Driver

There is no driver for the Kinesis Gaming Freestyle Edge in that you do not need to have an x86 program installed and running to enable software configuration. However, Kinesis did one better and bundled in an application with the keyboard itself! Now you know what that 4 MB of onboard memory is for. Get used to the SmartSet button (one of the four buttons in the top-left corner of the right half) as it will become your new best friend when working with this keyboard. There is a virtual drive (called v-Drive) that can be accessed by using SmartSet + F8. Once done, your computer will configure the keyboard and allow you to access a new folder called "FS EDGE". Shown above is a screenshot of the folder with four folders in it, as well as the SmartSet App, which is the configurator in question. it scales very well with your display's resolutions and OS scaling alike and even has a full window option, which just leaves an empty space in the middle as seen above.


There are a lot of other things you can do here even before we get to the SmartSet App. The firmware folder has the current firmware, and this is where you update the keyboard's firmware as well. If you have a text editor open, SmartSet + F7 generates a status report in your text editor, and out of the box, the firmware version was 1.0.64 (for this US varient). I had changed the lighting via onboard controls already, but otherwise, the last line would read 5 (brightness level) instead of 9. Navigating to this page, I found out that a firmware update was available, and there was a change log as well. Instructions on how to update the firmware are located on that page and in the 19-page manual, and updating the keyboard's firmware was a piece of cake with a second status report confirming that the new firmware had been applied.

The SmartSet App is one of the more user friendly configurators I have used even though everything is crammed into a single page. Part of this has to do with there being a logical separation of tasks, and the help cues that appear when the mouse cursor hovers over them. The manual, which is included in v-Drive's help folder, also goes over everything in detail, and there is even a YouTube tutorial Kinesis Gaming created. The right side of the page has the general settings and backlighting controls. The former set allows you to load the layout from among a total of nine saved onboard, create or edit layouts, and assign them to one of nine available slots, and even change the speed for macros as well as the status report, which does seem overkill. The lighting control section has a wheel with ten steps (0%–100%), including off and two other options, Pitch Black, where the indicator LEDs also turn off, and Breathing, which is self-explanatory since it initiates breathing mode.

Key mapping and remapping allows you to configure every single key, which activates a second layer. In fact, every single layout of the nine available has dual layers thus—the top layer that is as you would expect and the Fn layer that works without having to press Fn each time. You can use an already programmed key or one of the eight blank keys in the so-called Game Bank. There are special actions that can be assigned, as seen in the video above, and macros you simply type into the box at the bottom and save are available as well. There are a total of three macros that can be assigned per button with the use of modifiers that trigger it, which opens up more options. I ended up using the Game Bank keys for functions I used on the right half of the keyboard during gaming or casual use to where I was able to get by with just the left half and the mouse alongside it more often than not.

The new firmware allows you to add delays to macros, which is one thing that is still missing in the SmartSet App. Adding delays to macros, along with a lot of other options, is currently only possible by manually changing the layout and settings files. These text files are available under the respectively named folders in v-Drive, as seen above, and are the basis for direct programming. The layout folder has nine text files named for the nine layouts and will appear empty if no changes have been made. Changes you make to the layout via custom remaps and/or macros will appear in the layout's respective text file. The syntax and position token map is described in the 19-page manual. While this is not something I expect the keyboard's target customer to use, it is great to see companies allow for such options should someone prefer it over the onboard controls or SmartSet App configurations, so there are no complaints on including it from me.