GMK electronic design GmbH is a German company that may not be familiar to you, yet I suspect many have seen their products on keyboards before. Indeed, if you were to ask a keyboard enthusiast about custom keycaps or keycap group buys, the odds of GMK being referred to are extremely high. While the company has been around since 1992 and partakes in various industries, it would be fair to say GMK is most known for being the brand that made doubleshot injected keycaps more common. Today we aren't taking a look at a GMK keycap set however, and the GMK TriggerKey instead has the potential to be one of the best keyboard accessories released in the last decade.

The best way to quickly summarize the GMK TriggerKey would be as a replacement mechanical key system adding triggers to keys akin to what you see on game controllers. These would thus not replace the entire keycap set, but rather be used on common game keys such as WASD. The TriggerKey aims to be versatile and customizable, coming in several color options and offering compatibility with the vast majority of Cherry MX-style switches, and giving you control over the actuation point and the effective tilt angle you press down on these triggers too. If this seems confusing, fret not as we'll take a more detailed look in this article. Thanks to GMK for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp!

GMK sent a retail kit of the TriggerKey, and the product box is tiny by comparison to a keyboard or even a keycap set. On the front we see the brand logo and a render of the product, with a color version that matches the TriggerKey color you chose. A product warning on the back greets us, along with the serial number and a QR code that at the time of review didn't lead to a working page, but will presumably take you to the product page or manual when the TriggerKey is launched. A bold marketing slogan is on the side, where we also see the box open to reveal a hard plastic clamshell that contains the various items provided. Each retail pack will include four TriggerKeys, three sets of four stem caps of different lengths—black is 1.7 mm tall, dark gray 1.2 mm, and light gray 0.7 mm, installation tools, and spare screws.

GMK also sent a set of its CYL WoB (white on black) keycaps to help pair these with, although it's not at all required and was more so I could see how a GMK product line looks together. This is the full size base set using 1.5 mm thick ABS plastic with black doubleshot injected legends and conforming to the CYL (Cherry) profile with the six contoured rows.

The GMK TriggerKey isn't much bigger than a full-size mechanical switch, and comes in several colors for you to pair them with your custom keycaps. There are at least 13 color combinations I've seen, and GMK sent the red color version for TechPowerUp, which is neat attention to detail. These are composed of the same high quality ABS plastic the company uses for its keycaps, so they will pair well with them on keys you are using normally. What you see above is effectively a shell that goes over the switch, and thus replaces the keycap. It has two set screws on the top that can be used with the provided tool that has an alignment marker to help set each screw to the same position, or close enough. A 360° rotation is 0.4 mm of travel on the screw up or down, with the upper screw changing the keycap angle (tilt) and the lower one changing the actuation point by pressing the stem cap up or down by a maximum of 2 mm total travel. This means you can have rapid triggers by having these set to be right next to the switch actuation point, which can be handy for gaming. You can also use this to lift the lid to access the stem cap and change it while the TriggerKey is installed, offering further customization over the actuation point. The issue is that it's not trivial to match all the TriggerKeys to the exact same actuation point or tilt angle, so you can only guess they are close enough in the absence of discrete steps or integrated markers.

Installation is extremely simple, although I recommend removing the keycaps of neighboring keys to make it easier. Simply push in the stem cap onto the Cherry MX stem of the switch based on the desired actuation point, and here too you might want to consider using the smaller height caps for south facing keyboards to avoid the TriggerKey hitting the PCB/plate similar to high profile keycaps. Then just position the TriggerKey on top and push in slightly until it clicks in place. GMK provides a tool to assist with this, but I suspect most people will not need it. The caps are made of POM for added durability given they are designed to be placed and removed often if desired. At this point you can fine tune the tilt and actuation as described before, and seen above are the four TriggerKeys on the WASD keys on a randomly chosen keyboard with Gateron G Pro 3.0 Brown switches and the GMK CYL WoB keycaps alongside. Since there are no moving parts aside from the stem cap moving up and down, the TriggerKey does not add any friction or influence the typing feel in itself. The typing sound feels thockier though, with the higher pitched sounds attenuated, since there is an added material shell dampening the sound. It is not easy to record the difference in sound without a more expensive microphone as I found out, since a recording of my typing on the keyboard sounds the same on the TriggerKeys and the other keys alongside.

Ah, but what happens if you have incompatible switches? GMK has a continuously updated compatibility list that tells you the TriggerKey will not work with magnetic switches or Kailh BOX switches. Out of curiosity, I did try the latter, and it was a pain in more ways than one. The stem caps are hard to remove, and the TriggerKeys don't click in place. As such, they are susceptible to popping out if you don't use them gently, and this would be a dealbreaker for gaming. Indeed, the general rule of thumb is the bottom switch housing needs to have a gap, or a pocket as GMK calls it, for the TriggerKey to slot into. The accompanying tool helps take them out easily as well, and then you can pry out the stem caps with your fingers. It's not the easiest to swap out the stem caps with the TriggerKey installed, so I found myself removing them entirely when trying out the three different ones. The actuation distance tweaking is neat, allowing quick actions for FPS or rhythm games, although I found a greater ergonomic benefit from the tilt angle customization. With up to 34° of change allowed, this allows you to set the TriggerKey to be more naturally in line with your fingers since most gamers tend to have poor typing posture, whether we like to admit it or not. This can help reduce fatigue over longer gaming sessions, and I also found it helpful for keyboard shortcuts and macros in different applications too.

The GMK TriggeyKey mechanical key system releases on Oct 6, 2026 and a retail pack of four with the included accessories as seen above costs $49.99 from the GMK store and authorized dealers. I think it is a cool accessory, albeit one that you need to commit to and practice with. The price point doesn't make it a blind buy necessarily since you can get a full mechanical keyboard at the same price, so this is more for those who are happy with their existing keyboard but wanted to make it more fine-tuned to their needs. Competitive gamers and content creators would be the target market here, and time will tell if eSports competitions will allow these.