Lighting and Performance

The Wooting two HE supports N-key rollover USB out of the box, which tested successfully using Aqua's test. If needed, N-key rollover USB can be turned off in Wootility. Switch Hitter confirmed no chatter with these keys either, and shows this is indeed a full-size keyboard with all the associated keys on a standard US ANSI keyboard. As per usual, the Menu key is replaced by the Fn key. We also have four extra keys at the top-right corner which default to A1, A2, A3, and Mode to switch from the digital profile to any of the three analog profiles, but only the ABS keycap set includes these keycaps. As such, given I went with the PBT keycap set, I used four other keycaps for those. Be aware of this if you also find yourself preferring the PBT keycap set.


Above are some of the available lighting effects available over both onboard controls and software, with full 16.8 M RGB per-key lighting put to good use. I mentioned that the LEDs here are more to identify the active profile and perhaps certain keys that may be mapped to controller functions, but that has not stopped Wooting from adding a few static, dynamic, and reactive effects. These include a Lekker static effect I particularly like since it also helps test for white color fidelity. I was happy to see a pretty accurate white. Another of those effects also helped test for light bleed, of which there was hardly any despite the floating keycaps courtesy the dark frame and keycaps with a matte finish throughout. The Wooting two HE is also not the brightest keyboard out there, which shows all the more with vibrant dynamic effects, so it's not a keyboard to get if all you want is a light show on your desk.


We now get to why everyone is here and considering the Wooting two HE. The past few pages have gone over the new Lekker Hall effect switches in more detail, where a magnetic sensor system detects the travel of the stem as it is pressed down. This is very different from relying on a laser and prism system, as was the case with optical switches of the first-generation Wooting analog keyboards, and it results in a much larger range of detection. Indeed, the Lekker Linear 60 used here is a full-size switch conforming to the Cherry MX design, with a total travel of 4.0 mm, and Wooting rates the customizable actuation range at 0.1 to 4.0 mm—a whopping 97.5% of the full travel range! The contact-free actuation means the switch stem does not hit anything moving up or down either, although some lubed linear switches can still feel smoother. The reset position of the switch can also be set to be near-instantaneous after actuation, which makes this one of the fastest switches in existence. Even purely using the Wooting two HE as a digital keyboard with a single discrete actuation point, I appreciated the linear feedback curve courtesy the spring with a peak force of 60 gf—hence the 60 in the name—at 4.0 mm. If there were something I would have liked different, it is a heavier spring for users to better make use of the more advanced features, such as D.K.S., in addition to getting accustomed to the 0–100% analog range in ~3.9 mm of travel; I used 2.5–3 mm at most in the 4–6 weeks I tested this keyboard.


With the switches accounted for in theory, I now had to test how the analog control worked in practice. I simply mapped the common Xbox controller functions to analog profile 1 and used a generic controller tester available online—in fact, the very same I used with the Wooting one five years ago. Suffice it to say that with some practice, you can do well with the analog 3.9 mm range, and do map out the functions at points where it makes sense to you. Simultaneously having controller and keyboard functions is huge when it works properly, but it ultimately depends a lot on the in-game controller implementation. In 2022, most Steam releases have native Xbox controller support, as do Windows 10 and 11. It's a far more conducive environment than five years ago, where Wooting had a list of games they had validated with the Wooting one. Indeed, it's now more a case of the keyboard working than not, and typical use cases are racing games where finer steps of movement are so handy for precise driving. Third-person games are another common genre of interest, and there's an active Discord community to discuss your findings and share analog profiles.


As always, the sound of a keyboard is based on more than just the switch type. So when comparing sound clips, consider the keyboard as a whole. In this case, I have provided above an example sound clip of me typing on the Wooting two HE keyboard sample at ~90 WPM as it comes out of the box with the Lekker Linear 60 switches. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with linear switches. Do listen to the typing demo for the Wooting one, which helps illustrate the differences to the switches and sound-absorbing foam here. The rest of the materials are similar enough for a good comparison. I treated the Wooting two HE as I would for typing and did bottom out more often than not. The foam sheet greatly reduces any reverberations, and the primary sound signature is from the switches bottoming out on the aluminium frame. This is also not as high-pitched as I thought it would be. It sounds reassuringly solid, especially if you come from having used, say, Cherry MX Red switches on keyboards with a mostly empty case and steel plate.