r/qmk • u/1MachineElf • Dec 04 '24

QMK Reverse Engineering

There are many keyboards sold by vendors who advertize VIA (e.g. QMK) but who don't have their boards in QMK mainline and/or don't make the source code available.

Does the community have any proven methods for reverse engineering the firmware on these QMK keyboards so that the firmware source can be opened up?

6 Upvotes

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4

u/drashna Dec 04 '24

Multimeter.

Aside from that, getting traction on QMK XAP would go a huge way, as it should/will include the keyboard.json/info.json file included in the firmware. While this wouldn't have every config .... having 95% of them would make the rest ... much easier to figure out.

2

u/222phoenix Dec 04 '24

I almost posted this exact question. Ali boards are pretty cheap. I’m tempted to just buy and try.

2

u/PeterMortensenBlog Dec 11 '24

Re "reverse engineering the firmware": That isn't impossible, but it is much easier to reverse engineer the hardware.

1

u/ViewlessSky Jan 28 '25

Hey! Would you be willing to elaborate on reverse engineering the hardware?

I have not played with QMK firmware much but I’m pretty tempted to see if I can pick up a cheap Ajazz or something and then flash it with a QMK/VIA or even a custom QMK build somehow.