You don’t often see companies making their products open source, especially not intentionally. But it has happened every now and again, and recently, another brand has done the same. The company is Keychron, and it is making open source the designs of its mice and keyboards.
According to Notebookcheck, the company’s CEO made the announcement on Discord, which is an odd choice of avenue. But per the report, the exec said “we think that making production hardware files available is a meaningful contribution to the broader hardware and keyboard community”.
It’s certainly possible for modders to massively benefit from this. This could also potentially apply to anyone needing to deal with the repair of Keychron peripherals. The brand even specifically mentions helping the ecosystem grow. But beyond that, the company also claims that “it offers real educational value”. These are, after all, production-level designs, including info about “actual decisions around mounting systems, tolerances, and component integration”.
But ultimately, Keychron says that “it also reflects trust and transparency. Sharing internal design files signals confidence in the products and supports users as creators, not just customers”.
At any rate, these files, in STEP and DXF formats, can be obtained from its GitHub repository. The company names programs like FreeCAD, Onshape, Fusion360, SolidWorks, AutoCAD and DraftSight, as being able to open these files. Worth noting though that Keychron specifically says in its open source license that you can’t use these files for commercial gain.
Speaking of commercial, Keychron started its official presence in the local market back in 2023. It’s also among the notable peripheral makers to make keyboards with Hall Effect switches, which not only have a much longer lifespan than traditional mechanical switches, but also allows for analogue input.
(Source: Keychron [1], [2] via Notebookcheck)
