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Curated coverage of mechanical keyboard releases, vendor moves, and the broader industry beat.
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GMK CYL Orange Alert opens at Divinikey, the second Alert-series set to reach group buy this year
GMK CYL Orange Alert opened August 14 and runs through September 14, 2026, hosted by Divinikey with KBDfans, UniKeys, and Keebz N Cables running alongside — an orange-beige-gray Cherry-profile doubleshot set with Katakana accent legends and an estimated February 2027 ship.
thock5 min read
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Wuque Studio's summer update, and the Ikki68 Aurora holdover
A July 26 product-update post from Wuque Studio sent buyers back to the Ikki68 Aurora's listing page. Mammoth V2 and Promise V2 remain forum speculation, and no group buy has opened.
thock7 min read
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GMK Just Beachy's group buy opens August 18 across five vendors on five regions
GMK Just Beachy opens for orders August 18, 2026 at five vendors spanning five regions at once — Keebz N Cables, Divinikey, Prototypist, KBDfans, and Unikeys — capping an eight-week climb on thock's Trends Tracker that hasn't logged a single down week.
thock6 min read
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OpenAI's first hardware is a Work Louder macro pad
Codex Micro, OpenAI's first piece of branded hardware, is a macro pad built by boutique vendor Work Louder on the bones of its $199 Creator Micro 2. It launched July 15, 2026 at $230, sold out within 24 hours, and now resells for $700-800+.
thock7 min read
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The Blaine V2: SE puts three mount systems in one kit and asks the buyer to pick
CannonKeys's F12 TKL follow-up ships with top mount, single-sided gasket, and o-ring hardware in the same box, plus a carbon-fiber bottom plate and a POM underside element it calls Volcano. The mount menu is the story.
thock7 min read
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GMK CYL Masterpiece R2 closed at KBDfans, finishing the Katakana argument R1 started
Energieschleuder's six-year-later return to Japanese craftsmanship aesthetics climbed the thock tracker all window, scoring 46 in W26 before the buy closed June 26.
thock8 min read
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GMK CYL Pandemonium: the eclipse-themed keycap set that closed on a plateau
DeltaKeyCo's Berserk eclipse group buy climbed the tracker from its June 1 open, posting a score of 33 in W26 with a flat direction — a mid-window plateau it held through its July 1 close.
thock10 min read
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DCS Dolch closed at Divinikey — a computing-history colorway's first DCS-profile run
The Dolch colorway — dark grey alphas, lighter grey mods, named after the 1990s portable workstations — ran a four-week DCS-profile group buy at Divinikey and nine regional storefronts, closing 2026-07-01.
thock9 min read
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Computex 2026: hall-effect keyboards enter the enthusiast conversation
Computex 2026 (May 20–24) was the week hall-effect stopped being a gaming-peripheral curiosity and walked into the same room as enthusiast-grade chassis. Two boards made that argument concrete.
thock8 min read
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GMK CYL Ramune is the pastel pivot the CYL catalog needed
GMK CYL Ramune opened on 2026-05-15 across ten regional vendors simultaneously — the broadest multi-vendor launch in the CYL sub-line's history. The pastel dual-blue and pink colorway is a deliberate break from the darker European-influenced palettes that have defined CYL since its first runs.
thock8 min read
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GMK CYL Selene closed at KBDfans with the sub-line's first material-first colorway
GMK CYL Selene ran 2026-05-15 through 2026-06-19 at KBDfans with a special-effects glitter-reflect colorway in purple and teal over a silver-grey base. Designed by whysoda and inspired by the Greek Titaness of the Moon, the buy closed with Q1-Q2 2027 fulfillment ahead.
thock6 min read
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Keychron's Q Ultra ZMK series brings 660h battery to the prebuilt-premium tier
Keychron used CES 2026 to announce the Q Ultra line — five prebuilts (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q5, Q6) running ZMK rather than QMK/VIA. The 660h battery claim is the headline; the firmware swap is the actual story.
thock4 min read
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GMK CYL Prussian Alert closed at KBDfans, capping the loudest GeekHack IC in the CYL sub-line's recent run
GMK CYL Prussian Alert ran at KBDfans from 2026-05-15 through 2026-06-12 with a Bauhaus-leaning red-on-cream palette. The order window followed the loudest GMK CYL interest-check thread on GeekHack the sub-line had seen before an open.
thock6 min read
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GMK CYL Ishtar R2 closed at KBDfans with a second-and-likely-last shot at the lapis Mesopotamia palette
GMK CYL Ishtar R2 ran 2026-04-17 through 2026-05-10 at KBDfans. The editorial event is not the open — it is the close. A second round on a Cherry-profile doubleshot ABS set is the second-and-likely-last shot at MSRP before the aftermarket takes over the palette.
thock8 min read
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GSK Sweet Nightmare ran a four-day window at KBDfans with an eight-variant matrix
Goldenstar's Sweet Nightmare resin run opened at KBDfans on 2026-05-08 and closed 2026-05-11. The four-day window is unusually tight for a formal group buy, and the eight-variant matrix — four colorways across two finishes — compresses a configurator's worth of choices into a half-week.
thock6 min read
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Mode Sonnet R2 opened at CannonKeys
Mode's second round of its 75% Sonnet board ran at CannonKeys from 2026-06-01 through 2026-07-15 after a vendor-side timeline shift. See the in-article update for the dates and accent-weight color options; the closed entry is archived at /group-buys/past.
thock5 min read
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GMK CYL GREG returns for round 2 at KBDfans
Round 2 of GMK CYL GREG opened at KBDfans on 2026-05-01 and ran through 2026-05-29. The four-week window sits on the longer end for GMK CYL R2s, and the round-2 cadence itself is becoming the more interesting story as sets prove out in R1 and accumulate latent demand.
thock6 min read
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GMK CYL King of the Seas opened at KBDfans in two colorways at once
MiKeyDigit's nautical doubleshot ABS set opened at KBDfans on 2026-04-28 and ran through 2026-05-31. The rarer angle is the two-colorway split — The Sovereign in deep ocean blues and The Mutation in electric pink, sold concurrently inside the same buy rather than staggered as separate runs.
thock7 min read
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The Nyawice puts a leaf-spring F1 mount under a friction-fit-cat-ears Alice
An Alice-layout board with a leaf-spring F1 mount, a 9-degree typing angle, and four colorways of friction-fit silicone cat ears ran at CannonKeys through 2026-05-17. The mount type is the editorial story; the cat ears are the conversation.
thock6 min read