The DOT Foundation is a beautiful keyboard if youβre looking for this specific aesthetic, however there are a few areas that are missed opportunities especially for the price point.
Performance: relatively quiet keyboard with a lot of built in sound dampening, Bluetooth and USB C works well (I didnβt test the 2.4GHz)
Design: Gorgeous color way and transparent frosted design. Case doesnβt sound hollow. They clearly put a lot of work into all the design elements including color-matched silicone gaskets, case silicone, customized switches, silicone feet, cable, dust brush etc, in addition to the keycaps and case. The packaging and unboxing were gorgeous and custom as well.
Stablizers. They are plate mounted with some of the worst ticking and rattling on the space bar Iβve ever experienced short of being on a bargain basement blue switch gift with PC purchase keyboard from a big box store. The backspace was mushy & overlubed with globs of lube on the PCB that needed to be cleaned off. The space bar stabs had some lube from the factory, but it was gritty or chunky and clearly not doing its intended job. I ended up removing both the backspace and space bar stabs to clean, wire balance, and relube them (no enter or left shift stabs since those are 1.75u on this keyboard). The stabs feel ok at best now, but I might buy a 3rd party set to replace them - they are that bad.
Switches: The other area that could be improved are the linear switches which are a custom version of the Gateron Baby Raccoon switches noted on the Lofree website, but are just called Foundation switches on the Epomaker website in a colorway that matches this keyboard. I have a set of the actual Baby Raccoons as comparison point, and these Foundation switches are definitely a lighter actuation weight. They also have a significant amount of stem wobble, which when paired with the tall custom keycaps on this keyboard, gives the whole keyboard a rather loose or slightly rattly typing feel. They didnβt include any extra switches, and since these are a custom and not sold standalone on the market as far as I am aware, and this keyboard has only one color RBG (warm white) with translucent plate, case, and keycaps, whatever switch you use will definitely impact the look of the RGB. If any switches fail in the future, youβd have to replace with a different switch type which will likely not be an exact color match and that will impact the look of the RGB and make it inconsistent with adjacent keys. I have seen sub-$100 prebuilt keyboards include 2-3 extra switches, so it feels really off that Lofree wouldnβt include a few extras here for a $200 keyboard.
RBG - pretty limited in terms of effects; only has 1 color (warm white)
LEDs - north facing so you may run into inference issues if you try to use cherry profile keycaps on this kb.
Feet - the color match is a nice touch, it would have been nice if they were removable or adjustable.
Keycaps - the matching custom keycaps that come stock are beautiful and feel of good quality, and likely a major reason why most people would choose this specific keyboard. That being said, if you ever do want to try other keycap sets on it, please note that this keyboard has unusual key sizes of 1.75u for the Enter and left shift (typically 2.25u) and all of the mods along the bottom row are 1u with a 6u space bar. It uses a 1.75u right shift which is fairly standard in most 65 / 75% keycap sets, but typically only the Caps lock key is also 1.75u, so youβll run into issues if your keycap set doesnβt have extra 1.75u keys to swap in for the LS and Enter. Also, most keycap sets also come with 6.25u space bars and youβd need to buy an extra space bar kit to try to get a 6u centered sb. Some keycap sets also only include enough 1u mods for the right of space bar, not for both sides at 1u vs. 1.25u (most common for the mods on the left of space bar). Net-net, if you plan to use this with your own keycaps, cross check for compatibility as itβs highly likely it wonβt have all the correct key sizes.
Accessories: comes with a dust brush and color matched cable.
Case - snap together plastic, no visible screws. Youβll need pry tools to open it for any modding.
Hopefully, LoFree can improve on some of the lower hanging fruit (providing extra switches, QC on the stablizers) which I would expect for this MSRP going forward.
All that being said, itβs a very pretty and unique looking keyboard. Buy it for the aesthetics if this is your thing, but be aware of the quirks noted above.
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