part · board

Bakeneko65

Spec sheet

Layout: 65
Case material: aluminum
Mount style: gasket
Hotswap: yes
Wireless: no
Released: Jan 8, 2022

Cast-aluminum 65% with an o-ring gasket mount, FR4 plate, and a hotswap QMK/VIA PCB. CannonKeys' evergreen budget pick at $150; the board most often recommended as a first custom.

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Mentioned in 3 articles

Centered vendor hub — a plum-filled keyboard-shaped node with an inner diamond mark — in the upper-mid canvas, with five arrows fanning out beneath it to a low arc of five product-variant board silhouettes (each a small rounded-rect keyboard outline with faint key-dot rows and tiny config-tag lines beneath); a single plum sparkline rises left-to-right along the bottom of the canvas, peaking at the right edge with a focal dot.

Trends

When customs became vendor-first

From 2018 through 2022 the typical custom shipped through one host vendor and a fan of regional proxies; by 2026 the baseline custom is a configurator on a vendor's own storefront. Boards moved. Keycap group buys mostly didn't.

thockMay 4, 20265 min read

Trends

The split/ergo cohort grew up

Split and ergonomic boards spent a decade as a hobbyist sub-cohort orbiting a stagger-majority. By 2026 the Voyager line, the Glove80, and a steady trickle of r/mk transition posts have pushed split/ergo across a visibility threshold — still a minority, but now a reference category instead of a footnote.

thockMay 2, 20265 min read

Trends

How 75 percent became the default custom layout

Two years ago a custom-board recommendation defaulted to 65% with a polite note about 75% as the next step up. The Sonnet 2026 refresh, the QK75, and a crowded mid-tier have flipped that order. 75% is now the layout customs reach for first.

thockApr 24, 20265 min read

Bakeneko65 appears in editor-curated build sheets.

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