You guys feel like there’s a lull right now in the keyboard market? I can’t explain it, b/c there are a lot of products available. Maybe it’s a personal taste thing?
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I’m disappointed there haven’t been any SA keycap interest checks, let alone group buys, in quite some time. I know Signature Plastics has a lengthy queue to work through, but at this rate, that queue will run dry next summer.
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Inflation. Debatably in or about to enter recession. No stimulus checks. Student loan payments resume next month. Glut of products on the market.
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Yes, those are great points. Agree. Especially with the glut of products on the market. I think seeing the same products sitting in stock for months makes it feel stagnate.
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Market Lull or innovation lull? 
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I 100% feel this… I have a few boards that have not been able to sell for a few months. I agree it’s probably due to inflation and just overall unease with prices going up.
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I’m out the game soon.
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Yup, and there’s defiantly been a ton of R2 and even R3’s lately. Not to mention extras up the wazoo.
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Honestly same… I’ve hit endgames
The secondhand market has absolutely slowed down in the last two months or so and I think that’s a general reflection of the larger feeling of economic uneasiness. There still seems to be as much for sale but it’s less of a piranha feeding frenzy for popular items. That part is nice I suppose but it’s also become really tough to sell even simple things like switches or keycaps.
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I feel like every “new” keyset I see anymore feels like a variation of something that has already been done. You can only make plastic in so many colors
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no topre support
topre is going to take a while and even then it’s not really given any due by designers and companies with capital/backing. hhkb+realforce taking their sweet time on snow restock and R3 international release respectively. whatever. but every time i see yet another mx keycap ic i’m like, so + $400 in deskeys aftermarket? nah im good
and personally not able to find an 86u i can afford. not doing $600 for beige. fml
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Me before clicking on this thread
Me now
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I will say that the new stuff KBDfans is doing with translucent caps is unique and interesting
Particularly the newest set in development, PBTfans Pyga
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I’ve been a bit invisible these days, and for me it feels like I’ve exhausted all the exciting projects in the area being done by great people that are open for support at the moment. In a bit of a ‘enjoy what you’ve accumulated’ phase. Perhaps it will come in cycles and I’ll go mad again sometime looking at all the fun new stuff once more - but right now, it feels somewhat saturated (to me).
It probably doesn’t help that MX stuff don’t particularly excite me lol.
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I feel like everything I see and like was sold in a group buy six or more years ago, and is no longer being offered anywhere except at ridiculous secondhand r/MechMarket prices. So I’m totally fine not buying anything unless the old stuff ever comes back.
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I still love the idea of getting excited for a new product that someone dreamed up, worked hard to personally design, shared with the community, and the community helped bring it to life with a group buy.
Vendors are a great asset to help carry those group buys, but they come at a cost. Now a large number of new products aren’t coming from individuals with a creation they’re passionate about. Instead it’s more like vendors are realizing “hey, we can make a cheaper product that looks good and make a lot of money!”
There’s something much less exciting about celebrating vendor profits than celebrating creative engineering.
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Oh yeah, I hear you there. Seriously considering an older TX-CP R1 board on the market but it’s still $450, and there’s no replacement PCB if it ever fails. Too risky. Ha. But that board is so lovely.
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I’ve been sort of slowly distancing myself from the hobby for a bit, I feel like I accumulated a bunch of stuff I like without really taking the time to appreciate it over the last 2 years in particular.
On top of that, the only things that really make me excited for a new build are keycaps since I take a design-first approach to my builds. And with KAT and GMK queues being unacceptably long as the moment, I’m holding off on buying any. Not to mention that I haven’t seen any sets that really tempted me to break that other than Jamon R2. DCX is exciting but their colorways are hideous; I’ll probably buy a WoB set soon enough but other than that I don’t like anything they’re making.
All that said, I don’t think the market itself is going through a lull. The aftermarket is for sure, but I think that has more to do with the sheer number of unlimited GBs we’ve had recently. The aftermarket is going to have to adjust down and we’re going to start seeing our boards depreciate like most consumer goods, but honestly I don’t really think that’s a bad thing.
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Those are pretty interesting. I’m partial to Klein Blue myself. The BT availability is coming along nicely as well. I noticed all the BTxx variants available packed with all the south-facing, multi layout, hotswap goodness we’ve grown to appreciate. It’d be nice to start cutting the cords and using a single board across multiple devices again. They even have this super slim battery touted to fit just about anywhere.
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