what you can.” One exception is designer BroCaps, who produces single, intricate “artisan keycaps” rather than complete sets. In 2015 he unveiled “Tru-Bro ID,” a system that involved printing serial numbers on his keycaps that would be prohibitively expensive for a company to fake. “Tru-Bro ID has been quite effective, in that it’s an expensive, time-consuming, and tedious process,” BroCaps tells me. “People out to make a quick buck are not going to invest so much time and resources when they can more easily copy another maker’s work.” Although he says most enthusiasts would be able to tell originals from fakes without the system, “some collectors also like the art element of the ID cards.” The market for clones seems unlikely to disappear anytime soon. But as the industry matures, there are hopes that original premium keycaps could become more accessible. Drop, for one, is investing so that more of its keycaps are available at launch, rather than having to wait for a group buy to complete. Mak says that as of last year around 25 to 30 percent of Drop’s products were in stock and ready to ship at launch. Other players like Kinetic Labs are also investing in this approach.
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