Bluetooth connectivity and wireless USB dongles. A 80% tenkeyless layout with an advanced thumb cluster. An integrated rubber palm rest. A gorgeous OLED display. The largest batteries of any split keyboard. Riser 80 for high-angle tenting. Say hi to the UHK 80!
We plan to start shipping in late November, so don’t delay; pre-order yours today! It's first come, first served. Please note, however, that depending on the number of pre-orders, delivering all keyboards may take weeks or months. See the “delivery timeline” section at the end of this post.
Let's dive into what makes the UHK 80 truly special.
Layout and switches
The UHK 80 layout is based on the UHK 60 layout with two significant changes.
We went from a 60% layout to an 80% tenkeyless layout, so Escape, F1 to F12, and a navigation cluster were added. Thanks to the new floating key design, the outer edges of the UHK 60 are not present, making the UHK 80 more space-efficient, so it’s only 25 mm or 1 inch wider than the UHK 60. The double-left and double-right keys above the left and right keys jump left and right by word by default. Consequently, the right Shift and Control became smaller by 1U, which is still comfortable to reach.
We increased the number of thumb keys to eight. All the top four thumb keys utilize 1.5U convex keycaps. As for the bottom thumb keys, instead of the two mouse-like microswitches beneath the UHK 60 case buttons, we now use four Kailh Choc v2 switches with ergonomically shaped keycaps, providing maximum thumb comfort.
We only use backlight-friendly double-shot PBT keycaps for all layouts. The legends are easily readable even when the backlight is disabled.
When purchasing a UHK 80, only the MX switch type is choosable, and the Choc switch type will be provided accordingly:
- Choc brown (tactile) for regular brown, box brown, and silent brown
- Choc blue (clicky) for regular blue and box white
- Choc red (linear) for regular red, box red, and silent pink
If you want a different Choc switch type, you can purchase one from our webshop and swap it.
Connectivity options
The UHK 80 has several connectivity options. Like its predecessor UHK 60, you can connect it using USB-C (or USB-A via the provided adapter). In addition, it also supports wireless connectivity with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and UHK USB dongles. Up to 20 wireless devices can be paired to the UHK 80.
For wired connections, both halves of the UHK 80 have USB-C ports. Currently, only the right USB port is usable for host connections, but both will be equally usable after a later firmware upgrade. You will also be able to connect the USB ports to different hosts and switch between them. Unlike the UHK 60, the USB ports are not in small compartments, and can be accessed easily.
You can purchase the UHK 80 with or without batteries included. Regardless, every UHK 80 supports wireless connectivity.
The spiral cable is no longer required. If it’s not connected, the halves communicate wirelessly. If it’s connected, it’s used for communication and charging between the halves.
The spiral cable is now made of polyurethane, no longer braided, and we removed undesirable extra twist with a reversal of the pinout. These changes enhance elasticity, improve the aesthetics when connected, and maximize the extended length to 45 cm or 1.5 feet. The modifed pinout, however, makes it incompatible with the UHK 60.
Integrated palm rests
Many of our customers said that the palm rest is ergonomically essential, so we integrated a rubber palm rest into the UHK 80.
This design allows for a slightly slimmer form factor and provides great value since the price of the keyboard includes the palm rest instead of requiring a separate purchase. This palm rest has a similar feel to the UHK 60 rubber palm rest. No wooden option will be provided.
The OLED display
The segment LED display of the UHK 60 has served us well, but I felt it was time for a big upgrade and replaced it with a gorgeous 2.08-inch 256x64-pixel 16 grayscale OLED display.
Given the UHK 80's many features, there’s plenty of useful information to display. In the top bar, from left to right, you can see the connection status of the keyboard halves, the state of Caps Lock and Num Lock, and the batteries' charge level. The keymap name is featured in the middle of the display, followed by the name of the current host connection at the bottom.
Riser 80
Four hot-swappable feet are provided with the UHK 80, allowing about 5 degrees of tenting, positive and negative tilting. If you want to use a higher angle, you can purchase a Riser 80.
Riser 80 allows for adjustable tenting at precise 5-degree increments, ranging from 10 to 60 degrees, and boasts the same robustness and quick folding/unfolding design as Riser 60. As a bonus, it’s now slightly lower and has thumb screws allowing for toolless assembly.
Given that the right keyboard half is wider than the left, it makes sense to set a lower angle for the right Riser half than the left half so the height of the keycaps is more even. I recommend 20 degrees for the left half and 15 degrees for the right half.
Wireless USB dongle
The UHK Dongle can be separately purchased if you want wireless USB connectivity. It plugs into USB-A or USB-C (using the provided adapter). You can purchase multiple dongles, pair them to your UHK 80, and use them to switch between many hosts.
You want a dongle either if you intend to use your UHK 80 wirelessly with some of your hosts that don’t support BLE or if the responsiveness of BLE doesn’t satisfy you. BLE works great, but mouse movement is noticeably more responsive and smoother via the dongle.
Batteries
To my knowledge, the UHK 80 has the largest batteries of all the split keyboards. The left half features a 3500 mAh LiPo battery, and the right has a monstrous 5000 mAh battery. The larger battery is justified in the right half because it has proportionally more LEDs.
If you’re on the road and want to maximize your battery time, you better disable the LEDs, as they’re huge power hogs. In this case, the batteries should last about a month.
If you set the LEDs to maximum brightness and no LED timeout, your UHK will only last a day.
The batteries are easily replaceable; we’ll provide them separately on our webshop. The replacement procedure requires no tools and takes about five minutes.
The UHK 80 supports 3A fast charging. To max out the charging speed, use two USB cables, one for each half. If you’re not in a hurry, one USB cable and the spiral cable are sufficient.
Full hardware reconfigurability
Some keyboards offer many product options, but require you to choose well at the time of purchase because you're stuck forever with what you chose. That's not the case with the UHK 80: you can upgrade and change product options as your needs evolve.
If you always use your UHK 80 with your PC, don't choose the “include batteries” product option because batteries cost extra, are harmful to the environment, and only last about 2-3 years. If your life situation changes, you can buy them separately, and voila, your UHK will run off batteries.
The same flexibility applies to every other product option, such as case color. You can even change from an ANSI layout to an ISO layout and vice versa. Given the hot-swap sockets, changing switches (even Choc switches) is a no-brainer, as are keycaps.
Agent and firmware status
Agent already works great with the UHK 80 and all the modules.
You can go to the Configuration screen, select your UHK 60 and migrate your configuration to your UHK 80 with a single click. Agent will add default mappings for the extra keys not present on your UHK 60.
I’ve been using my UHK 80 for over a month, and it already works great via USB, BLE, and the dongle. However, there are still bugs and missing features. We’re still working on switching host connections via keys. A bug causes a random key to be virtually held until another key is pressed daily. Battery percentage readings are inaccurate, and there are a few other small bugs. The firmware and Agent progress has been phenomenal, and I expect us to fix the most pressing issues in some weeks or months.
When UHK 80 delivery starts, at the latest, I’ll merge the private UHK 80 firmware and Agent repos, migrate their issues to the official public repos, and release new firmware and Agent versions supporting the UHK 80. All our code will be in the open, and upcoming releases will continue to support the UHK 60.
Tester testimonials
Here are some opinions from our testers about the UHK 80:
“The UHK80 is everything I loved about my UHK60, but now with more features and more keys! Even as a heavy user of layers and macros, the additional keys is a very welcome addition, allowing me to surface more to my base layer and continue down the rabbit hole of optimizing my workflow with hardware-bound automation. The integrated wrist rest, wireless halves, OLED screen, and added 2.4 GHz/Bluetooth connectivity make this an even more significant upgrade over my UHK60v2 and handily takes its title as my all time favorite keyboard.” - Zetaphor
"The UHK80 is a triumph! The build quality is so high that it takes a leap above the venerable UHK60, which was my benchmark for a professional developer’s keyboard. Having the extra keys on the bottom of the keyboard that are in the thumb-zone are so useful! And having an extra row of function keys is great for coding. There are so many premium touches, such as the OLED panel and smaller Shift key sizes. Having the option to get custom keycaps from YUZU is one more way you can make this keyboard yours!" - Nazmul Idris, R3BL CEO & Engineer
“The new UHK-80 is a game-changer for enthusiasts and professionals alike. Having owned, modded and loved the original UHK v1 until this day, I was thrilled to see the evolution in this latest model. The standout feature for me is its true wireless capability, which is a significant improvement over my previous BT-500 wireless mod. The keyboard connects seamlessly via Bluetooth and/or RF, and the two halves themselves are now truly wireless. The build quality is exceptional, and the upgraded display is a significant step up, making it easy to see necessary information at a glance while giving the keyboard a more premium look. While it retains the beloved modules of its predecessor, the addition of extra thumb keys is a welcome enhancement. Hats off to László and the Ultimate Gadget Laboratories team for their meticulous craftsmanship and evident passion. This keyboard is not just an upgrade; it’s a solid improvement in every way.” - Roger
"I thought the UHK60v2 was perfect, but the UHK80 really surprised me. I'm wheelchair bound, so I have to constantly shift my sitting position. With all the new connection options, extra keys, and the ability to pair the halves wirelessly, I can sit as wonky as I want and the UHK80 can move with me." - Phil (pcooke9)
“The UHK 80 is by far the best keyboard I have ever used. I liked the previous UHK designs, but I always missed the function keys. Now they are back, and the new form factor is significantly more pleasant to type on. I also like the fact that I can now use the keyboard wirelessly — with each half being completely independent!” - Jan
Delivery timeline
The UHK 80 is already FCC and CE-certified, the plastic and rubber molds produce nearly production-grade components, and we’ve purchased almost every part for 1,000 keyboards. Very few components are missing: Currently, only the batteries are in transit. Our PCBA contractor is refining the stencil to assemble more PCBs, and our molding contractor will make more cases.
Given our on-demand manufacturing operation, the assembly procedure is the bottleneck. We can assemble hundreds of keyboards weekly, which is usually sufficient, except when our webshop is inundated by orders, as hopefully will be the case now.
Depending on the number of orders, it can take weeks or months for us to complete the orders. If justified, we will hire contractors to speed up assembly. Ordering more parts in time won’t be a problem.
Once UHK 80 delivery starts, which is expected in late November, every order, including UHK 60 orders, will be put into the same fulfillment queue, so UHK 60 orders won’t ship in a week as they currently do.
I’ll update the delivery status page weekly and write monthly updates about our progress.
What about the UHK 60?
The UHK 60 and its accessories and spare parts are here to stay. We plan to upgrade it eventually, but not anytime soon.
Thanks, and closing words
There you have it, the UHK 80! If you have made it this far, we salute you!
As you can see, the UHK 80 is not an evolutionary, incremental upgrade like the UHK 60 v2 was but rather revolutionary, and it’s taken a lot of work to develop it.
Karel, Robi, and Benedek, thank you for developing the UHK firmware and Agent! Most people wouldn’t believe that three part-time developers are sufficient for this task unless they’re as excellent and dedicated as you. Seeing your constant progress and spotless work ethic puts a smile on my face.
Max, Jan, Gary, Roger, Nazmul, Nadia, Phillip, and Peter, thank you for testing the UHK 80! Your feedback has helped us tremendously in discovering and fixing numerous bugs. Thanks to you, UHK 80 customers will have a much more pleasant experience.
Last but definitely not least, a huge thanks to our wonderful customers! You’ve been supporting us from the get-go throughout the years. Thanks for your support, believing in us, and all the kind words and encouragement you provided. It may sound cliche, but you’re the very reason the UHK exists, and we can pursue our passion.
Thanks for reading this long announcement! Talk to you in a month!