Programming the K70 RGB

Hello. About two months ago I was looking for a mechanical keyboard and was intrigued when I learned about the K70 RGB. As a software engineer, I had a lot of ideas, but I'm worried that I've set expectations too high.

 

For example, I would like to create a "heatmap profile" where keys turn "hot" when you use them repeatedly and the rest turn "cold". When you switch between programs, the heatmap would change to what it last was for that program. This way, instead of manually creating a profile for each program the heatmap would automatically generate profiles for you.

 

Another idea would be accept to input from a music player, and, instead of reacting to key presses, the keys would react to the music. Imagine an audio spectrum analyzer but on the keyboard.

 

These kinds of ideas would require storing state for each key, persisting and loading that state between reboots, performing some small computations, having a unique id for each foreground process available, and accepting input from external programs. That is quite a laundry list of asks for a new v1 product, but I was still hopeful especially after seeing a screenshot on the product page which shows "SCRIPT" as an option for programming the board:

(I'm guessing this image will be replaced soon now that the actual software is out...)

 

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/~/media/E79D6242A29742C8BF20000E738FDBA6.ashx

 

Now that the red switch version is out and the manual and software are available to all to review, I'm a bit sad to find such depth of programability missing. The primary reason I don't have a keyboard yet is because I was holding out for the blue or brown switches, but I'm not sure anymore...

 

Will the kind of programability I am seeking come eventually and soon for the K70 rgb? Is the reason it is missing so the keyboard's delays could be minimized? Or am I just blind and this functionality actually already exists?

 

Thanks

Thanks for the response James. :) I look forward to seeing what can be done with the lua scripting.

I too was hoping to do some sort of reactive heat map.

 

I love the audio visualizer as well, but get access to the data and processing it would be an interesting challenge to be sure.

 

I don't have much experience using Lua. I work with Java and C# mostly. I assume you publish the programming interface in the (hopefully near) future?

Clojure with SuperCollider, changing key colors, would be interesting. Parameter values, numbers actually, e.g. min=red, max=blue, gradient inbetween. Every parameters value would be visible on a key.

 

Another example: Stock values, real-time values represented as key colors.

 

So my question is how open is the color control to external real-time numeric data, e.g. between 0.000 and 1.000?

 

Another general simple example: Touch typing learning setup, each finger keys gets its own color. We can call this 'finger based setup' for Qwerty, Dvorak, Colemak at least.

 

Another method I am mainly interested in is how can we send a 'programming code' to the hardware while pressing a key! I want to be able to send 'any programming code' with any key combination, single key presses or alt,shift,win,control holded combinations. This 'real time side programming' is very important for me, as only this give ultimate freedom for programming the key colors and blinking rate. Very important for musical applications, as a controller. Then many music controllers could immediately retire. But you want to catch only the gamers I guess, thus only suboptimal programming capabilities so far, it seems.

 

When I see this programmability, I will buy the product, otherwise this is not a useful product for my considerations.

Bad argument. :)

 

You built a device which can use 16 million colors per key, but do not want your users to program those color behaviours themselves, freely? Other companies might think more intelligently, waiting for 2015 then. Leopold and friends?

Will it be possible for any of the scripts to run without the software being installed on the PC? I'd really like to be able to use the keyboard on other PCs and in linux without requiring the software be installed. Additionally if we could save the lighting effects to the keyboard (not just the static light colors) that would be fantastic.

Bad argument. :)

 

You built a device which can use 16 million colors per key, but do not want your users to program those color behaviours themselves, freely? Other companies might think more intelligently, waiting for 2015 then. Leopold and friends?

 

They already mentioned they plan on adding LUA scripting support at some point. That should give you what you're asking?

Bad argument. :)

 

You built a device which can use 16 million colors per key, but do not want your users to program those color behaviours themselves, freely? Other companies might think more intelligently, waiting for 2015 then. Leopold and friends?

 

You don't have to sound so butt hurt. You're grasping at straws if you seriously think Corsair MEANT to imply in their "16.8 million colors with programmable keys" that you would be able to have key colors and actions correspond with STOCK PRICES. Cry some more.

You don't have to sound so butt hurt. You're grasping at straws if you seriously think Corsair MEANT to imply in their "16.8 million colors with programmable keys" that you would be able to have key colors and actions correspond with STOCK PRICES. Cry some more.

 

You don't have to sound so antagonizing. Pretty sure he got the idea that Corsair implied the ability for per-key Lua scripting from the promo videos in which they stated there would be per-key Lua scripting...

 

I'm definitely holding out on buying until the Lua scripting gets released, can a Corsair rep give us any sort of timeframe of when this will be ready?

I wasn't trying to argue. I was merely confirming what you said about Corsair wants to catch mainly gaming crowds.

 

The color behavior can be programmed but only to certain extent, just like all other programmable keyboards out there in the market. This is a gaming keyboard. It's not going to replace music controllers and it won't send programming code to any specialized hardware. If those are the features you're looking for, It only make sense if you look somewhere else.

 

I think what people in this thread want to know is what the Lua scripting encompasses mentioned here: [ame]

[/ame]

 

What it sounds like, is that by "totally open" it means we will be able to use Lua to write custom scripts to send a color to a key using some sort of API. This was brought up as a selling point and the feature is missing now, we just want to know more about it and when it will be released.

 

It sounds like it would merely be a software implementation and the hardware already supports it, so why wouldn't we expect it when the promo videos are telling us it's a feature?

I saw mention of the non-beta software release coming out later this month, any idea if the scripting will be included in that release?

We are actively working on adding scripting. It will be available in a future release.

We are actively working on adding scripting. It will be available in a future release.

 

Great to hear, thanks for the response!

I know some guy asked in another forums how hard would it be to script a program that reacts to music playing on your pc

What I want to know is relating to that picture at the beginning of the thread.

 

That appears to be a MUCH more BEAUTIFUL version of the software. why would they replace that? or was that just a concept photoshop type still and had yet to actually be completed.

 

cause the one that was released is not as feng-shui with the colors and tabs n stuff.

 

hah

We are actively working on adding scripting. It will be available in a future release.

Scripting is great thing, but... Will it be possible to interact with the external applications? For example, I can write some program that will grab some data from the web, calculate some values and transfer it into script? Weather, MMO character status, messenger things, system status (CPU temp, etc.), many kinds of notifications... It will be awesome if all of that data will be displayed at my K70. If it will possible.

Waiting is no problem of course for this future release. No money for Corsair, soon is 2015. I want anyway the brown switch option. Plus free programming capabilities per key, no matter which language. Lua or anything else.

 

Btw. to some johnnies above, first you can use any device for anything you want, it does not have to be the same what the producing company thought, imagined, and planned. Anything is allowed what is possible.

 

Regarding the musical applications and midi controller replacement, of course this is possible, I am using this already for many years with conventional QWERTY's, except having no colors on the keys, as we have now RGB colors, which is perfect, I am only asking if we are allowed to program it freely. Then I can sync the musical software usage, which I have already, with those colors, thats it, very simple. So an RGB Qwerty for sure can replace a midi musical controller, or a video controller, anything you want. Thanks for reading.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just wanted to get it clear that the heatmap thing shouldn't be hard.

 

The RGB scale used has 0-255 in red, green and blue. You can use simple maths to for example, make a key more red compared to the other the more you press it.

 

When this scripting feature comes out, try to contact me and I can try to help you.

 

I'll probably end up making it just for fun anyways ^w^

When this scripting feature comes out, try to contact me and I can try to help you.

 

I'll probably end up making it just for fun anyways ^w^

 

We already have several different unofficial programming methods you can use. I decoded the protocol with the help of some other users on /r/mechanicalkeyboards last month and I wrote a music visualizer. Now others have ported my code into various libraries for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Several implementations are available for you to use.

We are actively working on adding scripting. It will be available in a future release.

 

What happened to that?

There is no API to control the keyboard from your own apps, no scripting either. What's up?

What happened to that?

There is no API to control the keyboard from your own apps, no scripting either. What's up?

Honestly I prefer they fix all the current issues (example: steam and caps lock spam) before going ahead and adding even more complexity to the software.