Comment by ghostpepper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghostpepper | Hacker News Reader

I was suckered in by the deceptive copy on this site. When I found out about this project, over a year ago, in Feb 2021, the green text on the right said something similar:

2/28/21 please have your orders in by then! Project Status (February 2021): Now Shipping! (orders still accepted)

This made me think there was some deadline, and that orders were closing (ie. a group buy, like many other niche mechanical keyboard products). I ordered mine on 02-27-2021.

The author has assured me for over a year that I have not been scammed and my keyboard will arrive eventually. However they refuse to give any sort of information about how many are being shipped per month, or where I am in the queue. The blog posts that seem to arrive every other month only discuss how many orders have been accepted, not how many have been fulfilled.

I don't think it's a scam but it's a very poorly run business. If my keyboard ever arrives, no matter how it is, I will not do business with whatever mysterious individual is running the project.

I received my F77 "New Model F" Keyboard at the end of last year, and I'm using it regularly. I ordered it in July of 2017, over 4 years before! Even back then there was a fake order "deadline" being updated every single month, and I agree that is the dumbest part of this project. I think it's a way of saying "I can't promise I won't raise prices from pre-order to retail level at the end of the month" but yeah it's still really dumb, especially over years.

But I knew the nature of the project before I ordered. It isn't for everyone, truly not a mass-market product. It's like $400 total, and you may still have some manual tweaking to do (e.g. I had to adjust my spacebar stabilizer wire). Also, I didn't really mind many of the delays due to relatively fanatical part/supply/manufacture quality control. All the info about the nature, history, and timelines of the project are publicly available, you just need to dig through years of updates and deskthority forum posts yourself, it's a bit scattered.

One other note, the firmware situation is also a bit scattered, not particularly well organized and summarized quite yet (and weird paragraph/list formatting and broken links on the official website) but I was able to find what I wanted to customize and build firmware just to my liking.

FWIW I'm happy with my F77 compact.

As someone who also ordered a keyboard from them, I can say that it isn’t a scam, just crazy slow to arrive. I did eventually get my Model F, and it’s a solid keyboard. To give a bit of the benefit of the doubt: Iirc some of their news posts have talked about how shipping has been slower due to supply chain issues like keyboards sitting in cargo containers without a way to get them.

Also will add that I ordered two keyboards from them around 2018 and they finally came 2021 (without printed key caps) and I finally got the printed key caps this year.

Yeah, this is not a well run business, it seems more of a hobby project for the guy. Looks like he is basically doing everything by himself so it makes sense as a matter of policy to not give out estimates to individuals because otherwise that will probably take up the majority of his time instead of actually getting orders shipped out.

Other than that, very happy with the keyboard, its build quality, the NKRO (which model Ms don’t have), and the open source QMK firmware that is very customizable.

While an estimate would be great I would even settle for a “you are number X, currently serving number X+Y”

Very true, and I do agree the message at the top to “have your orders in by the end of this month!” is pretty deceptive also.

Yes. I ordered over a year ago and just want to know where I am in line.

Either he's so disorganized that he can't provide that info, or he feels he's not accountable to the people he's accepted money from. Either way, if I'd known that up front, I would not have loaned him the money (because that's what an order of a product with a multi-year lead time is, really - a loan)

I can also confirm it's not a scam. I ordered in August 2016 and it was delivered in January 2021.

That sounds like an awful long time, but I ordered around the beginning when I knew it wasn't a finished product yet. It was a lot of research and experimentation with production. The key caps took quite a while to get right. Things should be a lot speedier now, though.

Anyway, I'm very happy with it. I type morning to night so I think the cost was worth it for me. Like investing in a chair you find particularly comfortable. Or a standing desk. It makes the Model M look and feel like an embarrassment.

I concur with @ghostpepper. Buyer beware! I too purchased a keyboard over a year ago. I got suckered into the home page message indicating that orders have to be in by a certain date. Lo and behold, the dates are updated with the same message, indicating its BS. I never thought the wait would be this long. Thankfully the owner, whoever this guy is, is receptive and quick to reply. He always assures that I have not been scammed and that my order will be delivered. But as to when is ambiguous. For all I know, it may take another year or two to finally receive my VERY expensive keyboard. Or maybe never — who knows. I advise anyone here to refrain from handing over their money to this mysterious individual unless you are ok with having your money taken and order status staying in limbo for years.

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