One of our priorities in developing the new Air series has been to be able to ship the new features and changes to all users of the series regardless of the model. As a result, the productions and releases of all three models in the V2 series were timed to start at dates close to each other. This however, has the unintended unfortunate side effect of effectively shortening the life cycle of Air96 V1, which was only released in Jan 2023. Seeing the peculiar dilemma of Air96 owners, and the greater capacity of Air96’s large frame to accommodate substitution components, we have decided to produce separate PCB upgrade kits for Air96 V1 owners, giving them access to a large share of Air96 V2’s features(QMK/VIA support, faster wireless chips etc.) at a much reduced cost of $35 excluding the shipping cost. Orders for the kit can be placed here until Nov. 30,  with the shipping starting at Dec. 18, after the pre-orders for Air96 V2 are processed.

Before ordering however, please be advised that replacing the PCB board of your keyboard is always a high-risk endeavour and should only be attempted by those who are experienced following the instructions provided separately. Opening the case of your Air96 will also void your warranty, while the warranty of the PCB kit doesn’t cover any damage introduced to the original keyboard in the process of replacement. The inherently higher risks involved in the shipping and installation of upgrade kits, and more importantly, the unavoidable needs to make structurally backwards incompatible adjustments to the electronics to stay competitive(a hard lesson we learned from the eventually abandoned project of Air75’s upgrade kit), also mean that availabilities of such upgrade kits will be more the exception than the rule. As much as this is a hard pill to swallow, we will stay true to our commitment to always be on the lookout for more values to bring to all our users.

Thank you for choosing NuPhy.