Cerakey Ceramic Keycaps V2 Review

When I review a keyboard, I often have very little to say about its keycaps because of how uniform keycaps have become. More often than not, they’re made of PBT material and have a standard Cherry profile for good ergonomics and ease-of-use. Occasionally, I’ll review something that with SA (high profile) or XDA (low profile) keycaps, but materials are never the star of the show.

Cerakey, a passion project out of Hong Kong, has taken things one step further and given mechanical keyboard fans another element to consider when building a mechanical keyboard of their dreams: Imagine having ceramic keycaps!

I have had my eye on Cerakey’s ceramic keycaps since I first came across their now-concluded Kickstarter in late-2023 when I was somewhere in the middle of my own mechanical keyboard journey. The idea of a ceramic keyboard was intriguing: I could visualize what it might look like, I could pull up a YouTube video to hear how the keycaps sounded, but…how did they feel? Would they even work for gaming? Should I even bother with attempting to modify my keyboard in a way that could make it so that my currently decent VALORANT prowess becomes…terribad? Clearly, Cerakey’s 3,266 Kickstarter backers didn’t mind one bit, as the initial 2022 campaign raised just over $550,000 (USD) – five-hundred thousand dollars more than their initial goal.

Several videos and Redditors’ reviews that covered Cerakey’s offerings were consistent in saying that these keycaps were unlike anything they have used before and felt great, but they had some drawbacks. The keycaps had ceramic stems on their undersides, making them unnecessarily heavy and prone to breaking off the keycaps, rendering them unusable. The spacebar was also quite heavy, too, meaning that it would feel loose and potentially fall off if you tilted the keyboard too far. I also had some reservations about the color passthrough because the keycaps have the legends printed on and being…well, ceramic. It’s not like a keyboard’s LEDs can typically pass through ceramic, right? I tried using a flashlight under my coffee mugs, and none of them would “light up” of sorts.

I was recently given an opportunity to test out Cerakey’s V2 keycaps and set the record straight on these keycaps’ fit as worthy of being placed on your keyboard, be it for gaming, office work, or a mix of both. This review will be a bit different from my prior DigitalChumps reviews of mechanical keyboards as, well, this is a set of keycaps. Let’s get to it!

Before You Start

I’m going to assume that, if you’re reading this review, you’re already moderately comfortable with mechanical keyboards to the point of being knowledgeable about most keyboard-related technical terms. You probably own a mechanical keyboard (or two, or three, or in my case, many), too. I say all of this because Cerakey only sells its keycaps at this time – no keyboard case, no switches, just beautiful ceramic goodness in a plethora of beautiful colors (that I’ll discuss in greater detail in a moment).

You will also need to own a mechanical keyboard with south-facing LEDs, as the keycaps have a Cherry profile. If you own a keyboard with north-facing LEDs, the keycaps will prematurely “bottom out” when you press down. This causes “north facing interference” preventing you from fully bottoming out when pressing down on a key.

Finally, you will need a set of switches with a decent minimum actuation force of at least 40gf (plus or minus 15). Remember, these are ceramic keycaps, so it would be fairly easy to assume that the keycaps’ weight would make it easier to press down on the keyboard and prematurely register inputs. Cerakey gives their customers a little help in ameliorating the weight, but the user still needs to have appropriate switches.

Got everything so far? Good. I’m now going to assume that you have everything you might possibly need.

First Impressions and Key Details

The day my friendly mailperson dropped off the keycaps at my front door was an exciting one: The keycaps had arrived and it was time for me to put them on my keyboards (yes, keyboards – I needed to put these keycaps through their paces!). I cleaned off my dining room table and brought down a keyboard to start slotting the keycaps onto the switches.

I was sent an A and B set in White with Black Legends to review. In hand, these keycaps felt far lighter than I had initially thought they would be. Cerakey’s website states that the letter keys are around 3.3g each while the spacebar is just over 19g.

When I turned the keycaps over and examined the stems, I noticed something interesting: The stems are no longer made of ceramic. This is because the V2 version of the keycaps now feature plastic stems. Cerakey says that they switched the ceramic stems (on the original release) to plastic for the purposes of durability and fitment: I entirely agree.

After placing the keycaps onto the first set of switches, I immediately noticed that the keycaps hardly wobbled, feeling quite stiff even when I pushed hard at the edge in an attempt to cause them to wobble. It took about 30 minutes to carefully pull off the original keycaps of my first test keyboard the first time around. Subsequent removals and replacing on other keyboards took far less time once I was in a good groove. I was far from concerned about the keycaps’ plastic stems losing their durability and wearing out after testing them on several keyboards.

Instead, the only weird visual issue I had was that some of the keycaps were slightly off-kilter. My G and B keys looked like they were rotated out of position. I found out that the plastic stems were hand-inserted into the keycaps and can occasionally become prone to cause crookedness. It’s only noticeable when looking up close, but it didn’t impact the usability of the keycaps nor their stability. If some of your keys are off-kilter or have legends that end up prematurely fading, their warranty covers these issues and lasts for one-year, replacing the keycaps with issues for the low cost of… free!!

There is nothing like typing on ceramic keycaps. As you might expect, they feel smooth to the touch and have a nice chill to them when you first start typing on them. Regardless of your keyboard’s construction and potential acoustic profile, ceramic has a very calming and delicate sound profile. In my previous review of MelGeek’s CYBER01 with the handful of Gateron Jade Magnetic Switches I had on-hand, I was enamored on the delicateness of the switches. Cerakey’s keycaps are actually ceramic, without needing to emulate the sound of mahjong tiles like the Magnetic Jades. I love how these keycaps consistently produce a soft sound that is miles more satisfying than the Lofree FLOW.

These keycaps are buttery smooth. They’ve been glazed quite well and lack imperfections like bumps, scratches, and chips that may come with ceramic objects. As such, my fingers were easily able to glide across them and occasionally slip if my hands were sweaty or I had just taken a sip of iced coffee that had condensation on the cup. Wiping my fingers on my clothing was an easy fix for this, but do know that if your hands are prone to sweatiness you may have some difficulty adjusting. I loved how the keycaps were frequently cool to the touch even under heavy duress (i.e., typing) for long periods, though.

Cerakey’s V2 keycaps lack a homing bump on the F and J keys – homing keys. My previous keyboards have all had homing keys, making it easier for me to center my hands on my keyboard by touching the keycaps. Cerakey just recently released a separate set of homing keys for an additional $5 USD, though, so if you need the homing indicators, you’ll need to purchase them separately.

During my tests, I kept thinking that my fingers would become fatigued by the hardness of the keycaps. I often type in the region of 80-100wpm (depending on the switch and keyboard size), so I was hesitant that my fingers would hurt after a long day of typing. This ended up not being the case, even when typing quickly and playing high-intensity games. Even when I attempted to slam on my keycaps, I never felt like I was hurting myself from irregularly heavy use.

I didn’t expect my keycaps to have passthrough when backlit by my keyboards’ south-facing LEDs (you know, because ceramic isn’t traditionally see-through!). However, I was pleasantly surprised by the keycaps to have a light degree of passthrough on the bottom half of each key, giving the keys a pleasant glow. If you like your keyboards to be fully illuminated with fun effects to maximize the RGB aesthetic that is owning a PC, you’ll get a partial illumination with the white keys.

Earlier in this review, I mentioned that the spacebar key is 19g (far heavier than the rest of the keys in the A set). This means that most switches might not be equipped to support the weight of the heavier-than-usual spacebar. Thankfully, Cerakey provides a pair of Kailh BOX Dark Yellow switches. These linear switches have an operation force of 70gf (plus or minus 10), and very easily support the space bar’s weight. If your keyboard has additional stabilizers on the spacebar, that will help you a bit, too. However, you shouldn’t rely on just your keyboard’s existing spacebar stabilizers; use the included Kailh BOX Dark Yellow switch to ensure that your spacebar isn’t loose.

I opted to review white keycaps with black legends because I wanted the variant with the most passthrough potential, but do know that Cerakey offers keycaps without legends altogether and a multitude of colors, including black, multiple shades of blue, a “crazed” color that looks like ice, red, yellow, green, and purple. They’ve successfully funded additional campaigns to bring more colors to the market like an incredibly cool white+blue dragon variant as well as a lacquered variant inspired by rhino-skin, but those are coming soon. I can’t wait to see what the new variants look like once they’ve been manufactured!

It’s clear that Cerakey has made quite a bit of improvements on their V2 keycaps. The new plastic stem, the included Kailh BOX Dark Yellow switch for the spacebar, and the new colors make it easier for users to customize their keyboards as they wish without needing to purchase additional accoutrements just to use the keycaps. I hope that future iterations of the keycaps include the homing key bumps by default just so users like me can quickly reorient themselves in case of slippage from using the keyboard with sweaty hands.

Testing on Multiple Keyboards

For the purposes of this review, I took the time to test out the keycaps on several keyboards that all boast different construction and switches. I first tested the keycaps out on the Chilkey ND75 (one of my daily drivers), then the Epomaker RT100 (with silent switches), and finally the MelGeek CYBER01 (with magnetic switches). Doing so allowed me to test keyboard acoustics, general accuracy, and stability across multiple hardware configurations and switches.

First, I tested the Chilkey ND75’s compatibility with Cerakey’s keycaps. I had some trouble inserting the function keys into the top row because of the function keys’ cutouts – if your keyboard has a single cutout for the Esc key and a small cutout for a few function keys, you may have some difficulty with installation. The switches in this keyboard are a custom Gateron switch (i.e., the EF Dopamine Blues) with an actuation force of 45gf. These switches were able to support the ceramic keycaps’ weight just fine, including the spacebar. However, the spacebar felt less stable, so I opted to install the included Kailh BOX switch just to be safe. In my original review of the ND75, I loved the acoustics of the keyboard, especially in its gasket-mounted configuration, but the ceramic keycaps on this keyboard made it sound slightly deeper and far more satisfying.

Next, I tested Cerakey’s keycaps on my RT100 with Epomaker’s Sea Salt Silent Switches. In my original review of the keyboard, I noted that I was not the most satisfied with the Sea Salt switches’ sponginess and their sensitivity. These switches have a 35gf actuation force. With the ceramic keycaps firmly placed on the switches, I had far too many false inputs than I had hoped. Interestingly enough, the sound was muted and softer than the stock keycaps on the RT100’s PBT keycaps. I do not recommend using these keycaps with silent switches unless you are sure that your switches have an actuation force of at least 45gf. I know that several silent switches are well under that (such as some from Outemu that have a force of around 30gf), so you may need to switch to something else like the Kailh Deep Sea Silent Pros, Gateron Ink V2s (in anything but Red), and/or the TTC Silent Browns. You’ll be risking having silent but far-too-sensitive switches due to the weight of the keycaps.

Finally, let’s talk about magnetic switches. I know that most readers of this article might not have yet taken the plunge and switched over to magnetic switches. However, if you’re an existing Melgeek CYBER01 owner or someone waiting for Wooting’s 80HE (which should be shipping later this summer!), why not test out ceramic keycaps for science! I went ahead and installed the keycaps on my CYBER01 and set all of my keycaps to have an actuation point of 2.0mm (my usual preference). Due to the additional weight of all of the keycaps (yes, letter keys were heavier than normal, too!), I had to add about 0.5mm to all of the keys’ actuation to account for the weight and prevent false-positive inputs. The spacebar was another story, unfortunately. I tested the spacebar at higher actuation values (i.e., above 3.5), but it was still too sensitive for proper use in gaming and office work. If you’re planning on owning a keyboard with magnetic switches, I would recommend either setting the actuation to the highest value or swapping out the magnetic switch for a mechanical switch (like the included Kailh BOX Dark Yellow switch!) and disabling the rapid-trigger effects on the spacebar just so you can use the ceramic keycap without issues.

After testing the keycaps across several switches, I’m confident that Cerakey’s Ceramic Keycaps V2 will be compatible with mechanical and magnetic switches with a small amount of compromise.

Gaming Potential

Since we are a gaming outlet, I should definitely discuss the ceramic keycaps’ potential in a gaming space. When testing keyboards, we opt into testing games of high, medium, and low intensity to ensure that a keyboard is put through its paces for all kinds of gamers.

For high-intensity games like VALORANT, Deep Rock Galactic, and Counter-Strike 2, the keycaps were acceptable so long as my hands were not sweating from the rapid inputs I was making on the keyboard. Even when pressing hard on the keycaps, my fingertips did not feel additional strain from the harder-than-usual ceramic surfaces nor did they cause false positive inputs on a regular basis. When using these keycaps with the magnetic switches, I had to do some manual adjustments, but the keycaps were able to support my frenetic typing just fine.

For medium- and low-intensity gaming, spanning anything from Starfield, Berserk Boy, Anger Foot, Quest Master, and Wizordum, the keycaps were excellent to use. I honestly have no complaints with how they fared in these kinds of games. Instead, gaming with Cerakey’s Ceramic Keycaps felt like I was playing on a high-quality and one-of-a-kind keyboard. I would have liked the keyboard to have the homing keys for games requiring the use of more than the usual WASD keys, but I could get by just fine without the homing bumps.

Final Thoughts

Thank you for getting this far in the review. I know this review has read somewhat differently than my previous keyboard reviews, but I wanted to give readers the most information as possible so that they could make an informed decisions as to whether they should take the plunge and consider ceramic keycaps for their keebs. I’m hoping that, if you’ve made it this far, your decision will be easier to make.

I’m also hoping that, should you have a compatible keyboard and sufficient switches, you consider Cerakey’s keycaps.

I won’t go so far as to say that every gamer needs ceramic keycaps. I would be doing DigitalChumps, Cerakey, and you a massive disservice for overhyping a product that isn’t necessary for a gaming setup. Cerakey’s current offering is a set of keycaps, nothing more, and nothing less. A new set of keycaps are one of the last and most-optional additions for your PC gaming space after a specific set of switches.

However, there is literally nothing like Cerakeys’ keycaps I have tested. Over the past few weeks, I have had several folks come by my home for dinner and/or coffee, and I’ve shown the keycaps (on multiple keyboards) to them. Each and every person gave the same set of stunned responses when they got their hands on the keyboard I was using to test these keycaps:

“Wow! Ceramic?!”

“These keycaps feel so nice!”

“I want these! Where did you get them?”

“Damn, they sound delicious!” (yes, someone said delicious)

The truth of the matter is that Cerakey’s ceramic keycaps are a sublime addition my keyboard. They are the nicest thing I have honestly added to my workstation so far on my mechanical keyboard journey. Going forward, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for me to use anything else in the future – this is why I went ahead and purchased some additional keycaps during their Summer Sale (which ends on July 9^th). These keycaps don’t make me play any better (or worse), but it’s the sound and feeling of using these keycaps that make them all the more worth it.

A set of Cerakey V2 (A and B) keycaps were provided by Cerakey for the purpose of this DigitalChumps review.