Kitting a set like that is pure evil.

How so? Most novelty kits don’t include enough keycaps to replace a proper mod kit.

Another money grab

250-dollar key cap set.

That's unfortunate. Always check the sizes included in sets. That said, maybe you can do a different build with what you have.

If you ever buy a UHK, be prepared to pay about $600 in modifiers to get your full set. It's nuts

And you see no issue?

Damn, thats ridiculous

Was there a base kit?

I certainly don't. You don't want key duplication as that makes kits more expensive - for everyone, not just for the few people that want that. Same reason why numpad are sold separately, or international keys.

SA is often kitted that way, same as KAT

So this is the fault of OP then, seeing sale sites post a photo of the kitting, it seems like he didn't pay attention to the kitting rather than a misleading sale.

Damn you Kono!!!

you're complaining about your own stupidity?

That sucks! But nice Jelly Key Artisan!

Some sets sell alphas and modifiers separately which does make sense but is also super annoying.

Yeah, it is OP's fault. I understand the frustration that to fill the missing keys a big set has to be bought (the mod kits are usually the most expensive sets when it's kitted that way), but kitting is always a compromise, not really a way around it.

It's great when there are different versions of alphas offered.. Two different colors, sublegends or not, etc etc

This is one of my dream sets but dammit the pricing is bonkers given how they've broken out the kits, which seems designed to get you over a barrel.

gotta check that compat buddy

Do you genuinely think it costs them that much to make it? It would cost the company like 2 dollars a set to put in the extra caps

I'm new to the hobby (2 months?) and slowly coming to understand why some people's fully customized boards end up in the 1K price range ... 😏

It can be easy to miss.

I tried using a set that didnt have a 2.00U shift in it and only found out at the end as it was the last key and I became momentarily confused as to why it wouldnt fit :)

Manufacturing costs and price the manufacturer charges are not the same. I know from multiple discussions with designers that it's a delicate balance that needs to be struck with kitting, so price for the consumer is good, MOQs are reachable and vendors make enough profit that it's worth it for them. Adding keys that almost no one needs just makes the sets less attractive to the stakeholders. That's why Mac support keys are usually a separate kit (if there is support at all) even though those 5 keys or so could have been put into a base kit / mod kit

What a rip of

Exactly. The typical assumption is that the base kit is still bought, with an extra set of alphas for full variety, but if you try and get away with skipping the mod kit that’s on you to know the limitations of the set.

I see a buyer who thought they found a good deal with alphas and novelties coming in cheap, but didn’t verify that it would have enough coverage for their somewhat popular but not universal layout (65%)

I absolutely love this set but will never buy it because of how the sets are separated and overpriced.

Could you manage with the "specialties" set instead of the TKL? It's less than half price of the TKL set and comes with a bunch of modifiers.

I'm the designer, wanted to clarify a few things since people seem to think this kitting is anti consumer and designed to make you spend more, while it's actually the opposite.

The alphas are split from the TKL mods so people that don't need standard mods don't have to buy a ton of keycaps they don't need, they can just get alphas + ergo kit for example. And there's no price difference, if it was one big base kit with alphas and tkl mods it would cost the same in total, just would be less flexible.

Apart from that the novelties kit is just that, novelties, is not supposed to fill out your modifiers and if I included those extra keys, again most people would be paying for keys they don't need.

Honestly....the people commenting and complaining about how the kitting is anti-consumer clearly know nothing about SP SA kitting and pricing.

I get what you're saying and as an ortho-ergo user, I appreciate it.

That said, the flip side is that nearly everyone needs Enter, Tab, 2 Shift keys and Backspace.

Those core keys in their standard sizes are only available as part of a huge set containing multiple sizes for modifiers, capslock, backspace, and even Up, in addition to F-keys and everything else. IMHO this runs directly counter to your argument.

By not offering a basic set of core keys at a modest price, most customers have no choice but to pay a substantial amount for a lot of keys that they won't ever need.

The TKL kit is rather slim to be honest, I split out numpad, specialties and iso from it. Buying alphas + tkl is simple to understand (maybe not?) and it provides good coverage without wasting a lot of keys.

As you can see in this post and the comments simply splitting the alphas already got people confused, you have to find a balance between flexibility and not confusing people with a ton of options.

In any case I'm not saying the kitting couldn't be improved, but I think it's good enough and it's not anti consumer.

As a Nordic language user, all I can say is nee-nee-nee-naw.

For once, I can actually buy the alphas, and an ISO or NorDe kit and use the damned key set without having to buy ridiculous kits I’ll never need.

The standard way of kitting only benefits US ANSI users, and nobody else. For once, you’re not getting benefits, so your complaining. sigh

Novelities cost way more and to have those included... Nah.

But sure, it doesn't cost that much more extra for a full set of regular keycaps that the factories have molds for but then the sets would still go for alot. They would just never sell a full keycap set for the price of Alphas.

> For once, I can actually buy the alphas, and an ISO or NorDe kit and use the damned key set without having to buy ridiculous kits I’ll never need.

you would also have to buy the TKL set too, with all of its duplicates and ANSI Enter key, unless Nordic keyboards don't use Tab, Backspace, or modifiers.

Appropriate that a specialty coffee themed set is kitted in a way that makes sense to no one but the "literati" who are prepared to lay down their lives in defense of anti-consumer pricing from an in brand.

No reason to insult OP. It’s an easy mistake to make for someone who hasn’t bought keycaps that have been kitted out like this. Remember, a huge majority of people purchase full keycap sets. Yes, it’s important to double check your keyboard to make sure you’re getting everything you need and that it all fits. But there’s no need to make someone feel bad about making an honest mistake. We were all learning new things about the hobby at some point (and we’ve probably all made purchases we regret or that were not as informed as they could have been). Ease up.

Can we all send u one dollar and boom a hundred people do it and ur chillin

How are you finding the colours IRL?

Some have mentioned they look somewhat “not as good” as all the rendered photos online (understandable)

They seem to look quite good in your photo.

this is a case of the consumer not being informed.

no one who has built a keyboard would think that alphas + novelties would fill any custom keyboard.

consumer is mad cause consumer is ignorant, somehow that becomes the vendor or designer's problem.

no one said keycaps were cheap.

Hang on, when did these start shipping? I ordered some from mykeyboard.eu in May 2021 and completely forgot about it!

Try your luck on r/mechmarket maybe someone there is selling

The whole community needs to stop giving into these ridiculous pricing schemes.

Yup. Sometimes i see keycaps for like 30$ and itd only a few keys. And the modifiers are another set. You gotta be careful

I totally get you. It's definitely a balancing act. Not sure if you've gone thru an exercise of configuring a few keyboard types to see what the pricing looks like.

From my perspective it definitely starts to feel like a bit of a cash grab after adding 3+ different kits at $50-70+ USD each.

Eg: I've got a Moonlander and a separate numpad, so bare minimum I'd need the alpha, numpad, ergo, and ortho kits just to provide complete (actually, not quite co.plete but close enough) coverage for a total of $270USD before shipping and taxes. Kono recommends getting their 3rd party insurance for an extra $5 USD and shipping would cost $35 USD. That's $310USD before tax, which is perilously close to what I paid for the keyboard itself shipped, taxes in, nevermind the numpad.

I'm not saying you should simply lower your prices or that you don't deserve fair compensation for your (excellent) work, but I have to wonder how much opportunity cost you're eating with that kitting setup.

Is there efficiencies lost in the low volumes? Are retailers taking a big markup? What would make your life easier?

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There are two rough threads here: the pricing (they certainly aren't cheap, but hey we get that) and the kitting. It would have been nice to offer just a base kit that is close to a basic usable ~65 layout. You could still offer alphas and tkl separately, but it would have been nice to just get a basic functional set. TBH, i love your design and set - everything about it, but when you start throwing the stuff into the cart suddenly you're at $180 for just a functional set. The novelties are awesome so throw that in and you're at $250 and then well, that stopped me and I bailed on the whole thing. I would have bought it if I could just get a basic functional kit and the novelties. On the flip side, people do need to watch what they're buying with keycaps to make sure they're covered. This hobby isn't cheap and there are a lot of gotchas.

just return the key sets

Most of the pics I've seen of the finished product have been consistent in showing the poor transitioning of the gradient effect from the middle row upwards. Shame, that's the primary selling point for this set... to me, at least.

this industry is begging to be revolutionized

Yes agreed, I guess lighting plays a part.

https://preview.redd.it/vkbe9n6r7d7a1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ecd1861fe1c534e546faab42358c5a9f47ad4ec

For example, here it looks fairly good.

But, the colours of the darker three and the lightest seem to be of the same gradient map, but the QWERTY row seems a different pallet somehow.

Yes I definitely know how much it costs to cover different layouts. You're looking at extras prices which are a lot more expensive than buying during GB.

I don't know what your example shows, apart from that yeah SP SA is really expensive. You're trying to cover a pretty rare layout, not sure what I could change there.

I think kitting is good, I accepted a ton of feedback from the community and some members that are very knowledgeable about kitting before I ran the GB, not sure what else I can say.

no sadly they need 1.5u r2 for tab, unlesss they are fine with mismatched rows

Just mounted mine yesterday. Yes, I definitely noticed this issue. From the top down, the colours lean orange, then pink, then orange then pink (or more neutral). The values seem fine, but the hues are slightly off.

I imagine colour matching for a set like this would be very difficult. I think a lot of people would be fine with it, but I know a lot of people in this hobby are very tuned in to colours. And it's not as bad as some "gradient" sets I've seen that some consumers have still been happy with.

I'm still going to enjoy it a lot. Whether I believe in my heart that this is really up to standard for the $300 I paid for it is a bit of a different story. Overall, still glad I bought it.

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Only $100, that's like 5 for the price of 4!

Sad story bruh :(

I honestly think a ton of people in this hobby would save a lot by buying a decent laser and/or dye sub gear, then customizing from blanks.

Somehow, that's been the reason why I've been pushed to NK and other Cherry profile sets.

Less fuss out of the box.

I understand the options. But sometimes you just want simplicity.

Sheesh. Now that is an almost intentionally-difficult layout to kit. Worse than off-the-shelf gamer boards.

Main reason I didn’t buy this set. Love the looks but pieces being split up made it a no for me

It's not usually because of poorly thought out kitting, though. The kitting of this keycap set is just a bad/not-fully-thought-out move on Kono's part - something that I've heard is all too common with them.

(Instead, the $1k+ price tag is because people end up buying a limited-run $600+ keyboard kit, a $150 GMK set, two sets of $70+ switches for a single set of frankenswitches, a $50 cable, and an extra $50 on stabilizers, film, lube, and other extras.)

Looks like you're just going to have to buy a new TKL.

I generally like to support the creators of the OG sets, but if they’re going to pull shit like that, I’m getting a $25 Amazon knock off.

I fucking hate that scammy shit. They're tiny pieces of plastic-- we way overpay for GMK and other higher quality sets and the add on kits are a fucking scam.

I'm only off a few keys on my 80082 kit and I'm trying to hold out until I lose interest in the hobby... I don't want to pay another $40 for four keycaps.

This is the kind of stupid that means I'll never support a GB. Seriously.

NO WAY

GMK set? What’s that

Criminal

https://preview.redd.it/k1s6f5gcwe7a1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e701152b8548171d73fac2928ac7f65344785fb6

Pretty sweet set.

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This kitting is normal for SA sets. Some SA sets run full base kits but very frequently run them a la carte like SA Espresso did. Pretty much all Signature Plastics SA sets on Drop except SA Godspeed ran kitting like Espresso for example. Also, Kono doesn't dictate kitting on SA sets and kitting is usually agreed upon by the designer and the vendor.

By all means, we should be shitting on Kono for the prices they charge. But the kitting here was standard was standard and solid. OP just made a mistake in assuming a novelties set was meant to kit a 65% keyboard's modifiers. If he was too lazy to look up 65 modifiers sizes himself, he probably could have asked the designer in the reddit group buy thread and the designer would have told him exactly what he needed.

Yep! Looks that way from the non rendered photos I’ve seen.

In saying this it’s still a really cool set.

But yes, expensive!

You can buy grabbag haha

https://preview.redd.it/n7vn1hx31f7a1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c48eb341e2f8ddcdc9af861ecc224be16baab90c

GMK is a keycap manufacturer based in Germany. They use the original Cherry keycap-making equipment to make doubleshot ABS keycap sets that are expensive, but relatively high-quality. GMK sets are popular both because of this quality, and because of their legacy as the "original" brand for premium keycaps.

Sorry for the lingo, but what’s a UHK?

yep

Yo I got it! Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. Indeed looks to be a pain in the ass for all the non regular mods

oh thaaaaat is just bullshit

Thanks for the info. Knowing is half the battle.

It truely is a pain. I love the keyboard for the split tenting, and the small below-space switches. It's a fantastic keyboard, but the developer had a weird idea of layout. If they sold kits for it, it wouldn't be so bad, but nobody makes a UHK kit for keycaps, and the company doesn't care to pay to have them made.

Mailed MyKeyboard a xouple of times. The keys was supposed to ship q2. Mailed MyKeyboard in q3 and they said wait until q4. Mailed them beginning of December and they asked for a bit more patience.

We will see when they arrive.

I have this set as well and I agree, QWERTY row is kind a bit washed out compared to the other colours. I keep looking at it thinking there must've been a better colour to use instead.

Ah right. I emailed them last night. Not received a response yet though.

Yeah agreed! It really looks like there’s a colour that would make a perfect gradient, and they haven’t chosen it

Mate, OP's post history suggest they've been in this hobby at least a year. If you spent a year and didn't learn how to get right key caps from a vendor that clearly lays out unit sizes on each keycap - it's on you. Coddling people who farm for karma like is not necessary.

Just got a DHL push message from Tarpit bvba. When Googleling then it looks like it is MyKeyboard. So it could be on its way! 😎

Oh! Fingers crossed then!

Pricing is nuts on these sets. But there’s a flash sale today which helps a little. Good luck

Just received them! They look good but not nearly as warm in the colour tone as I was expecting. Not dissspointed though.

Oh cool! They didn't even bother replying to my email yet. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt as it's the Christmas period. Maybe something will happen soon. Thanks for the update. Much appreciated. Enjoy the set.