Centerpiece is a mechanical keyboard with a high-res display beneath transparent keys

[Shawn Knight]

In context: The humble keyboard has seen many innovations over the years including but not limited to mechanical switches, water resistance, flexible designs, wireless connectivity and more recently, RGB lighting. The latest creation from Finalmouse is among the most dramatic yet.

The Finalmouse Centerpiece keyboard features a technology called Laminated DisplayCircuit Glass Stack (LDGS) that's covered by multiple patents and backed by years of R&D. As best we can tell from the reveal video, what you're looking at is a keyboard featuring clear keys and switches with a high-resolution display beneath that's powered by Unreal Engine 5. It's almost insulting to label it this way because it looks absolutely stunning.

The board will ship with custom auto-lubed linear mechanical switches co-developed with Gateron and inspired by their Black Ink switch, albeit tuned for faster actuation and with slightly different travel parameters. The keycaps are clear but have labels printed on the front sidewall. The typing sound has been described as "soft marble raindrops."

Finalmouse said the board will have its own CPU and GPU to power the light show, and will connect using a single USB-C cable. Everything sits in a CNC engraved and anodized aluminum chassis that looks beautiful even without the lights on. All those nooks and crannies could be tricky to keep clean, but I suspect most wouldn't mind the chore.

Finalmouse is also planning a skin marketplace where artists can submit their designs, either for free or to make money from. The board will have three skin slots with dedicated selection buttons on the side, presumably to swap backgrounds on the fly.

The skins are what could make or break the concept. Pure visual skins are a neat parlor trick but the real magic will be interactive skins that respond to typing or other inputs, or those that prove truly useful for productivity. And with its own CPU and GPU, surely someone will come up with a skin capable of playing Doom.

The Finalmouse Centerpiece keyboard is scheduled to arrive in early 2023 priced at $349.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97022-centerpiece-mechanical-keyboard-high-res-display-beneath-transparent.html

 

[letsgoiowa]

While this is amazing and all, man...can I just have some easily readable key legends? Demo that pls! I mix up my home/end keys all the time.

 

[Adhmuz]

Neat, but 10 keyless is a pass for me, need my num pad. Price is actually not bad considering the amount of hardware to do all this, and not to mention, some existing "gamer" keyboards are nearing the $300 mark already.

Make a full sized keyboard and I'd honestly consider it, also maybe give options for the bezel, the engraving is nice and all, however I'd also prefer a simpler look here, just brushed anodized aluminum would look sharp.

Looking at the companies site, options and choice doesn't seem to be their strong point, they release a different style of their mouse whenever they do, in small and medium, they sell out and you wait for the next iteration. At least this is what it looks like to me, could be wrong, never heard of this brand until now.

 

[Adhmuz]

While this is amazing and all, man...can I just have some easily readable key legends? Demo that pls! I mix up my home/end keys all the time.

Thinking your SOL on that one, the top right 4 buttons are INS, DEL, Page Up and Page Down, heck it doesn't even have F keys for Fs sake!

 

[PsyDuck87]

Oh, look! a new piece of plastic that cost 20$ to produce is selling for 300$! NICE! uh shiny!

 

[pcnthuziast]

I just got some clear double shot pbt keycaps and I'm hooked. I definitely want this!

 

[kiwigraeme]

Neat, but 10 keyless is a pass for me, need my num pad. Price is actually not bad considering the amount of hardware to do all this, and not to mention, some existing "gamer" keyboards are nearing the $300 mark already.

Make a full sized keyboard and I'd honestly consider it, also maybe give options for the bezel, the engraving is nice and all, however I'd also prefer a simpler look here, just brushed anodized aluminum would look sharp.

Looking at the companies site, options and choice doesn't seem to be their strong point, they release a different style of their mouse whenever they do, in small and medium, they sell out and you wait for the next iteration. At least this is what it looks like to me, could be wrong, never heard of this brand until now.

Yeah anyone who runs a small business and does there own finances - a num pad is great - yes can import bank into whatever you are using - but still - least get VAT off and a tax expense for buying a nice keyboard.
Same for anyone doing research , spread sheets, databases - numpads help a lot

 

[McMurdeR]

While this is amazing and all, man...can I just have some easily readable key legends? Demo that pls! I mix up my home/end keys all the time.

That's a real use-case for this! Fully customisable keyboard without pulling keycaps.

 

[Fastturtle]

Thinking your SOL on that one, the top right 4 buttons are INS, DEL, Page Up and Page Down, heck it doesn't even have F keys for Fs sake!

Yet on mine it's Ins/Home/PgUp in row 1 and Del/End/PgDn in the second row as mine isn't a quad row but tri row setup

 

[BadThad]

Oh great, a $400 keyboard....no thanks!

 

[Hodor]

Oh great, a $400 keyboard....no thanks!

Yeah, don't buy that cheap crap.

 

[AdamNovagen]

Not sure why all the vitriol about the price point, $350 is pretty straightforward considering it has its own processor and high-resolution display, not to mention software-tuneable hall effect sensors for every key which is some pretty nice tech we don't really see elsewhere in the keyboard market. They also very specifically state it is not made of glass, so it's hardly some cheap Amazon "gamer" crap.

That said, full agreement about the layout, that makes it a pass from me too. As a part-time programmer, I absolutely couldn't get by without the F keys, and I also make full use of the 6-key navigators AND the numpad. Even for gaming though, I have those keys in use; I can't imagine handling the number of keybinds I need for Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft with what amounts to half a keyboard! I know the compact layouts are very popular in the keyboard community these days, but to me they fall into the same category as MacBooks: typically best suited for the people that just need to look busy.

 

[OortCloud]

The demo is all silly videos playing under the keyboard....

Wouldn't a far cooler thing for this be customisable in-program keys?
So WASD becomes arrow keys and we have a pictures of grenades, jumping, crouching and reload icons in our shooters.
RTS's where they use tons of keys could have nice images of the units the key would queue up.
Racing games could have all the TC+ TC- ABS+ ABS- etc etc
Visual Studio could have build icons, debug, set breakpoints etc and they could all change when you hit CTRL , ALT or SHIFT.

 

[RaXelliX]

Not sure why all the vitriol about the price point, $350 is pretty straightforward considering it has its own processor and high-resolution display, not to mention software-tuneable hall effect sensors for every key which is some pretty nice tech we don't really see elsewhere in the keyboard market. They also very specifically state it is not made of glass, so it's hardly some cheap Amazon "gamer" crap.

That said, full agreement about the layout, that makes it a pass from me too. As a part-time programmer, I absolutely couldn't get by without the F keys, and I also make full use of the 6-key navigators AND the numpad. Even for gaming though, I have those keys in use; I can't imagine handling the number of keybinds I need for Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft with what amounts to half a keyboard! I know the compact layouts are very popular in the keyboard community these days, but to me they fall into the same category as MacBooks: typically best suited for the people that just need to look busy.

Indeed. 350 for all the tech is very reasonable. Logitech, Corsair etc charge over 250 for ther top of the line models. Logitech does not even have PBT keycaps for that price nor hotswap switches or lubed keys.

Seeing the features I fully expected this to cost four figures.

 

[nismo91]

Nice gimmick. I love that they're blind because I too don't need to look at my keyboard for typing. but still, I wonder with all that switches how are they gonna look if you give them some icons.

 

[Johnsonjp16]

You had me at Koi pond.

 

[ShadowAD]

Looks nice and would definitely WOW your friends and family when they come to visit, but sadly US$349.00 = AU$518.00.

Expensive toy when the novelty wears off.