UHK80 Left Half Lag/Freezes

Hi, received my UHK80 yesterday and I am excited to put it up against by UHK60v1.

I have flashed 12.3.0 firmware and have been having many issues. My config is default with a couple of extra macros to try and switch devices/usb/dongle. The tests below were all done with the right half connected to a Macbook over USB. Some I see are common from reading the forum and Github issues but the most concerning one at the moment is the left half sometimes has lag or freezes.

  • When getting up to speed typing, left half characters would sometimes be slighly delayed, so “the” would end up being “hte”.
  • Lag seems to be worst with the bridge cable connected, it gets a bit better with it disconnected.
  • I’ve had the right half just reset and go back to the boot/default layout

I’ve been resetting the left half, waiting then reconnecting the bridge cable and it will be fine for a while. I’ve linked to some videos below showing the issue.

https://imgur.com/a/mW0qPuo

  1. Left half just locked up.
  2. Reset left half and its working but laggy (similar to what was happening before it locked up)
  3. Reset left half again and its working well now.

I’m taking it to work today and will try to take more detailed notes about this issue.

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When this happens to me in Windows, I disconnect the bridge cable, and reset the right half. Then it works fine with or without the bridge cable. That will resolve the scrambled output 100% of the time for me (until something causes the board to reset on its own again).

I can also intentionally induce the scrambled output by resetting the right half when the bridge cable is connected.

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Putting my uhk80 back in the box and going back to my old keyboard. I cannot afford the reduction in productivity that comes with this keyboard.

I’m surprised by how much various issues affect some because I’ve been using my UHK 80 for months, and it’s been quite stable and fit for daily use. Some circumstances must cause some issues to occur frequently. We’re happy to extend the return window until these issues are fixed.

Do you want us to record anywhere any events that may trigger it?
For example for me the two major episodes today were after powering on my machine (with the built in keyboard and then switching to UHK80). And then a text message arrived (phone 20-30cm from keyboard) sent the left side into a tail spin.

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Yes, please; any such information can be useful.

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after a productive day on the UHK60 I just borked the left side of the UHK80 when on the spiral cable again.
Attempted to save a new macro to keyboard but had a mistake in the syntax of the macro.
Now even after saving the corrected macro the left side, when using the spiral cable, is laggy and freezes.

totally unusable with the spiral cable but okay with no spiral cable (always wired to the mac)

The keyboard eventually recovered after (i don’t know what).
I cannot replicate using the above though.

Interestingly after the first occurrence there was a ear piercing high pitched sound from the left side which didn’t happen on the attempts to replicate.

I used it for a full work day yesterday, connected to a Windows machine over USB and I had no lag or freezing issues (USB + Bridge Cable).

I did pair a second UHK dongle with the keyboard first but had the keyboard keep cycling between Disconnected and Dongle (I disconnected the USB cable after I paired the dongle to the keyboard). I then disconnected the dongle from my PC and went back to USB. I never tried using Bluetooth.

I greatly appreciate this. I’m quite hopeful that these connection issues are firmware-basd and that you will able to sort them soon.

From my experience so far (~4hrs and counting), the lag issues are only present when using the Bridge Cable. When the two halves are directly connected without the bridge cable, they indicate they are using the wireless connection.

There are some minor hiccups with modifier keys syncing across the halves without the bridge cable, but when the bridge cable is in play, the lag is on the order of a full second.

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Interesting. That’s similar to what I would see occasionally yesterday.

Today at work I’ve got the UHK80 connected via the dongle. Initially I went full wireless (No USB and no bridge cable). I hit the reset button on each side just to be sure everything was starting “fresh”.

It seemed to be working fine, but keystrokes from the left side would occasionally be delayed.

I’ve connected the bridge cable (so running wireless from PC to UHK via dongle but bridge cable between two halves) and it has been fine for the last hour.

The last bit of the video is interesting… Starting at 1min
Why did the delay resolve when you removed the bridge cable from the right side? You’d think it wouldn’t make a difference since it was already disconnected from the left half…

Bizarre

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@pcooke Nice observation!

My pinging strategy is pretty naive - it looks like random interference is interpretted as a valid ping, therefore the right half switches between uart and nus… …which in turn with a looong 2 second timeout results in the above lags.

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Glad my insomnia could be useful. :woozy_face:

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Yeah, this actually reminds me of the interference issues of the early UHK60’s. Also, interesting side note: When the two halves are connected, the icon on the display continues to indicate wireless mode.

I’m currently using the dongle. After sitting idle overnight, my left half is now increasingly laggy. It misses keystrokes or lags just enough to transpose characters. (I type around 120wpm on a qwerty keyboard.)

As a sample:
A quick rown fox jumped over hte lzy do.

Quick follow up:
With USB connected to the right half, the lag is significantly reduced.
A quick brown fox jumpd over the lazy dogs.

Both of those sample sentences above are exactly as they came out of the keyboard when I try to type at my natural, comfortable speed.

If you mean with both halves physically connected (non-split mode), the UHK80’s halves don’t communicate or transfer power over the pogo pins when in joined mode (unlike the UHK60). I’m pretty sure the pogo pins on the UHK80 are mostly just for module use.

Also, the left half’s keystroke output isn’t transmitted to the host over its (left half’s) USB, but rather via bridge cable or wireless communication to the right half, and then to the host through the right half’s USB/BLE/Dongle. The left half’s USB is mostly just for charging and flashing firmware, etc…

So regardless of the halves being connected to each other physically, via usb, dongle, or BLE, they should always communicate to each other via wireless when the bridge cable is disconnected.

I didn’t know the pogo pins weren’t used on the 80. I know there’s no way the keyboard is going up the cable to the host and back to the other half.

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Sorry I was editing my comment when you replied :sweat_smile:

Of course, I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant the left half doesn’t communicate to the host independently over USB. :melting_face:

Remove “mostly”. The pogo pins on the UHK80 are only used to communicate with modules.

Communication between the halves is either via the spiral cable, or wirelessly. The right half then processes keymaps, macros, layers etc. and reports the resulting keystrokes (scancodes) to the host over either USB, Dongle, or Bluetooth (BLE).

The USB port on the left half is currently only used for charging, and firmware updates.

Power to the left half can also be supplied from the right half via the spiral cable.

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I thought I saw somewhere in the promotional materials that the left side word in time be able to communicate with a host over USB.

That is planned, but not implemented yet.