Waveshare has recently released the MK10, a Stream Deck-like macro keyboard featuring ten mechanical keys with 0.85-inch LCD keycaps and a secondary 2.01-inch screen. The macro keyboard also supports AI voice interaction, real-time hardware and weather data integration, and customizable themes with drag-and-drop editing. The company also highlights Home Assistant compatibility for Smart Home control.
The device features a dual-system architecture, where an Allwinner T113-S3 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor runs Linux, and a GD32 microcontroller runs QMK firmware, ensuring low-latency mechanical input. The 10 LCD keys can display images or videos with overlay support, and the 2.01-inch screen shows additional status or customization options. The mechanical switches are rated for 50 million presses with a defined actuation force and travel. The device uses an aluminum alloy top case, a hardened 2.5D acrylic lens, and supports two placement methods: flat or at a 40° angle.
Waveshare MK10 specifications:
- Main Controller – Allwinner T113-S3
- CPU
- Dual-core Arm Cortex-A processor, up to 1.2GHz
- RISC-V core + HiFi4 DSP
- On-chip memory – 128MB DDR3
- CPU
- Sub-Controller – GigaDevice GD32 MCU running QMK for low-latency mechanical input
- Display
- 10x 0.85-inch RGB LCDs with 128 × 128 resolution; supports 10-screen splicing display with image/video backgrounds and multi-layer overlay
- 2.01-inch secondary screen with 240 × 296 resolution
- Keys – 10x hot-swappable Kailh box silent switches with LCD keycaps (mentioned above)
- Actuation force – 50 ± 10 gf
- Bottom-out force – 55 ± 10 gf
- Actuation travel – 1.2 ± 0.30 mm
- Total travel – 2.8 ± 0.25 mm
- Spring length – 15.5 mm
- Lifespan – 50 million presses
- Networking – Optional 2.4 GHz WiFi via wireless USB wireless card (5 GHz not supported)
- USB
- USB Type-C power for power, and connection to the host
- USB Type-A USB expansion port
- Power – 5V from the USB-C port
- Dimensions – 171.23 x 75.98 mm
- Enclosure – Aluminum alloy top case, 2.5D high-transparency acrylic lens (> 3H hardness, scratch-resistant)
- Placement Options – 40° detachable triangular stand or 5.5° flat desktop placement
The devices support single-key actions, key combinations, and macros, with options for mouse control and multi-command chaining. All functions are handled directly in QMK open-source firmware without relying on PC software.
The MK10 works with the ScreenKey software for Windows and macOS. It allows users to load and manage themes, set up macros, and preview functions in real-time. The configurations for the device can be imported or exported, and themes or plugins can be downloaded from the online store. The software also supports data integration from LibreHardwareMonitor for system information and OpenWeather for weather updates. Voice interaction is handled through XiaoZhi AI and other platforms, and the device can connect with Home Assistant for smart home control. More information can be found on the wiki.
Previously, we have seen various other macro keyboards like the T-Keyboard-S3, a 4-key USB mechanical keyboard with a similar 0.85-inch color display, LILYGO’s T-Keyboard-S3 Pro, which adds a rotary encoder, support for daisy-chaining up to six keyboards, as well as ANAVI Macro Pad 12, Macro Pad 10, and Macro Pad 2 keyboards. The MK10 offers a different set of features and options.
The Waveshare MK10 macro keyboard is available on AliExpress for $106.63 (coupon code 3I7753PDRZ2N shaves $4 off), on Amazon for $110.99, and the official Waveshare store for $84.99. It comes in two colour options, and in the box, you will get the keypad itself, a stand, a USB cable, and a wireless dongle.
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The hardware looks nice and I’ve been looking for something like this. The software situation looks extremely sparse at best. I checked their wiki which only has some very basic instructions on how to use their utility, which is a binary-only proprietary Windows/macOS utility (no Linux), plus some instructions on how to integrate with a Chinese AI assistant thingy.
The claimed “Home Assistant compatibility for Smart Home control” is nowhere to be found. QMK is mentioned, but no information on what to do with it/configure it. Linux is also mentioned, but nothing about how to actually inspect or modify the firmware on the device.
The promo material is at minimum disingenuous for name-dropping popular open source projects without actually providing any way to use them or leverage them.
Finally, your threat model may vary, but I certainly wouldn’t plug to my computer a Chinese device with no sources and little documentation, that (by design) a) pretends to be a keyboard and mouse b) has an open mic with no H/W switch.
Maybe this device is mainly a hardware-first product, and the software provided is just a very basic demo or utility.
When they mention things like AI, QMK, or Home Assistant, it might not mean “ready-to-use out of the box,” but rather that the hardware is designed to be open for potential extensions. In that sense, what looks like a lack of software could actually be seen as room for developers to build on top of it.
Compared to the mechanical keyboards I have, I think this one is quite an innovative keyboard.
Actually I’d welcome that. But as I mentioned, there is no documentation whatsoever, no application notes, no sources provided for either their “demo”, or the software that they’ve reused (Linux, QMK, etc.). Can we agree that a hardware-first product with absolutely no documentation on how to actually use the hardware, is a crappy product?
Oh and on that note, both Linux and QMK are under the GPL, so they are obliged to ship sources alongside the HW. I certainly won’t pay $100 to find out whether they are actually compliant, though 🙂
FYI, GPL only obliges to make the source available, not to ship alongside the hardware. It’s just easier if they do just make it downloadable somewhere rather than have to respond to individual requests.
The GPLv2 requires the binaries to be accompanied by either the source code itself, or a “written offer” that you can exercise to receive the source code, over a medium typically used for distributing software. (The GPLv3 has explicit “network server” provisions but these are not relevant here as Linux and QMK are mostly GPLv2-only).
But what is relevant here is that they are obliged to ship sources to everyone receiving their hardware, one way or another. They are not obliged to ship it to the general public. So my point was: they haven’t shared sources (which is actually OK), but I’m not willing to spend $100 to find out whether I’ll receive accompanying sources, or a written offer for them, as I should.
Thanks for the detailed analysis, this kind of info is a real timesaver, given the rate those gizmos are being thrown at us. The overexposed open-sourcedness is way too often overblown, and probably disingenous.
The device looks nice. But when you think that nowadays it takes a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor with a multi-tasking and multi-user operating system (i.e. a small VPS) just to manage a 10-keys keyboard… People shouldn’t wonder where all the energy is going. It’s not in the datacenters, it’s in home appliances. 101-key AT keyboard used to run on a 1 MHz 8-bit microcontroller pretty fine, that booted instantly and didn’t even require updates. I’d think that ESP32 would be more balanced for this sort of task.
So the arm processor is needed for the displays, I highly doubt you could do it with a simple ESP32.
And no, small home appliances do not use more energy than datacenters, not even close.
> So the arm processor is needed for the displays, I highly doubt you could do it with a simple ESP32.
“Needed for” ? “used by” would be more suitable.
ESP32 have been used to drive displays for several years now in various products, and even ESP8266 before them. ESP32 is huge with 500kB of RAM and 240 MHz CPU, it’s more powerful than the PCs that used to run Doom or windows 3 by then, so that’s obviously highly sufficient. Just a random example to illustrate this: Doom running on color LCD + audio on ESP32: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6PP_IBbOTY . There are libs such as LVGL of FabGL (http://www.fabglib.org/) that make it possible to write various graphical applications including games, terminal emulators or even graphic adapters.
> And no, small home appliances do not use more energy than datacenters, not even close.
Just ran a quick check. Found this https://www.devsustainability.com/p/data-center-energy-and-ai-in-2025 claiming figures between 240 and 340 TWh in 2022 for global DCs. Count 20W total per human including all gadgets (smartphones, laptops, set-top-boxes, idle TVs, clocks on every appliance, singing wash machines etc) times 9 billion humans and you’re already at 1536 TWh or 5 times the highest figure for the DC. Even if I’m wrong by a significant factor or if we only count the most expensive continent, it remains very significant and might even be worse than my rough estimate.
Times 9 billion humans? The estimate is there is only around 8.2b alive today.
And vast majority of those don’t have STBs, and macro LCD keyboards.
Even in western world, where those are not luxuries there isn’t a washing machine per person it is usually per household.
So Wiki states that global energy usage is 24,398TWh out of which around 26,8% is used for residential that would come to 6538TWh but that includes, cooking, AC, washing machines, heating water etc.
As for “ESP32 can run doom!”, sigh…
There are 11 screens on this thing, and it is intended for being hacker friendly, could animations be done on a small mcu i kinda doubt it, maybe with a lot of optimisation, but frame buffer alone for all those pixels are like 1MB, and forget about any animations/video.
I am an embedded developer, I actually understand problems of those kind of applications.
Seriously, go ahead, a demo with with 10 128*128@30fps screens running rudimentary animations on ESP32 i will be super impressed.
Hyperbole, but point taken, epaper display modules for this kind of device are probably a better idea.
More power efficient, perhaps (although that is itself an unknown… how power efficient is this? how does it compare to ESP32 doing the same job – if in fact it can?) but then you wouldn’t get the 11 dynamically updatable colour displays, which I presume can even run animations/videos for some really slick effects.
If you want a “shortcuts” controller, epaper is the way to go… if you want the “streamer” controller, this should be perfect. Now, if they can just open up the firmware and software, it would be perfect!
This looked interesting until I looked at the software – no source available, no Linux version, mentions integration with LibreHardwareMonitor which is Windows-only. Turns out that I’m not the target audience after all… I’m better off with a StreamDeck with some of the Linux software options that are available, than hackable hardware… hmm!
Agree, Stream Deck is the standard, by far the best solution around there!
It would be ideal to pair with bitfocus copanion. This would bring great software to the table. But it would necessitate proper documentation of how to feed the displays.
I agree with this — if third-party software like Bitfocus Companion could be properly supported, this device’s potential would be huge. It would add a powerful software layer on top of the already solid hardware.