This killer translucent keyboard kit is on sale for $95

By The Verge | Created at 2024-11-26 18:12:11 | Updated at 2024-11-26 20:40:57 2 hours ago
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The Omnikeys Bauer Lite, one of my favorite keyboards of the year, is down to just $95 ($25 off) this week as part of Omnitype’s ongoing Black Friday sale. I paid full price for mine earlier this year, and it was a steal. It feels great to type on, it has a great layout, it’s customizable and fun to build, and it’s colorful. What’s not to love?

A translucent blue keyboard with grey keycaps, on a white background.A translucent blue keyboard with grey keycaps, on a white background.

The Bauer Lite is a 65 percent, gasket-mounted wired mechanical keyboard kit that comes in nine translucent variants (plus opaque off-white). You’ll need to supply switches, stabilizers, and keycaps, and it has neither wireless support nor backlighting, but it’s a fantastic deal for the customizability, type feel, and looks.

The Bauer Lite has a plastic case that comes in a bunch of fantastic translucent colors, from clear to atomic purple to bright blue, seafoam, coral, dark red, and my personal favorite: neon orange. This is great news if your brain, like mine, can sometimes be tricked into feeling a little happier by a jolt of fluorescent color.

It comes as a barebones kit, which means you need to supply your own keycaps, switches, and stabilizers, so your actual build will cost more than $95. You also have to put it together yourself, but that’s easy enough, and the kit comes with a comprehensive instruction manual. I used Durock stabilizers and Kailh Deep Sea Silent Islet linear switches on my build, both of which I recommend.

The Bauer Lite does not have lighting (RGB or otherwise) or wireless connectivity. It also only comes in a 65 percent layout, with or without split backspace, and with 1.5u bottom-row modifiers and a 7u spacebar, so make sure your keycaps include those keys.

Omnitype also has a bunch of keycap sets on sale this week, as well as deskmats and a supplies bundle that’s useful (but not essential) for building the Bauer and other boards.

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