Tech

The Wooting 60HE is an analog keyboard that makes use of enthusiast-level construction, with competitive-level technology, and promises to deliver unparalleled performance. Wooting might not be a household name yet, but after using the Wooting 60HE for a week, the company is onto a winner. The 60HE is Wooting’s second-ever keyboard but manages to perform on a different level than most other gaming keyboards on the market. All the while, it also commands a competitive price that will make larger manufacturers wince, and offers analog switches in addition to premium PBT keycaps. Key specs Switch type: Lekker linear60 (Hot-swappable) Keycaps: Double-shot PBT (ANSI only)Connectivity: WiredForm factor: 60%Lighting; RGB, configurable through Wootility.ioFeatures: Fully customizable analog inputs, less than 1ms response time, rapid trigger, three programmable keyboard layers, full remapping functionality, universal tray mount. Price: $174.99Where to buy: Wooting Included in the box: Wooting 60HE keyboard, USB-C to USB-A Cable, “Take Control” tag, 2x spare plate screws, 2x Lekker linear60 switches, Postcard Design Dexerto From the moment you open it, the Wooting 60HE exudes confidence. It looks, for all intents and purposes like yet another matte black keyboard that promises performance out of the wazoo, while looking quite plain on the outside. For all intents and purposes, it looks like yet another 60% gaming keyboard. So, what’s special here? You only need to take a cursory glance inside the Wooting 60HE to understand that something much more complex is going on under the hood. To take apart the Wooting 60HE, you just need to take off a couple of keycaps, and the keyboard module smartly lifts out. Inside, you will find sound-dampening foam, in addition to a spill-resistant PCB, which is handily sandwiched between the plate with 4mm of additional foam for a more premium feel. This is already above and beyond the efforts that most mainstream manufacturers make. After you lift out the plate and PCB, you’ll notice that they actually will manage to fit into a standard 60% tray mounted case, allowing you to customize it to your heart’s content. DexertoThe PBT keycaps are thick and feel high-quality. Back on the ever-so-slightly boring end of things, the double-shot PBT keycaps feel excellent in their matte black finish, with the legend shining through on the Wooting 60HE. The ABS tray that the board comes with is purely serviceable and doesn’t really come with too many extras, aside from the clearly Off-White inspired “Take control” tag that you can place to the side. Honestly, we’ve seen keyboard manufacturers take note of high-fashion brands before, but this one ain’t it, Wooting. It comes off looking a bit tacky. If you managed to license it over to Off-White, however, that’d be a different story. The Lekker linear60 switches use something named a “Hall effect” sensor, which accurately reports how far down you press on the board, giving it cutting-edge analog control. There’s a similar technology employed in the Steelseries Apex Pro. Razer and Corsair analog boards use an optical input, which can sense how much you are pressing them down, but uses different technology. Either way, every competitor doesn’t have the added benefit of being hot-swappable. DexertoThe switches do not have any prongs, thanks to the hall-sensing technology. However, you will need another identical Lekker linear60 to take its place, as “normal” keys will not work on this particular PCB. They are unlubed out of the box but do not feel scratchy or cheap as you actuate them. Setup and features All you really need to do to get started is plug in the included USB-C to USB-A cable and you’re ready to go and game as you see fit. However, if you want to make the most of what this keyboard offers, you’re going to have to head over to wootility.io in order to enable some tremendous features. Wootility.io is a browser-based software that can control every single aspect of the Wooting 60HE. Once connected, you will be greeted with a splash screen with some information, and see listings for various profiles that you can assign to the board, including several analog profiles for movement in certain games. Dexerto RGB effects are mostly tired and done at this point, but the hall-sensing switches allow for a few fun effects that we’ve not seen before in other gaming keyboards. ‘Touch’ shows you exactly how far you are actuating a switch, with ‘Jelly’ and ‘AOE’ showing off a glowing effect that grows in brightness based on how hard you are pressing a key. Outside of that, you are able to remap the keyboard’s entire layout, including additional function layers which gives the Wooting 60HE as much function as a bigger board. ‘Advanced keys’ allow you to bind multiple functions to a single key, this is based on the analog profile, so you can have the board emulate an analog stick, or even analog triggers, for racing titles. In addition to this is that you can program a key to have a secondary function, if you hold it down, in addition to a “toggle” key that allows you to turn a function on or off. Messing around with these makes for a much more palatable experience when used for games, or while in general use if you are looking to use it for work. These features alone make the Wooting 60HE a cut above most gaming keyboards, but the analog control features in this board really separate it from anything else on the market. Cutting-edge gaming features Once you head over to the ‘Performance’ tab in wootility.io, you are greeted with three core functions. ‘Set actuation point’ does exactly what it says on the tin, but this is nothing new for gaming keyboards. Where Wooting has the edge over the likes of Steelseries is that the actuation point is configurable up to 0.1mm, making it the single-most sensitive gaming keyboard available right now. But, in practice attempting to do everything else with a 0.1mm actuation point is madness, so we created a new profile on the board solely made for typing, which apes the Epomaker Ajazz Kiwi switches that we’re used to, and it ends up feeling fantastic to type on. At the click of a button, you can switch this over, and even enable a per-key actuation point for each switch, so if you prefer finer control over your movements, you can switch up the actuation point to allow for that, too. DexertoWith this configuration, it becomes the fastest gaming keyboard. With per-key actuation used in tandem alongside this next feature, which isn’t available on any other commercial gaming keyboard, the Wooting 60HE turns from a feature-packed gaming keyboard to one of the best ones on the market almost immediately. ‘Rapid Trigger’ is named as such because you can enable a re-actuation on a switch mid-press. You can configure the point at which the switch re-actuates to 0.1mm, which is unbelievable precision. This will allow you to move quicker in games, react faster, and pull off complex movements in games like Apex Legends with the utmost ease, as we tested out for ourselves. The final feature is named ‘Tachyon Mode’, and speeds up the board’s response time to react under 1ms, and poll at 1ms. It also disables any fancy RGB effects you might have in order to minimize latency, making this board perfect for esports gamers. We found no issues when mapping keys to the board, saving profiles or making any use of the software, which is exceptional. Even a firmware update on the board was painless. It’s no easy feat to produce browser-based software that can pull this feat off, but Wooting has somehow managed to do it. Bigger manufacturers should take note of what Wooting is able to achieve with just a five-man team, and be put on notice by the sheer innovation brought forth by the Wooting 60HE. No other gaming keyboard has this feature set. Typing experience Dexerto When using this board for other applications aside from gaming, it felt great to use, with the Lekker linear60 switches managing to sound fantastic as we tapped away. The switch feels bouncy and light, but alongside the adjustable actuation point, as we alluded to earlier, we were able to configure a typing profile for the board. This profile has a higher actuation force and felt much better to type on than the factory settings. It can occasionally be frustrating to type or attempt to do office work on the Wooting 60HE, as it does not have arrow keys on the board, unlike the Mountain Everest 60. We’d prefer a slightly expanded layout to allow for arrow keys on the board because fiddling away with pressing a function key to press them got a bit tiring. You are also able to bind them to their usual spots if you are so inclined, so this criticism is fairly minimal. Is it good for gaming? DexertoThanks to the switches and tech, this board is almost perfect. The Wooting 60HE is the most feature-rich gaming keyboard we have ever tested, while games might not have caught up with how fast you want to switch between analog and digital inputs, the keyboard is more than up to the task. As such, you might have some fiddling around to do in order titles, but some modern games like Fortnite and Apex Legends make allowances for analog movement. It is still going to take some time to catch on, and where that feature is unavailable, you can just pop the Rapid Trigger function on instead, and still have much finer control over your movement and actions, unlike many other gaming keyboards. This is one of the only gaming keyboards that actually manages to work well for racing titles, so if you are into the likes of Rocket League, Trackmania, or Forza, you’re in luck, as the analog joystick functions work fantastically. Some games might be too fiddly to set up with this, so just make sure that it’s compatible first ahead of going into a game. For those of you looking to compete, the Wooting 60HE’s Tachyon mode enables quick and stable polling, only sacrificing RGB effects in order to ensure that you get the quickest, fastest, and most reliable movements reflected onscreen. For games such as Valorant, this is absolutely essential, and we can think of no better keyboard to do this with. Should you buy it? The Wooting 60HE almost has it all, from the excellent software and features on the gaming side of things to the customizability of a fully-fledged custom mechanical keyboard. There are simply no corners cut in this regard. Even out of the box, you will be much happier with a Wooting 60HE than almost any keyboard barring the Steelseries Apex Pro. The only thing we wished is that this board was available in a slightly expanded layout. A 75% model would be absolutely perfect for retaining a balance between performance and daily use. Until then, we only had a few issues with the layout, but you can map most of them, or toggle them to functions in the incredibly robust software. 10/10 The Wooting 60HE is the fastest gaming keyboard out there and manages to surpass the output of most mainstream brands. It doesn’t get much better than this.

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