Razer is adding the infamous Snap Tap feature – banned by Valve in competitive Counter-Strike 2 – to its older keyboards, as well as laptops. The feature was first debuted via a firmware update to the Huntsman V3 Pro line of keyboards, which taps into the analog nature of its Hall Effect switches to enable greater advantage.
Snap Tap Trickles Down
Still, despite Valve’s ban on the feature, Razer doesn’t seem to be too concerned about opening the can of worms, as other manufacturers like Wooting, ASUS, and SteelSeries all adopted SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions) in one way or another. The trickle-down effect goes pretty far and wide: if you have any Razer keyboard or laptop that supports the Synapse 4 software (including the original Huntsman V2 Analog released as far back as 2014), you’re basically set.
However, part of the advantage SOCD offers is through the variable actuation offered by analog switches, so SOCD on traditional key switches (which operates basically as an on/off switch) or without the pre-existing Rapid Trigger feature might not see results as effective as the likes of the new Hunstmans, Razer notes.
Given that the feature is already unwelcomed in games like Valve’s CS2, all devices that supports Snap Tap will see the feature turned off by default. It’s a safety measure first and foremost, as the esports scene has already recorded one such case of Snap Tap affecting the match outcome.
Pokdepinion: I wonder if this is the first step in democratizing the feature so it gets unbanned in the future (if the argument is the accessibility of the feature)?
