After some manufacturing and shipping delays (hey there, Chinese New Year), the XMIT Hall Effect keyboards are arriving on the doorsteps of the 1,000+ people who bought them in a Massdrop buy.
There are, however, some issues. The fellow behind the Drop, José Soltren, sent Tom's Hardware a statement noting the issues and what he's doing about them:
Massdrop has been fulfilling boards, and people are starting to receive them. For the most part, folks are getting complete, working boards and are delighted with them. It's really encouraging to see this positive reaction from the community. A number of users are finding minor to moderate manufacturing and packaging issues. I've been following the forums closely with these issues and jumping in all over the place to provide feedback, take notes, and in some limited cases, send out replacement parts. Folks who have issues should contact Massdrop support, but by posting publicly I'm able to jump in some times.
Users can hit up the discussion boards on the Massdrop to chat about and learn about what others are experiencing. Soltren also noted that he's taking all the feedback so as to improve future manufacturing processes--he said he already has a list of "50 little improvements" and is optimistic about doing more runs of Hall Effect keyboards. (In other words, if you missed this round, there should be opportunities to buy one in the future.)
Time was, Hall Effect keyboard switches enjoyed some popularity, but the cost of producing them, especially in a market where cheaper mechanical keyboard switches were available, more or less killed them off. However, things change; the cost of making Hall Effect has plummeted, and Soltren is among the few people who saw that as an opportunity to bring them back.
For a primer on how exactly Hall Effect switches work, see the video above.
