{"id":3821,"date":"2023-06-19T15:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-06-19T14:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pmortensen.eu\/world2\/?p=3821"},"modified":"2026-05-03T00:31:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T23:31:22","slug":"keychron-v5-a-reasonably-priced-fully-macro-capable-qmk-based-mechanical-keyboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmortensen.eu\/world2\/2023\/06\/19\/keychron-v5-a-reasonably-priced-fully-macro-capable-qmk-based-mechanical-keyboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Keychron V5, a reasonably priced fully macro-capable QMK-based mechanical keyboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The short version: The Keychron V5<\/a> mechanical keyboard is fully capable of macros, including mouse operations (e.g., right-click). This is enabled by the use of QMK<\/a> and the length of macros is only limited by the available flash memory in the keyboard’s microcontroller (unlike the Cooler Master \u2018CK550 V2\u2019<\/a>). A showstopper<\/em><\/strong> may be that there isn’t any easy way of cancelling macros in progress<\/em><\/strong> (a missing feature of all QMK-based keyboards). It is<\/em> possible to cancel macros in QMK<\/a>, but it isn’t standard and requires significant programming effort (or maybe it already exists somewhere?).<\/p>\n

As a 96% keyboard, it is also crippled by the missing PgUp<\/a>, PgDn<\/a> and context menu key<\/a> keys; a workaround is presented here. <\/p>\n

Another showstopper<\/em><\/strong> may be that very bright RGB light bleeds to the sides (from the so-called south-facing LEDs<\/a>). This makes the RGB lighting almost useless<\/em><\/strong>: In order to see the legends on the keys (e.g., in darkness or in a low-light conditions), the brightness must be fairly high. But at the normal viewing angle, this bleeds so much light to the side (towards your eyes) that it blinds you. The only way to use it is to lower the brightness, so that the legends are very subtly visible, with the stray light not blinding too much. Or perhaps to make a modification to the keyboard to stop the stray light<\/a> (this hasn’t been tried yet).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

The Keychron<\/a> keyboards (Q and V series only, not<\/em><\/strong> the more common K series) are the only QMK-capable commercial keyboards which are widely distributed, that is, are possible to buy locally. There are a lot of specialised QMK keyboards (but getting them involves more hassle, higher cost, long waiting times, and credit card risks), and\/or they are crippled by not being full-size keyboards. <\/p>\n

QMK enables full programmability, incl. macros, keymapping, any keyboard layout you can imagine or dream up<\/a> (e.g., Colemak<\/a>), and full control of the RGB lighting. This can be done by raw C coding or by a number of solutions that hides\/abstract it (at the cost of sacrificing some of the flexibility). For instance, there are web sites where you can design the keymap and get a firmware file as the result, without touching a single line of code (but the macro capability is completely absent). The only remaining step is then to get the firmware onto the keyboard. There are tools to hide that process as well, though it is as simple as a single command line to flash the firmware (e.g., using AVRDUDE<\/a> (is installed with the Arduino IDE<\/a>) for AVR<\/a>-based keyboards or dfu-util<\/a> for keyboards with ARM<\/a> (like the V5 described here)).<\/p>\n

The Keychron V5 is much more reasonably priced, and the assembled version is the way to go. Doing this piecemeal by getting an overpriced Q-series PCB-only keyboard and sourcing the switches and keycaps on your own is both expensive and troublesome. The selection of switches may or may not be limited anyway (only available from Keychron?). <\/p>\n

Like most of the Keychron keyboards, the switches are hot-swappable.<\/p>\n

Macros<\/h2>\n

Macros are not really a part of QMK. It is more like a convention enabled by the ability to override (in function process_record_user()<\/em>) the processing of key presses and key releases. That is, there isn’t any explicit support for macros in QMK (except for some predefined C macros to make it a little bit easier).<\/p>\n

Mouse actions, e.g. right click<\/h3>\n

The action part of a QMK macro to open the link under the mouse cursor in a new tab in Firefox (right-click and select “Open Link in New Tab”<\/em> by pressing “T”):<\/p>\n

\r\nSEND_STRING(SS_TAP(X_MS_BTN2));\r\nSEND_STRING(SS_DELAY(400));    \/\/ Wait... This is crucial\r\n                               \/\/ for this to work.\r\n\r\nSEND_STRING(SS_TAP(X_T));\r\n<\/pre>\n
Though in this particular example, the context menu key (X_KC_APP) may<\/em> work equally well. This is important for Via macros, as mouse actions are not supported without a hack<\/a>. Note: The context menu does not always work for links in a browser; an example would be the “Permalink” link in the standard WordPress<\/a> editor (it only works if that element already has focus<\/em><\/strong> (impractical for real use), at least in Firefox<\/a>).<\/p>\n
Also note that for this particular example, Ctrl<\/em> + left click<\/em> is a more robust and faster alternative than using the context menu.<\/p>\n
Using Via to prototype macros<\/h3>\n
Via<\/a> enables a very quick turn-around for developing macros: Macros can be recorded, the timings between key presses and key releases changed, and they are applied immediately (if a keymapping has been created). But it can not be used for any serious use of macros, only for prototyping.<\/p>\n
Drawbacks: <\/p>\n