As my ~10 year old Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 key caps were wearing off and the palm rest was blistering, it was time for a replacement. I wanted an ergonomic mechanical keyboard with tilting for less than $200. Unfortunately, the pickings are slim with those requirements. Basically, my options were the Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB Plus and Kinesis mWave.
I went with the Freestyle because of the customization and the ability to easily replace key caps, switches, and wrist wrests for longevity. There was also on sale on the refurbished version plus ($159) and 15% off promo code (ARANYA). Shipping was an additional $15.
Unboxing
- Shipping box was nice and thick. It was a tight fit in the width and depth so damage in the wrong spot could have been bad. There were some packing peanuts to keep the inner box from moving vertically.
- Thin brown cardboard box was underwhelming with just some black logos and a sticker with the model number
- Inside that was a thicker brown cardboard holder for the keyboard and accessories
- In the box
- Fully assembled keyboard with wrist rests and tilt kit installed
- USB-A to USB-C adapter (a nice touch for compatibility)
- Key cap/switch puller
- Mac modifier key caps
- Quick Start Guide
- Glossy card with review/tech support info
First Impressions
- Included USB-A to USB-C adapter is a nice touch for compatibility
- Keyboard has a nice weight to it and a solid feel despite the plastic construction
- Wrist rests are plush and super soft
- Braided cords feel great, but they are a little stiff
- Unfortunately they aren't detachable/replaceable
- It would be nice if there was more space to wind up the cord connecting the 2 halves
- LEDs are very bright
- A single key press to turn on/off the backlight is very convenient
- Pressing the keys sound and feel good
- The Gateron Pro Brown tactile keys felt pretty linear to me with little to no feedback. I had to double check the packaging and pulled a key cap to ensure that they were in fact brown
Initial Setup
- 10 degrees of tilt feels about right for me
- Snapping together the two parts of the lift kit to enable 10 and 15 degree tilt took more effort than I expected
- This means that switching between 10 and 15 is easy, but to go down to 5, you need to unsnap them
- Factory Reset
- Held SmartSet + F12 when plugging in the keyboard for the first time
- The indicators on the top right flashed 4 times and then the keyboard started up
- Firmware Update
- Downloaded keyboard firmware and lighting firmware from: https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-edge-rgb-support/#firmware
- Mounted the V-Drive (keyboard storage)
- SmartSet + F8
- Unzipped and renamed to UPDATE.upd and UPDATE_L.upd and placed in the Keyboard's firmware folder
- Ejected the keyboard storage via Safely Remove Hardware
- Unmounted the keyboard storage
- SmartSet + F8
- Installed the keyboard firmware
- SmartSet + Shift + U
- Waited for firmware to install and keyboard to reboot (~20 seconds)
- Installed the lighting firmware
- SmartSet + Shift + R
- Waited for firmware to install and keyboard to reboot(~20 seconds)
Customization
- Setup the app
- Downloaded the Kinesis SmartSet App: https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-edge-rgb-support/#smartset
- Extacted the executable to the "Tools" folder on my desktop
- Launching the app
- Mounted the V-Drive
- SmartSet + F8
- Launched the app from the Tools folder
- Clicked "Configure" on the picture of my keyboard
- Began customizing the lighting
- There doesn't seem to be an easy way to lower the brightness of the keys
- What I ended up doing was just changing each of the 3 RGB values from 255 to 64 to reduce the overall brightness
- At some point during this, the app froze and the keyboard stopped responding
Troubleshooting
- Initial efforts
- Tried unplugging and re-plugging in the keyboard, but it still wouldn't respond
- Tried the factory reset, which would flash the indicator lights, but wouldn't respond after that
- Tried rebooting the PC
- Tried leaving the keyboard unplugged for several minutes
- Tried leaving the keyboard plugged in for several minutes
- Tried with and without the USB-A to USB-C adapter
- All with no luck
- Looked at the Kinesis website for additional troubleshooting steps
- Created a ticket with Kinesis support
- Googled the issue and found a Reddit thread with some additional things to try
- What worked for me
- Held SmartSet + Right Spacebar when plugging in the keyboard got the basic keyboard functions working
- SmartSet + Ctrl + Shift + F to format the keyboard
- Waited for the previous step to complete
- Unplugged and plugged the keyboard back in
- Mounted the V-Drive
- SmartSet + F8
- Opened up "This PC" and renamed the removable storage to "FS EDGE RGB"
- Ejected the keyboard storage via Safely Remove Hardware
- Unmounted the V-Drive
- SmartSet + F8
- Unplugged and plugged the keyboard back in
- It began working like normal so I went back to customizing the lighting
Overall Thoughts
I am happy with my purchase because of the following:
- the flexibility to put the keyboards at any angle that I want
- the sound and feel of typing on it
- one keypress to turn the backlights on and off
- the extensive customizability
- near instant switching with my KVM
The only nitpicks that I have are the lack of brightness control and the right spacebar makes a different noise then the other keys when pressing on the left side.
Appendix
Sources
- https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-edge-rgb-support/#trouble
- https://www.reddit.com/r/kinesisadvantage/comments/1dce5mz/help_with_freestyle_edge_rgb_is_it_broken/
Official troubleshooting response:
If that doesn’t seem to work, try a Rescue Command. This will force the keyboard to ignore the v-drive on boot, and if it works after doing the command, it will indicate corruption in the V-Drive. Unplug the keyboard, hold [SmartSet+RightSpaceBar], plug in the keyboard, release [SmartSet+RightSpaceBar] after a second or so, give it a moment. Test.
If it works normally after a rescue command, it is recommended you reformat the V-Drive. See below:
1. Perform the rescue command.
2. Perform the self-format command, [SmartSet+shift+ctrl+f]. Give it about 20 seconds to complete
3. Unplug the keyboard, plug it back in
4. Mount the V-Drive, rename it to “FS EDGE RGB”
5. Make any desired programming changes, save
6. Eject the V-Drive, dismount.
7. Done! Test. 😊
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