Introduction

Bloody Gaming is a brand owned and operated by A4Tech, a PC hardware company established in Taiwan in 1987 who has had a relatively small presence globally until now. With the PC gaming peripherals market proving to be one of the most profitable sectors for the DIY market, A4Tech wanted a piece of the pie and recently established the Bloody brand with an emphasis on optical switches. Today, we take a look at their new B840 keyboard with LK2 Blue optical switches.



What are optical switches, you ask? Contrary to mechanical switches, which have moving parts built into the switch which when pressed down actuate a keystroke, an optical switch depends on the interruption (or continuation) of an optical signal to register a keystroke. Bloody introduced this function in their Lightstrike technology two years ago, with a linear switch that interrupts an infrared light signal as seen here:


The animation above depicts a linear switch, which is what Bloody was operating with for optical switches so far as the very operating principle requires the switches to travel up and down linearly. However popular linear switches are, some people still prefer those with tactile or clicky feedback. Bloody came up with a solution that integrates metal knobs on the outside that, when the switch is actuated, travel to hit the switch's wall for a clicky sound. When the switch travels back up, the leaves move back to their normal positions. This is part of their new lightstrike LK2 technology featured in a switch they aptly call the LK2 Blue.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

Bloody adopted a two-piece packaging for the B840 keyboard - an outer sleeve for aesthetics with print and an inner cardboard box that has the actual keyboard inside. We see an illustration of the keyboard along with its salient marketing features on the front and back, with a seal and double flap on either end to help keep the packaging in check. It comes in at 202 (L) x 521 (W) x 49 (H) mm in case you were curious about whether or not it would fit into your mailbox. There is no getting away from that logo, however, as it has been plastered all over the place.


Open the box and you see the keyboard itself in a bubble wrap envelope, surrounded by thick foam pieces to ensure you get the product in perfect condition. Beneath the keyboard are the accessories - a small instructions manual, which guides you toward the use of a gaming mode, and a set of replaceable silicone rubber keycaps and a keycap puller. Bloody has included Q-W-E-R and A-S-D-F keycaps here, and these have an orange color to them, with a ribbed finish to aid with grip. The legends are doubleshot, meaning you will not wear them out anytime soon, which leads me to suspect that the default keycaps are doubleshot also. Let's now move on to the next page to figure out whether such is the case.