hello good people armed we tree and back at the hotel and behind me we've got
something real special today from SteelSeries they were launching the new
apex line of keyboards the apex pro and the apex 7 but I want to talk today
about the new omnipoint switches because they're mechanical they have
interesting characteristics and normally I would not dedicated a single video
just to talk about the switches because there's so many out there but this one
is different and huge thanks to fan text and steelseries for sponsoring our
Computex trip so what are omnipoint canticle and the main idea behind them
is for the user to adjust the actuation distance so normally with MX cherry
switches you have an actuation point at around 2 millimeters somewhere in the
middle of the whole travel distance and that is when the switch is actually
registered there's a physical contact within the switch itself that sends a
signal and tells your source then when the key is actually pressed with Omnipoint
which is the actual mechanism is slightly different but the actuation
distance customization is very cool because instead of you wanting to
actuate the key midway you can actuate it at really high point which means you
don't have to press as much you don't have to bottom out and that whole range
goes from point 4 millimeters which is insane that is currently I would say the
fastest actuation switch you can you can get and it goes all the way to three
point six so basically giving you the full range of motion between when the
switches from the top to the bottom before it actually is registered and
that is really cool now what are the usage case scenarios of something like
the adjustability of your actuation point now with using the shortest
actuation point at point four millimeters
everyone's joking around that you might as well just blow on the switches and
they will be activated and registered or going all the way to three point six
millimeter travel distance for the actuation point to give you a type
writer feel so going old-school if you like to really bottom out and the cool
thing about the apex Pro is the ability to customize her key actuation point
customization so your wall zone can be a certain actuation point
while the rest do keys can be something else and that whole range of actuation
distance is incredibly precise from point four to three point six
millimeters and they're able to do that with magnets so there's one magnet in
the actual stem that goes down and there's a magnet on the PCB and they're
measuring the magnetic flux is what they tell us and somehow that goes into the
firmware or the keyboard and that registered the amount of actuation point
and where it should actually register the switch we're told a lot of
calibration went into designing something like this and initially they
went from 0.5 to 3.5 range but they figured out how to calibrate the magnets
and calculating the magnetic flux that those magazines generate to give us even
a lower actuation point and a slightly higher one to some more technical
information so they are a 45 grams switch which is incredibly light and
they were actually co-developed with gaiter one and they try to replicate the
gaiter on red switches which I absolutely love they're my favorite
switch now and still Sirius was like this is even better and I would say
they're they feel slightly different the gator on reds have a slightly heavier
that initial movement down while the Omnipoint switches are incredibly
linear and that makes them really good for what they're trying to achieve
within that actuation range some people have asked why they didn't go the route
of having a tactile point built into the switch but that would make no sense for
a switch on to which you can customize the actuation distance and because there
are no metal contacts to register the actuation like you would see on an MX
cherry the switch is basically bare-bones which means the durability is
insane so they've tested a hundred million clicks plus and that takes
months to constantly press with the Machine and they said that this is
minimum 100 million clicks and it was it would just kept going still so
durability in the long term for the Omnipoint which is and the last thing I
want to cover is the usability of the Omnipoint switches for regular users I
feel like it's almost similar to setting lighting on your system you set it once
and you forget it unless you want to revisit that and chain
up a little bit for some more customization I feel like the Omnipoint
actuation distance will be exactly the same way if you prefer a light switch if
you've been using let's say the MX cherry speed switches that actuate at
one point two millimeters and they're really fast as well if you've been using
something like that setting one point to here would be perfectly fine but if you
want something that actually it's a bit further down below three millimeters
that is a totally different experience too because if you like to bottom out
while typing that is available and it kind of gives you that broad range
between gaming between typing or something in the middle and now ladies
and gentlemen I present you the type test and the last thing the actuation
distance can be set through the keyboard or through the software and I would
personally set the wast area to be around 3.5 because I like to bottom out
when I'm walking my character while having the rest around 1.5 to 2
millimeters and the the point four millimeter actuation distance is
actually quite insane but I feel like just resting my finger on the keys
because they're so linear and so light I tend to just activate it accidentally
and setting it's like the deeper actuation point would of course remove
that accidental press alright guys so that is steelseries so many points
which is explained let me know if you think they're gimmicky or actually
functional for your usage case scenario in my previous experience with the
wooden one keyboard that had analog switches on - you can also adjust the
actuation point from I think 1.5 to three point six that was pretty cool but
I said at once and I forget it but here you can go the actuation point
really close to the surface for them to be incredibly light so you can tap on
the keyboard and if you train it won't be an issue
so guys I'm three tree thanks for watching make sure to check out this
other relevant content I'll talk to you in the next video
you