Nice Video!! kinda bugs me taht “” is off centered compared to your logo haha
Great review, even though it was disappointing verdict! I’ve been keeping an eye on these new hall effect boards ever since XMIT got on board. I have a bamboo 60% from the 1st rd. of XMIT branded boards & pretty much came to the same conclusion on it as you did here. Overpriced & underwhelming to say the least. Although at this point it is a damn shame as APT has plenty of time & feedback to improve these.
From the looks of your review unit they put all their efforts into improving the cases, PCBs, & RGB lighting. All which did have room to improve, but were secondary problems to the switches themselves IMO. In their current form I can only see them being accepted by consumers in a bargain bin sub $50 board. At $200 they are really pushing towards the death of this revival. Personally I think they need to take the switches themselves back to the drawing board. If they’d come up with a self contained unit along the lines of the original Honeywell HE switches I think they could be improved to the point that even us enthusiasts will accept them. In their current form they dead in the water.
I did everything I could think of to make the switches on my rd.1 XMIT board feel even just decent, but no luck. They are just too cheaply made for lube or any mods to have a great effect on them. I mean it is almost insulting they have them in a board that cost $200 & it’s gonna put a huge dent in their reputation (or outright kill the product line completely) if they keep plodding along with the switches in their current form. They got a good ideal but need to execute it much better. That said now I’m wondering why XMIT is no longer involved with them?
MassDrop burning bridges, is my understanding.
I bought the round one XMIT too. The OG springs had a hair trigger. They were the lightest linear I’d ever felt. If you know my tastes, you can imagine the horror.
My son swapped the springs, they’re still too light, but don’t activate on a sneeze like they used to. These boards are more a curiosity than anything else.
I’m not sure who they’re aiming this product at. I think the word is pretty much out on them. With XMIT squeezed out, I don’t have any confidence in the product getting much better.
Xmit went on record on the MD Discussions stating that MD went around him in negotiations. A bit unfortunate that his factory also didn’t have any loyalty to him at the same time. I don’t know if @XMIT wants to add anything to this.
Agreed, I was definitely behind the project when he was involved. Although hearing that I think I’m gonna steer clear of APT for now. I’d say MD too, but they always manage to rope me back in with the key cap sets. 
Yeah I said what I had to say on the MD thread. Feel free to link to it here.
I never for a second thought the manufacturer would be loyal. Quite the opposite, I realized early on that they were getting me to do their design work for them. I am more disappointed in Massdrop, and particularly with Yanbo. He means well but he seems relatively weak within the organization.
We had a kid - our third - in February. So I’ve been taking a bit of an extended leave from serious keyboard work to help at home. It was extra awesome that all this crap with MD went down while I was basically on paternity leave. Great timing.
I’ve been in talks with some folks on a next generation Hall based board.
Was it MD going around you to the factory, or the factory going around you to MD? Just curious, as I always thought that the factory approached MD (still bad, but not as bad as the other way around)
Hey! I bought round 1 of your boards, one of the acrylic ones. Ended up selling it because with the mould inconsistencies, keycaps kept falling off, but it was a gorgeous board and I was looking forward to further revisions. Shame things ended up the way they did but I’m not surprised given MDs reputation.
One thing that I always wondered about: Chyros reviewed the ace pad hall effect, twice I believe, and he seemed to come away with a really favorable impression of the board. Do you think the company just chose the nicest, least iffy boards to send him for review? I was surprised because he’ll pan a product if he thinks its not good, and the Ace Pad seemed to have a lot of problems with manufacturing quality control
Awesome question I’d like to know a guess at from you if you don’t mind @XMIT . I was pretty shocked Chyros kinda liked them also!
Honestly to me it’s surprisingly that he liked it. I mean I like the concept, but as I stated in my review it’s just a horrid execution that focused more on the looks of the board than the switch itself.
Did the factory send it to chyro? Did chyro buy it from the factory? Was MD involved in that? I mean maybe my questions here could be a form of speculation and inferred conclusions, but this is definitely a curiosity to me. I genuinely think these switches are horrid and have yet to meet a person who truly thinks that these are good (or even decent) switches.
I just went back to check the videos. The first he video he did was for the linear Ace Pad Hall Effect switch, and yes the factory sent him 2 boards: one of the old ones, and one of the ones they updated after the XMIT drop. The second video was for the clicky and tactile versions of the switches, but he didn’t say where he got them from. Since he is usually upfront about disclosing which videos are sponsored, I think that means the factory did not send them to him.
The Ace Pad Hall effect switches also made it to his top 5 linear switch list, and (if I am remembering correctly), one of the ace pad switches also made his top worst sounding switch list. It’s kind of crazy to me, actually, because the switches that I had were very mid. They sounded terrible and they weren’t especially smooth either.
A documentary of XMIT’s relationship with APT:
Ho ho ho! Happy thread revival!
I address some of the topics discussed here in today’s update to the XMIT Keyboards Web site:
What an amazing Round 2 Design document! I’ll definitely be giving this a thorough read very soon 
I bought the round 2 tactile switches and I’m really excited for the idea of hall effect switches, but I’m afraid due to the single manufacturer and poor support we may never see them wholesale again.