Keychron Announces First Open-Source Firmware for Gaming Mice
Keychron has unveiled ZGM, a groundbreaking open-source firmware designed specifically for gaming mice. Scheduled for release in early 2027 on the G6 HE model, this project aims to bring the customization and transparency of QMK and ZMK to the mouse market. By allowing users to modify firmware directly without background software, Keychron challenges the industry norm of locked-down peripherals and invites community collaboration.
Keyboards have QMK. They have ZMK. Mice have… nothing.
- jchw
A bit ago I accidentally bought a Keychron keyboard that didn't have QMK support, but then found that someone had ported it anyway, and I was able to flash it and fix some problems I had (the main one being that it seems like the default firmware only scans a single row of keys while asleep, possibly to save energy, but I want any keypress to wake the computer.) Maybe it's not perfect, but the community around open source keyboard firmware is great, it's a good example of how open source is beneficial for end users, especially power users.
And, in an era where vendor software and firmware for all kinds of devices is constantly having vulnerabilities, it is possible the liability of doing custom shit will eventually outweigh whatever benefits hardware companies seem to think it has, versus just having industry standards and free software instead. But, maybe that is wishful thinking.
My only complaint with Keychron is that of 5 or so keyboards I've owned from them I wound up having to resolder 3 different hotswap sockets on 2 different keyboards right out of the box. That is... Not a fantastic failure rate. OTOH, they are otherwise an unambiguously great value, with materials and build quality that feels pretty impressive for the cost, QC issues notwithstanding.
- fn-mote
Announces != releases.
They claim 2027 Q1 will be the release date.
Links below purporting to be “the repository” lead to a repo with no source code.
Sorry, I’m cynical. An announcement 6-9 months ahead of release? Why? Right now it’s vaporware.
- MayeulC
Hmm, I have a mouse and trackballs from ploopy, they run QMK, so why was a new project needed? What is the added value?
To me, the missing feature in the QMK ecosystem is a devices too device communication channel. For now there is only caps lock & others: it would be nice to activate a mouse layer (for instance: increase DPI) to a keyboard key.
It is probably solvable if a heavyweight was to push for new HID descriptors or something similar.
- jerlam
This would be more exciting if Keychron had mice of more interesting / experimental form factors and functionality. Just like their keyboards, their mice are mostly differentiated by obscure technical features (polling rates!).
I'm a bit worried that a decent, modern replacement for the extremely obsolete multi-button mouse I have now (Logitech G602) will never be available.
- DemiGuru
For those that are interested:
- Pet_Ant
I hope they make a wired one. Ideally with a detachable USB-C for when the cat eventually chews on it.
- nijave
Hopefully better than their QMK fork. They force push over their branch in their fork each new release effectively erasing history of the last version...
Of course there's no change log anywhere either...
- deepthaw
It took me three hours to figure out how to blacklist my Keychron keyboard from showing up as a joystick - and screwing up several games that thought they were receiving constant joystick input - in Linux, so I'm not sure how keen I am on using their stuff in the future. Is that a common issue in Linux?