Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Still deep in my journey to find the ideal, but mainstream-priced mechanical keyboard, I came across the Dierya Kemove DK61. I read and watched as many reviews as I could find and I finally settled on the DK61 over other like versions of the same layout, such as the Poker 2, Pok3r, Anne Pro 2, Motospeed CK61, the generic brand GK61, and the Royal Kludge RK61. I settled on the Kemove DK61 due to two reasons: (1) the number of happy customers in the reviews, and (2) the driver software was a much improved version of the horrendous GK61 (apparently difficult to use and no ready user manuals with proper translation), while keeping the same price point (sub-$50). When I received the keyboard, I was pretty excited to try it out. The Good: The Gateron optical switches might be some of the highest quality switches I've probably ever used. I am still wondering where the other shoe drops for optical switches, but I am quite impressed with their performance thus far. I feel like the other reviewers keep reciting the same 'smooth' keyword when they try to describe the switches and I can't help, but agree. By 'smooth', I believe it means that key press is quite uniform throughout the entire depression until either the tactile (browns)/audible (blues) click of the switch and/or the clack of the key cap hitting the back plate. I didn't get any of the jarring feeling of the key caps rubbing up against the switch as some reviewers have mentioned, but perhaps I got lucky with my included key caps. I have encountered this issue with other budget-quality keyboards, so I'm not insensitive to their plight. By luck of the draw, this wasnt a factor for me and so I remain impressed by both the quality of the switches and the implementation on the board. The board itself feels high quality and has no obvious flex. There are no raised feet on the bottom of the board to change its height, but the back case is already sufficiently angled out of the box. The key caps are easy to remove, and the key switches are even easier. Since the switches are optical, there's no real need to worry about the pins at the bottom of each switch (there aren't any). The detachable USB-C cable is easy to connect without making eye contact with the port. Unfortunately, the port is located directly on the rear side of the keyboard instead of routed underneath. So while you still have the right-angled USB-C cable, it's a non-issue, but if you have to replace with a straight USB-C on the fly, it can be in the way. The PBT key caps feel quite nice and don't seem to have excess double-shot plastic inside that could cause the crunching key press sensation that other reviews mentioned. The key cap wire puller is much nicer than the cheap plastic pullers that most budget boards come with, while the key switch puller is still the cheap, hard to use, single piece of metal bent into a U-shape. Gets the job done, but can probably break the plastic contacts on the key switch when you remove them from the back plate. Use with caution. The Bad: I came in knowing about the microphone under the Spacebar, which reviewers had cited privacy concerns--some reviewers were wary of the keyboard's microphone, but dismissed their own concerns in good faith of the company. No one wants to believe that their computer peripherals are actually spying on them. Though I also thought to give Dierya Kemove some good faith, the only major reason why I dismissed this concern at first was due to the fact that the microphone can be soldered off with a bit of technical finesse if I was really worried. The LEDs lighting up following the ambient sound in the room (using the built-in microphone) is an interesting gimmick, but it's completely superfluous. I am not entirely sure why all clones/off-brands of the GK61 have this microphone just for this feature. The driver software is also still very bad. Though it is much improved if compared with the GK61 driver software, it still leaves quite a bit to be desired. Programming the board with the software is a bit tedious. Within the driver software, you will see two keyboards on the screen, the top keyboard is your keyboard and the second keyboard contains all the keys available (including keys not found on the 60% board). To reprogram a key, you click the key on the top keyboard that you want to reprogram, then you click the key on the bottom keyboard of what you want that top key to actually do. So if you wanted to replace Backspace with something like Delete. You'd click Backspace on the top keyboard, then click Del on the bottom keyboard. Somewhat straight-forward. However, inexplicably, the software developer decided that mouse hover-over was also a valid way of selecting the top key just like clicking. You can either click, or you can hover over, and most of the time, you are doing both simultaneously. So to program, I would have to do this strange game of hovering over the key I want to reprogram, then moving my mouse slowly to the bottom keyboard while avoid other top keyboard keys so I didn't accidentally select them via hover-over. Programming the lighting is also just as tedious because of the hover-over selection. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever got it to work. I don't understand what 'press light' means and it doesn't change any lighting when I press reprogrammed key. This is going to be a common pattern with anything involving the the driver software because you have to problem solve and figure out what the programmers meant when they created the interface. Be prepared for a lot of trial and error. Also note, that when you apply changes to your keyboard, you must wait until the 'Changes Applied' message appears at the bottom of the program, or else your changes will actually reset to their previous state if you do anything else. For example, if you try to 'Apply' then 'Save' before this message pops up, your changes will NOT apply nor save. The Ugly: This the most disconcerting aspect of this keyboard is the driver software. Even though I did have some very positive initial impressions of the keyboard itself, I found myself very concerned with the software that you need to access the keyboard's programmable features. As of this review, the version was v6.0.0.6, release on November 15, 2019. If they updated since then to remove the aspect I am about to mention, please let me know. Upon installing, there are two huge red flags for me. (1) The software launches itself on Windows start-up, without an option in-program to turn off this behavior nor did it ask for permission to do so. You can easily quit out of the program when it does launch, but my recommendation is that before you install the official drivers, make sure to look up how to disable any program's launch at start-up. While I won't go as far as to say that start-up programs are unsafe, but any program that does this without a reasonable in-program option to turn it off always makes me wary. Depending on your technical level, it is easy to do, but it should never come to this. Using the keyboard without the drivers is possible and even after programming the keyboard, the driver software is no longer needed as the changes persist. So why does this program have the need to launch at start-up? (2) The software phones home. Upon launching, the software asks to access through your firewall for an outbound connection. This is a huge red flag for any computer peripheral software that doesn't even have an option to manually check for updates. If you have this keyboard and installed its drivers, look for the entry for CMS.exe in your firewall-allowed programs. This is the .exe file for Dierya Kemove's software. There is no option in the software to check for updates manually or to restrict/deny checking for updates, so I feel very suspicious of this behavior. I even deleted the entry from the firewall to deny access to the internet, but the next time it launched, it asked for permission again (and Windows gives preliminary permission automatically even without user input). The only way to block its access to the internet is to create a custom outbound rule in the advanced settings of your firewall that blocks this program specifically. This behavior is pretty unacceptable to me and it should be for others. I have sent the drivers to Hybrid Analysis with SHA-256 hash: c03f58da177022dc93a0e92d2a4d0a9489d23b2a3e3fe584c5d282f4870389be. While online anti-virus scanners gave the software a pass, the Hybrid-Analysis (which installs the software on a virtual computer and records what the software does) marked the drivers with an 80/100 suspicious threat score due to its odd and highly suspect behavior. Long story, short: I cannot, in good conscience, recommend the keyboard with the drivers that send out data to someone in some place. While the keyboard itself works fine and build-quality exceeds expectations without the drivers in question, you lose half of its advertised features if you don't use the software. While I do realize I write critical reviews on keyboards with my high expectations (because I am looking for my ideal board), this keyboard is probably the only time I'd ever consider a strict 1-star based solely on its software aspect and not its hardware. If this keyboard is a must-have for you, then do yourself the favor of skipping the driver software unless you are a software engineer/hobbyist of some sort and can reverse engineer that hot mess. If I had more experience with other brand's 61-key boards and their drivers, I would easily recommend them over this brand for the time being. Please let me know if the drivers get updated and/or this outbound data situation is rectified. Software like this should always have the option to turn off their updater or whatever it is that is collecting and sending data over the internet--I should never have to block it from the firewall just to feel safe. I do hope it's just a simple misconception and paranoia on my part with a lot of false positives, but the Dierya Kemove software, as is, is quite terrifying.