Software

Software support for the LUMINKEY Magger68 Pro comes in the form of the so-called LUMINKEY app, which can be downloaded via Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive links found on this page. You will also see a firmware updater tool for the version you have, which differs only for the switches, that are calibrated differently owing to their different travel pathways. I found a firmware update from just a few days ago, as of the date I write this review, and it took less than a minute to get it done even if the lack of English was mildly frustrating. The drivers themselves install via an executable file that is 43 MB in size, and the latest version at the time of testing was v1.0.1.8. The installation process itself is fairly standard, with the program taking ~70 MB of space and being light on system resources.


At this point I am convinced the LUMINKEY Magger68 and Varmilo Muse65 are made by the same OEM, and both share the same base software drivers too which are then re-skinned for these brands. This means that you can probably just skip on doing the firmware update yourself and let this program do it for you, as was the case with the Varmilo version earlier. We don't get themes to choose here as we saw there, although I will say the default skin here is quite clean and highly legible. Unfortunately, the program continues to have poor display scaling, especially past 1080p, and it does not respond well with OS scaling either. I had to have my 4K display running at 1080p/1440p to pull up the program in a large enough size before going back to 4K while keeping the program at its larger real estate. There is no maximize option here either, although at this point I was able to use the program quite easily and at least appreciate everything seemed to be working as promised.

After the firmware update, I was prompted to calibrate every single key first before you can make full use of the software and the keyboard itself. This involves you pressing down and holding the keys for a period of time, often pressing down multiple times, before the keys turn green to indicate a successful calibration. You can do so quickly by doing this for multiple switches simultaneously, and I was done in a minute. Changing switches will result in the same procedure, this is so the drivers know the full extent of travel allowed by the exact switches used. The LEDs won't be active on the uncalibrated switches as a visual indicator too. The video above goes through the various features available with the software program now that all the switches are ready to go, and this includes the usual assortment of key mapping, macros, and lighting effects on a per-key basis. Using that color wheel to get the exact color desired is easier said than done though, and you are better off using the R/G/B values in the text boxes underneath. Then we get to the HE features, including the ability to choose the actuation distance in tiny 0.02 mm increments from 0.1 to 3.30 mm for these specific switches. This can be done on a per-key basis, in addition to enabling rapid trigger, deadzones on the top or bottom, and even.. Tachyon mode. Between this and the user interface to select the keys, and also the names of the advanced functions, LUMINKEY seems to be shamelessly trying to mimic Wooting software features as much as they can without being extremely blatant about it. RS is clearly Rappy Snappy, MT is Mod Tap, TGL is Toggle, and DKS is Dynamic Keystroke. SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions) has become a generic enough term now to describe that feature set allowing monitoring of different functions, including opposing ones, to where LUMINKEY at least decided to name it as much and not, say, ST for Snappy Tappy. We still don't get anywhere near the extensive customization offered by Wootility, but LUMINKEY would do better by simply calling all this something else and not trying to mimic another brand.