A 46 gram mouse with a spare battery you say?
The mouse and keyboard space keeps innovating and evolving. Logitech’s haptic switches launched earlier in 2026, and we see a high number of other suppliers following suit.
The latest is Keychron with the launch of their G6 HE. A 46 gram light and colourful mouse that comes with a swappable battery and Keychron’s proprietary MagOptic switches, that through clever engineering support both optical and magnetic usage. It goes on sale globally in early September at $89.99. This is Keychron’s answer, and it’s a doozy.
I am flabbergasted by the copious amounts of innovation in this small, niche space. We all have a mouse and a keyboard on the desk, and somehow the options keep getting better.
Optical or magnetic, this one goes both ways
The MagOptic switch is the headline. In Keychron Launcher you flip the mouse buttons between optical mode and magnetic mode, and in magnetic mode you get the adjustable actuation and rapid trigger that Hall effect keyboards made popular. Twelve steps of actuation depth, eleven steps of rapid trigger. Total travel is 0.6 mm, operating load is 60 grams, and the switches are rated for 100 million clicks.
Add a PixArt 3955 sensor, 8000 Hz polling and tri mode connectivity on top of that. Seems interesting to say the least!
Launcher lets you toggle the buttons between optical and magnetic, then tune actuation and rapid trigger separately. / Screenshot: Keychron
Launcher runs in the browser, the same as it does on the G5 and the M-series. No install, which is one of the things that won me over on the G5. As I’ve said many times before, configuring this in the browser is the actual way of doing hardware adjusting, at least to me.
Symmetrical, with the buttons on one side
The G6 HE measures 123.7 x 63 x 41 mm, so this is a fairly sized mouse, not one of the small ones. Five buttons in total: the two mains, the scroll click and two side buttons. The shell is ABS and PC with an anti slip nanofine coating, and it rides on PTFE feet.
Seven colours from above. The shell is symmetrical, but the two side buttons sit on the left flank only. / Credit: Keychron
The shell is symmetrical, the same idea as the G5. The side buttons only sit on the left flank though, so a left hander gets the shape but not the thumb buttons.
Out of battery? Well, swap it
The 350 mAh battery sits in a module you pull out of the underside. Keychron quotes about 35 hours at 8000 Hz over 2.4 GHz and roughly 340 hours over Bluetooth, where polling drops to 125 Hz. As to my (gu)estimating, that will net you over 100 hours at 2000 Hz polling.
The battery module slides out of the underside, so a flat battery means a swap instead of a charging break. / Credit: Keychron
35 hours at 8K is not a lot, and that is where the swappable module makes sense. Keep a charged spare in the drawer and you never have to sit out a session. There is also a fixed battery version at 42 grams, black only, for anyone who would rather have the four grams or just default to Batman black.
Keychron also says the 2.4 GHz receiver doubles as a charging dock for the battery module, and that it carries four extra customizable buttons for shortcuts and macros.
46 grams with the removable module fitted. The fixed battery version drops to 42. / Credit: Keychron
The first mouse with open source firmware
Another cool thing is that the G6 HE ships with ZGM pre-installed, Keychron’s open source firmware for gaming mice, built on Zephyr and licensed under GPL 3.0. Think QMK, but for a mouse. The firmware project itself is not due until Q1 2027, so the G6 HE arrives ahead of it as the first hardware to run it.
Dual Nordic nRF54LM20A chips do the work inside. / Credit: Keychron
Keychron put their hardware design files on GitHub back in April, so this is not out of character for them. They seem to be taking a stand that we, the community, like, namely that you own your own hardware and can adjust and tweak as you like.
Japan got it first
The mouse is already on sale in Japan, through a store that was unknown to me, Gizmart’s CoSTORY. Early birds paid ¥14,344 and the Japanese retail price is ¥17,930 including tax. The campaign runs to August 31.
Gizmart’s twelfth drop, and they are claiming the fastest launch in the world. / Credit: Gizmart
At $89.99 the G6 HE undercuts the G5, which launched at $109.99 and sells for 1249 NOK at Maxgaming here in Norway. So if it eventually makes it to our markets, I would guess around 1100 NOK.
But digging around, I also found this deep dive. My Japanese is… well non existent to be honest, but I bet this video would still prove valuable for some of you crazy folks out there.
Now I want to test it!
I have been using several other mice from Keychron before, like their mini M4, a 35 gram light fingertip mouse, and the lightweight G5, a full size ambidextrous mouse I weighed at 45.6 grams and liked more than I expected. Ease of use, Keychron Launcher, the feel in the hand and the tilted cable really won me over with the G5.
Their most recent addition is the G6 HE, and it seems like another banger. What a spec sheet cannot tell me is what a switch that is optical and magnetic at the same time actually feels like under a finger, or whether eleven steps of rapid trigger on a mouse button is useful or just a number. That is a question for a review.
The Keychron G6 HE UltraLight arrives in early September. Seven colours: black, white and five frosted translucent finishes.
