thock weekly — issue 11
A wireless buying guide sorted by the radio inside the board, a Class80 build where three parts solve each other's problems, Wooting's tracker climb outpacing its own firmware, Keychron's first TMR switch launch, and what a flex cut actually buys a board with no gasket — plus a tracker check-in on Keychron's ceiling and Wooting's eight-week run.
Five pieces, one per pillar, picked from the week's coverage — closing out with the tracker's clearest signals from the week of September 21, 2026.
Guides — the radio matters more than the word "wireless"
Wireless keyboard buying guide: Bluetooth, 2.4GHz, and the latency that actually matters
"Wireless" on a spec sheet is really three different radios wearing one label, and each comes with its own latency floor, battery habits, and dongle to misplace. The guide sorts Bluetooth and 2.4GHz by what they're actually good at rather than by which sounds more premium, and points readers toward matching the radio to the desk instead of the marketing copy.
Read it if a listing's "wireless" checkbox has ever mattered more to you than which wireless it actually was.
Ideas — a Class80 build where nothing works alone
Build of the week: the mission control desk, in Class80, Godspeed, and Box White
A Class80 board, a Godspeed keycap set, and a Box White switch read like three separate purchases on a parts list, but the piece makes the case that they're one decision made three times — the retro TKL sets the shape, the steel-blue-and-cream colorway gives it a era-appropriate face, and the clicky box-stem switch supplies the sound the other two are visually promising. Pull one part and the combination stops making sense.
Read it if you've ever bought parts that looked right together and sounded wrong.
Trends — the sensor caught up, the firmware didn't
Hardware caught up to Wooting. Firmware hasn't.
Wooting 80HE+ preorders are the top mover on this week's tracker, climbing from a score of 40 to 80 over eight weeks, but the piece argues the hardware isn't why. Hall-effect sensing is table stakes across the category by September 2026 — half a dozen brands ship it now — so the gap Wooting is actually trading on is software, and rivals still haven't closed it.
Read it if you've assumed rapid trigger is a hardware feature rather than a firmware one.
News — Keychron's first non-Hall-effect magnetic switch
Keychron launches Q16 HE 8K with ceramic-TMR magnetic switches
The Keychron Q16 HE 8K launched on Kickstarter with a ceramic-housed TMR switch and an 8000Hz polling claim bundled into one announcement — the first time the Q-series has bet on tunnel-magnetoresistance sensing instead of the Hall-effect tech Keychron already made the category default. It's a hedge against the same sensor everyone else just adopted.
Read it if you want to know why a brand would move off a standard it helped set.
Deep dive — the cheapest lever for adding give to a board
PCB flex cuts, explained: a flex budget milled straight into the board
No plate swap, no gasket, no case redesign — a flex cut is just a slot routed through the fiberglass near a switch hole, and it's the cheapest way a designer has to add give to a board that otherwise has none. The piece traces why that cheapness determines exactly where flex cuts show up in a lineup, and what they can't substitute for once a board's stiffness problem is bigger than one slot can fix.
Read it if you've felt a "soft" board and wondered whether the softness came from the plate, the case, or a cut you can't see.
Tracker check-in
Keychron holds the tracker's ceiling this week at a flat 100, up from 96 eight weeks ago, sustained less by any single launch than by the brand simply being everywhere — the Q16 HE 8K covered above, alongside broad lineup presence, keeps the row pinned at its top. Wooting is the week's real mover, up to 80 from 40 eight weeks back, and the climb is the same one behind this issue's Trends pick — the 80HE+ preorder, not any new sensor technology, since Hall effect stopped being a differentiator months ago. Split/Ergo layout sits at 99, up from 85 eight weeks ago and pressed against its own ceiling, on the strength of the Keychron x Yusha Kobo "Valkey Orb" split-trackball board announcement — a second Keychron-adjacent story doing work on a different row entirely. Cherry (MX + XTRFY) continues its slow climb out of the hole, up to 5 from -6 eight weeks ago after touching -25 mid-window, which reads as a real recovery in direction but not yet in territory — the brand line is still finding its floor, with no fresh catalyst behind the move.
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