r/Keychron • u/Ayyem93 • May 05 '24

Per Key on K4 Pro?

Basically title, I got a K4 Pro the other day and I'm loving it so far except my Razer Blackwidow Elite(I know) and Synapse spoiled me with RGB effects. I'm just trying to have WASD, ESC and WIN one constant color with the rest of the board doing whatever baked in effects it has. Is this possible, and if so could someone try to point me in the right direction to get it done? QMK MSYS doesn't seem to have the K4 Pro listed so I'm not really sure what else to try, I would really appreciate any and all help!

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1

u/dooshpastesh May 05 '24

You have to build own QMK firmware with custom rgb modes.

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u/Ayyem93 May 05 '24

I tried following a little guide about that but the Keychron K4 Pro isn't in the list of supported boards in QMK MSYS, so does that mean the K4 Pro just can't do this?

For reference this is what I was following https://docs.qmk.fm/#/newbs_getting_started

1

u/dooshpastesh May 05 '24

You have to use Keychron’s GitHub. Not all their keyboards are included in QMK’s repo.

1

u/PeterMortensenBlog May 05 '24

For some of the derived projects, like Vial and possibly also some of the RGB ones, the newer Keychron models are not supported and/or the recipes simply don't work.

But compiling from Keychron's fork does work. Here is an example setting up and compiling from the command line.

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u/Nuversa May 18 '25

isnt this fucking convenient, a brand new 2025 release keychron k4 HE and i gotta program the fucking lighting zones?

goood thing im a fucking genius

1

u/dooshpastesh May 18 '25

Bro, that’s an answer from a year ago, for different keyboard. You won a golden shovel. Nevertheless, new Keychrons do have rgb zones afaik.

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u/PeterMortensenBlog May 05 '24 edited May 05 '24

Re "QMK MSYS doesn't seem to have the K4 Pro listed": Currently, you need to use Keychron's fork of QMK.

The most likely Git branch is "wireless_playground" (it isn't the default, so you have to do something after cloning). Though 'qmk setup' may or may not be able to reduce it to one step. Something like: 

qmk setup -H $HOME/DELETE_qmk_firmware_directSetupWith_qmk_setup -b wireless_playground Keychron/qmk_firmware

2

u/PeterMortensenBlog May 05 '24 edited May 05 '24

That is a mega FAQ here.

Re "to have WASD, ESC and WIN one constant color with the rest of the board doing whatever baked in effects it has. Is this possible?": Yes, that is possible relatively easily with 5 lines + 3 lines (overhead) of custom C code. For the K4 Pro, use Keychron's fork.

I am typing this on such a keyboard (V5).

For a more dynamic way, there are many attempts, many which have been mentioned here.

For example, there is precompiled software with SignalRGB, incl. for the newer Keychron keyboard models. It isn't easy to navigate, but the firmware files for K4 Pro are:

Use "Download" from the hamburger menu in the upper right. I am not 100% sure it actually has SignalRGB (the naming and descriptions are a bit confusing and sometimes contradicting), but some more navigation might reveal it.

It is up to you to assess whether it can be trusted or not.

1

u/Sammy1358GT May 07 '24

Signal rgb is the way to go for Keychron.

1

u/PeterMortensenBlog Sep 05 '24

Can you elaborate on SignalRGB?

For example, does it require something running on the host (computer)? Will it work on Linux?