Driver

At the time of this review, there is a separate firmware updating tool for the Das Keyboard 5Q that can be found here, alongside its relevant changelogs. The latest version at the time of testing was downloaded (~5 MB in size) and run with the keyboard connected, which in turn detected the current firmware version and updated it if need be. This process was straightforward; however, the actual tool did not support high DPI displays and took up a tiny fraction of my 4K monitor. It was also not integrated within the actual driver, although the company said that this is on their list of things to do sooner rather than later.


The driver for the Das Keyboard 5Q is q-Desktop app and can be found here, along with more information and relevant changelogs for the versions available. The latest version at the time of testing was 2.0.2, which had just released after a week of testing the previous 2.0.1 version, and the installation for both is identical, so I did not bother to record it again. The installer is 112 MB in size, and its installation process is fairly straightforward, as seen above. The final package takes up approximately the same amount of room on your storage drive. Once installed, it will prompt you to open the program, and it is best to have the keyboard connected before opening it.


Opening it for the first time with the keyboard connected, a welcome screen pops up with an embedded YouTube video tutorial (which you can see here). You can close the pop-up and choose to never see it again as well, following either of which then leads to a screen with a small preview of the keyboard. There are two keyboards from the company that are cloud connected and supported by the driver (update: Das Keyboard just announced a third such keyboard in the second half of October), so this is where you get to choose which keyboard to control if you have both. Clicking on the preview takes you to a log-in screen for Q-Cloud, which you can also skip to then head over to a larger screen specific to the Das Keyboard 5Q itself.

The dashboard, and driver as a whole, is in need of a lot of user-experience improvements. I had a long discussion with the company about this, and they concede that there are things that need to be improved. At the time of launch, they prioritized having features first over polishing the driver, which is understandable, but still leaves users with a less-than-satisfactory experience. As it is, some things are straightforward, and this includes the user accounts and settings menus as seen in the video above. I recommend registering for an account to make the most of the cloud-connected features here, although you will still be able to use the keyboard by itself even without the driver installed, and you can also browse over the available options first before delving deeper with an account. There is a forum, and multiple web pages are dedicated to these cloud features, especially with the recently introduced Q Command Center functionality.

This cloud-based connectivity is the unique selling point of all Das Keyboard Q series keyboards, including the flagship 5Q. Think of IOT devices and how you control them, if that is something you have already done, and using the keyboard with this in mind becomes easier. Get used to dealing with signals and applets a lot, especially as it pertains to IFTTT (If This, Then That) functions that allow you to set specific programs to specific keys on the keyboard. Want a key to light up in a color to tell you it is time for an appointment? Sure, there's an applet for that. How about email notifications while gaming? That works too. Das Keyboard has made available a lot of such applets to browse through and access, and works with developers to add in more by the day. This is the crux of things, however, as it can quickly become a vicious cycle of too few customers prompting little interest from developers, which in turn results in lower sales of the keyboard. Having more than one such connected keyboard at differing price points does help, but at the time of testing, I did notice that user participation in the forum was low despite Kickstarter backers having received the keyboard long before general retail availability. It is a good thing then that configuring applets of your own is fairly easy if you have some IFTTT experience already.

There is a separate section for lighting control, which at this time comprises predominantly of some preset static and dynamic lighting effects. Das Keyboard has added in customization options to go along with software profiles that can be associated with programs, and there is a good tutorial on this here if you are interested. This section is especially guilty of engineering taking precedence over the user interface, with some option markings and names not being intuitive to the average consumer.


The aforementioned Q Command Center was a recent addition, and one big enough to where I updated the driver and re-tested the keyboard for it. Once more, Das Keyboard provides a tutorial video that goes over it in more detail, but the basic gist is that this makes interaction and control of smart devices from the keyboard easier than before. Instead of just getting notifications on when, say, a smart bulb turned on or off, you can now press a button on the keyboard and actually turn it on or off by simply creating a command rather than relying entirely on a long IFTTT applet. There is currently support for a variety of smart thermostats and lights supporting IFTTT. To be clear, this could have been done without the command center via longer routes, but this addition allows for a simpler 2-step process, and I think we can all agree that a simpler way to deal with cloud connectivity is the only way to get more people interested in the product and process alike.