Summary
- Keychron Lemokey P1 HE is a mash-up of successful predecessors, offering smooth magnetic switches, a roomy layout, and improved shine-through keycaps.
- Magnetic switches and Hall effect sensors in the Lemokey P1 HE offer advantages when gaming and improved durability over mechanical switches.
- The Lemokey P1 HE also introduces changes like north-facing RGB, unique keycap color schemes, and an upgrade to Bluetooth 5.2.
Sometimes you don’t know how much you want something until you see it. This is how I feel about the Keychron Lemokey P1 HE, a Hall Effect gaming keyboard that popped up at CES 2025.
A Mash-Up of Two Excellent Keyboards
My excitement for the Keychron Lemokey P1 HE stems from having extensively used the two 2024 keyboards that it’s mashing up.
The Keychron Lemokey P1 Pro is its mechanical switch forebear and currently my personal keyboard of choice. In my review, I noted how its aluminum body was a work of futuristic art, and that it was faultlessly comfortable to use. I also loved the banana switches on my model, but I’d soon get a taste of something even better.
When the Keychron K2 HE rolled around late last year, I was enamored by the smoothness and versatility of its magnetic switches. I lauded this spin on Keychron’s most popular keyboard for the customization afforded by its Hall Effect sensors that allowed for actuation point tweaking down to 0.1-millimeter margins.
This enabled a suite of fancy gaming features, including a dynamic rapid trigger, assigning up to four actions to one key press, and an accurate—if slightly awkward in practice—simulation of analog sticks and triggers.
My major gripe with the K2 HE was that it felt a bit cramped for my big hands, even though the magnetic switches were a joy to type on. This ultimately led me back to the Lemokey P1 Pro, but now the Keychron Lemokey P1 HE lets me have the best of both worlds!
Lemokey Finally Gets the Hall Effect
It only makes sense that Keychron would introduce Hall effect sensors to its Lemokey line of gaming keyboards, given that the tech’s main appeal is its gameplay-altering potential. After all, it gained modern popularity as a means of eliminating joystick drift.
However, I would’ve expected the company to make HE variations of its more developed Lemokey L series first. I’m glad it turned out otherwise as the P1 Pro’s 75% tenkeyless form factor is a far less cumbersome experience for gaming unless you need macro buttons (I don’t).
Alongside the previously stated gaming features that the Hall Effect makes possible, it’s worth noting that these sensors and magnetic switches far outlast mechanical switches. To put it in the words of How-To Geek’s Goran Damnjanovic, “Most HE switches are rated for 100 million keystrokes because they register input in a contactless fashion instead of relying on two metal leaves that have to touch.”
So, on paper, Keychron’s HE initiative has them making even more durable products.
Other New Features Are Good, but Questions Remain
The Keychron Lemokey P1 HE has exciting changes to its predecessor beyond its switches and sensors.
The most immediately striking are its shine-through keycaps. The poor RGB implementation of the Lemokey P1 Pro was one of that keyboard’s few flaws, and while I can’t say just how much better these new keycaps will make this, this is a promising upgrade.
The swap from south-facing to north-facing RGB has a big part to play in this. It will likely result in a more convincing color-washing effect, but sometimes north-facing LEDs can physically collide with Cherry profile keycaps like those the Lemokey P1 HE has. I’ll need to try it to see how Keychron works around this, and it may turn out to be a non-issue.
I’m also glad to see Keychron experimenting with its keycap color schemes as the uniform ones across most of its boards were long past stale. The yellow-accented ESC key is a nice bit of flair, though I will admit these accents don’t extend to other aspects of the keyboard, like the Enter key. It’s a small complaint at the end of the day, especially with the hot-swappable nature of the keyboard.
One final small quality-of-life update is the jump from Bluetooth 5.1 to 5.2. It’s nice to have, though I don’t think many people buying this keyboard will be using Bluetooth or would even see a difference if they did.
I’m excited to try out the Keychron Lemokey P1 HE as soon as humanly possible. I wasn’t at all expecting it to exist, but now that it does, it’s become one of my most coveted pieces of tech in 2025.
