Custom keycaps are a great way to add a personal touch to your keyboard at a relatively low price. The artisanal keycaps rabbit hole (opens in new tab) is deep and you can find all kinds of caps to suit different setups or tastes. You can get super bright ceramic RGB keycaps (opens in new tab), or go the other direction completely with some nice Noctua brown and beige keys (opens in new tab). With so many options, keycaps make a great gift for the PC gamer in your life, and often at a reasonable price.
While Dino caps (opens in new tab) that look like they might bite your fingers off are a great choice, friendlier rubber duck keycaps are currently a favourite. They add a cuteness and levity to an otherwise serious board, and of course they pair especially well with keyboards like the Ducky One 3 (opens in new tab), which happens to be one of our all time favourite mechanical boards (opens in new tab). Some sweet, duck-key on Ducky action.
Duckeys (opens in new tab) is a cap seller out of Boston that specialises in these viral duck keycaps. They’re known for the bright yellow little rubber ducks, sometimes in hats, and often with bonking sticks of some kind. Yellow was never really my colour of choice, so it’s great to see Duckeys has finally released its second series of little cuties, which comes in a range of hues.
The new series of ducks are still solid colours, beak and eyes aside, but this time you can choose between a rainbow of options (opens in new tab). That makes it a little easier to match your duck to your setup, as opposed to having a little yellow guy looking a bit out of place. Imagine a rainbow of ducks, right there on your keyboard.
The new mystery box (opens in new tab) options are also very cool, with a special shout out to the frozen-in-ice duck that looks a bit like an Eiscue Pokémon. The quackbar space bar option is also a long delight, but is currently sold out, so might make for a better birthday gift than a stocking stuffer.
What’s even cooler about these keycaps is they can quack. You’ll need to grab the Duckeys Voicebox software (opens in new tab) from the website, which is currently only available for Windows. But once installed and set up your ducks should be quacking away as your fingers pulverise them into oblivion.
The Duckeys range in price, but they’re a relatively inexpensive little gift starting at $US10 no matter your preferred colour. The Mystery Keycap packs go for a little more at $US12 and contain a randomly hatted duck from the allocated series.
If you’re not quite sold on these little keycap cuties make sure to check out the Duckeys Instagram (opens in new tab) to see them in action. Or have a look at our other great list of holiday gifts (opens in new tab) for the PC gamer in your life.