Awekeys has officially revealed a shine-through version of its metal keycaps, this time for full-height MX-style switches, and the launch will run as a Kickstarter campaign. Nothing is on sale yet: the announcement covers the design, the kit sizes, the colours and the eventual pricing.
Quick specs:
- Recycled cupronickel alloy, full-height MX stem
- Kickstarter kits at $169 for 83 keys, $199 for 98 keys and $229 for 116 keys
- Stated MSRPs after the campaign rise to $269, $319 and $369
- Six colours: gold, copper, silver, titanium black, obsidian black and a glow-in-the-dark neon variant
- Brushed and satin finishes, though not every finish is likely to be offered in every colour
- OEM profile rather than Cherry, with ISO and ANSI layouts covered
The shine-through bit
The legends are lit by a plastic light pipe inside each cap, the same trick as a light guide on an opaque switch. That gets lit legends without cutting a window through the metal. Placement is the trade-off: the legends sit on the north side of the caps, which suits north-facing RGB. Most enthusiast boards now put their LEDs south-facing so Cherry profile caps do not clip, so Awekeys is reading this as a gamer product rather than a builder product. That is the coverage line rather than something a hands-on test has confirmed.
The catch:
The price. A 116-key set at $229 costs more than a lot of complete keyboards, and the claimed post-campaign MSRP of $369 is custom-build money. There is no Kickstarter date yet, and no detail on which colour and finish pairings carry a premium, though the earlier low-profile set charged extra for some combinations. The material has its own catch: cupronickel caps are heavy, which is fine on a solid aluminium board and less fine on a plastic tray-mount case.
Where it sits: a good double-shot PBT set runs $40 to $80, the all-metal low-profile set from the same company reached Kickstarter in February 2026, and the shine-through design was first shown as a tease in May.
Would you back a metal shine-through set at these prices, or would that money go toward a whole new keyboard?