Asus mechanical keyboard uses 312 mini LEDs to display animation

Asus announced the Asus ROG Strix Flare II Animate Mechanical Keyboard at CES this week. It has many of the trendiest features of today’s premium gaming keyboards, including ultra-high polling rates. But it’s the programmable LEDs that really make it stand out – and no, I’m not talking about the RGB keys.

ROG Strix Flare II Animate is a full-sized keyboard with multimedia keys. The media keys of most keyboards are located on the right side above the number pad. Asus’ programmable metal keyboard volume control and hotkeys are on the left side. The space above the number pad is instead reserved for the so-called “AniMe LED Matrix Display”.

The AniMe Matrix consists of 312 mini LEDs that you can program with software to display your own images or animations. You can also set the mini LEDs to respond to sounds coming from your game, or to display indicators for battery life, keyboard brightness, or the current keyboard RGB lighting mode.

According to Asus, you can also customize the display to show email notifications as well as the time and date.

Asus has been adding mini LEDs to unexpected products for some time now. It all started at CES 2020 when Asus unveiled the ROG Zephyrus G14 with a customizable mini LED array on the lid. Asus has since incorporated this technology into additional gaming laptops and most recently into the Asus ROG Delta S Animate gaming headset. However, the ROG Strix Flare II Animate is the most nifty peripheral considering it has three times as many mini-LEDs as the headset.

Of course, these are not the only LEDs on the keyboard. The Asus ROG Strix Flare II Animate has programmable RGB LEDs under each key. A foam wrist rest that attaches to the keyboard with magnets allows you to add a light diffuser that runs around the bottom, reminiscent of the options on some of Razer’s most expensive gaming keyboards.

But while Razer’s wrist rests have their own dedicated lights, you’ll need to remove the diffuser from the bottom edge of the Asus keyboard and attach it to the wrist rest to light it up. Razer makes it easy to use the illuminated wrist rest. Asus does this as a chore.

Light aside, Asus’ clicky mouse takes things to the extreme, even if it’s a gaming-focused product.

8000Hz polling rate and other luxuries

2021 was the year of the Hertz, with more and more peripherals boasting extreme polling numbers. It looks like this trend will continue in 2022 as the ROG Strix Flare II Animate and its non-animated counterpart, the ROG Strix Flare II (also announced today), will feature 8000Hz polling rates.

Most keyboards have a 1000Hz polling rate, which means they report to the connected computer up to 1000 times per second. ROG Strix Flare II keyboards report up to 8000 times per second, resulting in a total input lag of 0.125ms (1/8ms) compared to 1ms for a 1000Hz keyboard. The new 8000Hz keyboards will join the likes of the 2021 Razer Huntsman V2 and Corsair’s K70 RGB TKL and K65 RGB Mini.

Big numbers might seem exciting, but chances are you haven’t noticed that the keyboard is lagging behind your fingers. Unless the keyboard is completely substandard or has a poor wireless connection, most people will say that standard keyboards don’t cause noticeable lag. When I tested the Huntsman V2 at 8000Hz, I couldn’t find any difference between 8000Hz and 1000Hz games. It seems that 8000Hz keyboards are the solution in search of a problem.

However, ROG Strix Flare II Animate has more to offer. The keyboards are made of high quality PBT plastic, and the writing on them will not fade. The switches are linear red, blue, and tactile brown, but they’re also hot swappable, so you can easily turn them off.

Sound absorbing foam is supposed to make the keyboard quieter with less ping, so we’ll keep our ears open. Every key is also programmable, including macro recording, and you get a USB pass-through port.

Price and release date

All this is prohibitively expensive, even by the standards of a mechanical gaming keyboard. The ROG Strix Flare II Animate will be priced at $220 when it goes on sale later this month.

If that’s too expensive for you, the ROG Strix Flare II, which doesn’t have an animated matrix, hot-swappable switches, or a wrist-rest diffuser, costs a little under $180. It will also arrive at the end of January.