Review: Wooting 80HE

Wooting was one of the first analog keyboard brands to break into the mainstream. When the original Wooting One TKL launched, it was a big deal—optical switch technology was still new to most people, and the idea of a keyboard with hyper-fast, adjustable key actuations was both novel and revolutionary at the time.

Later, when it debuted its Lekker Hall effect switch in the Wooting Two, it was one of the first companies to utilize the technology for gaming. Things ramped up in 2020 with the release of the Wooting 60HE: Wooting was taking preorders months in advance, the keyboard was reselling with massive markups, and Hall effect completely overshadowed optical switches as the next big thing.

Now, Hall effect keyboards are a dime a dozen. It kicked off an arms race, and Wooting's 60HE fell behind. But with the new Wooting 80HE, the company returned to the tenkeyless (TKL) layout of its first keyboard and made a keyboard that’s not only competitive but impressive. The 80HE has every feature I want in a Hall effect keyboard, without any of the mistakes I commonly see. It’s robust, reliable, and easy to repair.

The 80HE has two versions, one with a plastic case and the other with a zinc alloy. The plastic version retails for $200 and comes in opaque black or transparent gray. The zinc alloy model costs $290 and includes a carrying case. It comes in black or white. You can also get the keyboard in ANSI, ISO, and JIS layouts. I tested the zinc alloy case in black with a standard ANSI layout.

Fantastic Functionality

Photograph: Henri Robbins

For nearly every Hall effect keyboard I’ve reviewed, software has been a sore spot. They’ve been buggy, awkward, poorly designed, filled with advertisements, or just plain unintuitive. Even the best software I’ve tested, from Keychron, has minor issues with connectivity and setting functions.

This is where Wooting stands out. Its in-house app, Wootility, is great. It’s a simple, lightweight utility that provides extensive adjustments and customizations. It’s available both in-browser and as a downloadable executable, meaning you can access it anywhere and use it offline. More than that, every part of its design makes sense: The application is organized, easy to use, intuitive, and explains every setting. Plus, during my entire time using the browser version, I never ran into connectivity issues—the minute I hit “enter” for the URL, it recognized the keyboard. This isn’t the case for most in-browser keyboard utilities, which don’t always want to connect.

Even niche features like gamepad emulation worked flawlessly. I replicated the analog inputs of an Xbox controller’s stick and triggers without any hiccups or confusion, adjusting the settings on the fly and still maintaining keyboard inputs for unmapped keys. I even put down a half-decent lap time in Art of Rally after a bit of practice (and a few crashes).

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The keyboard performs perfectly—it’s snappy, responsive, and the factory switches return incredibly quickly after being pressed. It feels precise for movement, and I never encountered a situation where I outpaced it or had an input that didn’t register, even in high-speed games like Splitgate 2.

You can store up to four presets and switch between them using Fn+[number]. I used this to have separate maps for rapid trigger, standard typing, controller emulation, and Wooting’s high-speed “Tachyon Mode,” named after a hypothetical ultra-fast particle that travels faster than the speed of light. I found myself gaming almost exclusively with Tachyon Mode enabled, which disables animated RGB effects in exchange for an 8,000-Hz polling rate. The keyboard was still perfectly competent at the default 1,600 Hz with RGB fully functional, though, and the difference will ultimately be incredibly marginal for most users.

My largest gripe with this keyboard is a personal and pedantic one: I don’t like the layout. I get it—it’s better for most people. It cuts out some keys I’ve hardly used in my life while saving space. But I prefer the standard TKL layout. You get an extra Windows key in the bottom right corner, and the keyboard looks and feels more balanced. This certainly isn’t a deal-breaker, and I recognize that this won’t be an issue for most people, but I think it’s worth noting that this layout might not be preferable to a standard TKL for some.

Intuitive Assembly

Photograph: Henri Robbins

Cracking open this keyboard, it feels like Wooting listened to every complaint I’ve had about keyboards in the past. The 80HE is easy to take apart (although the tabs on the front of the case could stand to be easier to release), has a robust internal construction, and even has a diagram on the underside of the printed circuit board (PCB) that explains the components and what they do, a detail I appreciate.

Like many premium gaming keyboards, the 80HE uses a gasket-mount system to improve typing feel and sound. Most keyboards use foam or rubber gaskets that attach to either the plate or case using adhesive, but the 80HE’s gaskets are part of a solid rubber piece fitted between the plate and PCB, with protruding tabs of rubber compressed by the two halves of the case on either side. This functions as both a gasket and an additional piece of sound dampening, with the rubber piece filling in the space between the switches.

For the case, there are two options: Plastic or metal. The plastic case raises a few small concerns, such as its use of snap-together clips, and the metal case uses an unusual hinge method to come apart. While neither of these are huge issues compared to other keyboards with screws under adhesive feet or convoluted disassembly processes, they can still make disassembly mildly inconvenient and pose a small risk of breaking tabs when taking the keyboard apart if you aren’t careful.

The RGB lighting is bright and diffused well underneath all of the keys. Their coverage is extensive, with the spacebar even having multiple diodes underneath to fully spread the light across its underside. Customization is easy and intuitive, with the Wootility software allowing for multiple layers of RGB effects that can be stacked and organized on top of each other. While the animation options aren’t as diverse as what you'll find on a Razer keyboard, the lighting is still extensive and bright enough to be seen even in daylight.

The RGB light bar can be easily customized to show different animations and details. The strip of 10 LED lights can display simple RGB animations, mode indicators, and indicators for keypress depth and typing speed that fill from left to right.

Precise Typing

Photograph: Henri Robbins

While I enjoy the typing feel of the 80HE, it’s nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, and that’s perfectly fine. The design is robust, the gasket mount system feels good, and the switches are comfortable and simple. Overall, the typing experience is very utilitarian, neither lacking nor having any unnecessary flourishes.

The switches, Wooting’s Lekker V2 switch, are a Gateron-manufactured switch with a medium-weight 60-gram spring and a single-rail design. This means the rails on either side of the stem that guide the switch’s vertical movement are one large piece instead of two smaller ones. This theoretically makes keypresses less smooth, but the difference is hard to notice during regular use: These switches feel smooth even when pressed down slowly, and have a comfortable, yet fairly solid bottom-out at the end of the keypress. Their spring weight is comparable to a Cherry MX Red switch

The switches can be swapped out with first- and third-party Hall effect switches, including Wooting’s lighter Lekker V2 L45 switches, Geonworks’ multiple HE switches, and some Gateron HE switches like the Magnetic Jades. However, because there are differing standards for Hall effect switches, some models won’t work with the 80HE, including Keychron’s dual-rail Nebula switches (which, ironically, are also manufactured by Gateron).

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The gasket mount used by Wooting is relatively stiff, but still dampens sounds and reduces vibrations in typing—it just won’t have as strong of a “bouncing” sensation compared to gasket mounts from Keychron’s Q line. While typing doesn’t feel as “fun” on this keyboard, I can understand why Wooting opted for a stiffer gasket mount when every millimeter of keypress is important. Plus, the gasket mount system still accomplishes its other goal: creating a consistent typing feel across the entire keyboard without any unusually stiff or “dead” spots.

The stabilizers are some of the best I’ve seen in a keyboard from the factory. They’re screw-in, PCB-mounted stabilizers that come tuned and lubed, and they can easily be swapped out for any of the aftermarket PCB-mount stabilizers available today. Most mechanical keyboards use plate-mount stabilizers from the factory, which tend to be less stable and more prone to rattling over time, so Wooting opting for the more premium option is great to see.

Unlike most keyboards with metal cases, the 80HE allows for adjustments to typing height. This is done through three sets of removable rubber feet that sit at 2.8, 6, and 10 degrees. I prefer this to the usual flip-out plastic feet on other keyboards, since it preserves the keyboard’s typing sound and looks a lot cleaner.

The 80HE is one of the few keyboards I’ve used that's great for high-speed gaming while maintaining a solid typing feel and sound. On top of that, the software is simple and intuitive to use, and the design actively encourages customization and modification. It doesn’t do anything wrong. While it does miss out on some comforts like wireless connectivity and a softer typing feel, the tradeoff of 8,000-Hz polling and more precise inputs makes those exclusions feel justified.