Software

There is software support for the Drop CTRL, but not in the traditional sense since the open-source nature of the keyboard means the community can do whatever it wants through the Github repository. What it realistically means, however, is that unless you have one of the few extremely popular such open-source keyboards, things will end up a mess if the company doesn't have its own software as well. Drop is large enough a brand to work with Jack Humbert of QMK fame directly while influencing what goes into the loader itself. Seen above is also an online configurator that works as a first-party offering of sorts. This configurator unfortunately does not appear to have been updated much over the last couple of years; the roadmap is listed at the bottom of this article, but I don't think much of it will happen, unfortunately.

Between the "How to Configure" page and general maturity of QMK, using the online configurator itself is fairly simple. There are several options for the Drop CTRL, including creating up to 15 additional layers on top of the base one. The base (0) layer and layer 1 come pre-configured already, but the rest are blank canvases for customization as seen in the video above. Clicking on any of the keys pulls up a set of options split into four menus, of which macros are missing. This is one of the roadmap features I don't know will come to fruition. The LED section is alright, with a few static, dynamic, and reactive effects that can be configured on a per-key basis, multiple grouped keys, or even an entire bank of keys on the same effect.

Once any changes have been made, it is time to compile the configuration as the new keyboard firmware. The online configurator allows for a single button to both compile and download the firmware that needs to be flashed on to the keyboard. If you are more familiar with QMK, you can also make your own firmware file based on the QMK repository, with the CTRL folder found here. Then comes the rougher part, and one that will scare off some newcomers. There isn't an integrated Drop keyboard loader in QMK just yet, so you need to download the correct one for your OS (Windows, macOS, or Linux) on this page and then pull up the terminal to enter a couple of simple lines of code. I say simple, but even needing to pull up Command Prompt or PowerShell in Windows is more than the average user anticipates having to do with a keyboard. Clear enough instructions make this easy, but suffice it to say that user-friendliness is already not high with QMK keyboards, and the lack of a cohesive program to do it all adds to the entry barrier.

The lack of timely updates makes it worse in that any bugs in the setup may not be resolved in time, if at all. For example, I had an issue wherein some of the edge-mounted LEDs were reversed in pattern for static or dynamic lighting. Looking at the discussion section on the product page showed I was not the only one with said issue. I changed the pattern and re-flashed the firmware, which did solve it down the line with the same pattern, but there is little excuse for such an issue on a product that was released so long ago.