Wooting was a rather sleeper company that had neat tech until they really broke the mold in 2022 with their 60HE and its new Rapid Trigger function. The other thing that made the 60HE fun was that it followed the GH60 footprint making it so that you could simply put it into a number of other standard tray mount 60% cases (or others with integrated USB ports like the Frog Mini). As a gaming tool, I think it still reigns on top only being matched by Geon and the Venom software. As a keyboard? Eh.

This article will also be sort of a two-parter as I’ll be addressing both the 60HE on its own as well as the way I have it built in a Tofu60 Redux case, as it of course does influence my experience too.

Design/Aesthetics

The original 60HE case is a simple plastic tray mount case with some ridging on the back to add some design as well as a loop for their Wooting strap. It does have brass screw threads, so that’s always nice to see in any plastic case. It’s not really much of a statement piece otherwise.

The Tofu60 Redux on the other hand is a refresh of KBDfan’s old design, with the major differences being a slightly lower front height, an angled front face (runs parallel with the back of the case rather than being flat and straight), the brass weight being stored internally rather than the outside which helps with deflecting sound, and finally longer strip adhesive feet rather than the original bump-on feet that we should all know and love (seriously the 8mm 3M bump-ons are the best thing ever). The Redux also features a sliding shroud over the USB-cutout so you can move it based on the PCB’s USB location, which plays with the 60HE’s USB placement. Some of the standoffs, mostly the center ones, can also be removed as they screw into the case, allowing for some customization of how stiff your tray mount experience is, and I personally remove as many as I can.

Assembly

As a tray mount case, it’s dead simple to build. The only thing you need to look out for when building with HE switches is to use standoffs if you can, due to the PCB/plate assembly needing to be firm due to the nature of Hall effect needing the switches to stay in place. I personally do not like the feeling and sound you get when using standoffs and have never had an issue with omitting the standoffs, so I personally did omit my standoffs.

As a 60%, its also kind of possible to attempt to do an old Tofu mod of using an o-ring, granted it will be only part of the experience of a proper o-ring build due to the fact the 60HE PCB does not have cutouts to let the o-ring lay on case standoffs, which the Redux appears to have, but I’ve been told there is no purpose to these despite them being there for some reason. I still prefer doing this as mounting with an o-ring helps give some compression and friction to the case without fully touching it, giving it a slightly more even sound, especially when removing the standoffs that can be removed.

It’s also worth noting a couple things about the HE switches that utilize the Lekker footprint. The biggest one is that they are able to be rotated 90 degrees meaning you can have them either north-facing or south-facing, which having the option for sound-facing helps against interference with Cherry profile switches and full-length travel switches, like the aforementioned Lekker switches. These switches that do adhere to the Lekker profile can also (mostly) be frankenswitched, though more recently there has been some HE switches with very different stem shapes (similar to BOX or the “stablized” stem that looks more like [ + ]).

PCB and Firmware

The 60HE PCB is the workhorse when it comes to HE. It’s not QMK (though Keychron have apparently been able to achieve HE on QMK), but the Wootility web-based software is somewhat similarly capable and comes with the ability to use Rapid Trigger, meaning you can make any downward motion from any starting position input the keypress, and any upward motion stop the input, unlike a typical contact-leafed mechanical switch having just one actuation point at a single, manufacturer-defined distance.

Admittedly, it’s a little overhyped for what it is, but I do agree that it feels good. Whether it’s truly a good buff to people’s gaming skills is honestly hard to debate. The only game I have seen legitimate use out of the Rapid Trigger function is osu!, as it does help when fatigue is setting in and full keystroke motions are harder, or anything that demands just any keypress to be spammed, but not a certain order of keypresses (such as a quartercircle or something).

The PCB itself is a simple 1.6mm FR4 PCB, and comes with no layout options, which is a little disappointing, but oh well. It’s also worth nothing that the first few batches of the Wooting PCB do not have holes for screw-in stabs while most PCBs made in 2024 or later do. But, for what it’s worth, the stock stabs in my older Wooting PCB were actually easy to tune and came out surprisingly good.

Typing Experience

HE is always a weird beast when it comes to sound. Because of the new enclosure not being closed off, not having a central hole in the PCB to let some of the sound leak, and how big the stem’s pole is, it’s been notorious for having a more plasticky, flat sound that just doesn’t really appeal to enthusiasts. There have been some options that try to mitigate it like Gateron Jades, Geon Raws, Owlab Ti’s, but the only ones that I’ve procured are the original Lekker60s and Geon Raptor HEs, which based on a video I had seen at the time, frankenswitched them so that the Lekker stems were in the Raptor housings. The housing must have been better than Lekkers while the Lekker stem was somehow better, I don’t know, but it did sound better than the sum of their parts somehow, especially on the modifiers. I also opted for a Carbon Fiber plate, which is typically better for stiff boards, so I figured I’d give it a shot for HE as I never really liked it on my mechanical builds.

As for feel, they do feel a bit slippery like as though the stem rails aren’t very tight, but it is utterly smooth because of the lack of contact leaf.