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Published by SMCS AI Factory · Content reviewed:
Keyboard tester online — test your keys
Test every key online — live key and code display in your browser.
Press any keys. Focus the page (click the box) if nothing appears.
Waiting for a key…
Browser-only diagnostics. Grant permissions when the browser asks. Stop mic/camera when finished.
Key events stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
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Three values per keypress, and why you need all three
Every key you press reports a label, a physical position and a legacy numeric code. The label is what your layout produced; the position is which physical key you actually hit, independent of any layout.
We listen for keydown on the page and keep the last twelve positions so you can see a sequence rather than a single frame. Nothing is recorded, transmitted or stored — the readout exists only while the tab is open.
Diagnosing a suspect key
Focus the area: Click the dashed box so the page receives the events.
Press the suspect key: Watch whether any event arrives at all.
Compare label and position: A correct position with a wrong label means the layout, not the switch.
Repeat elsewhere: Confirm in a second browser before concluding it is hardware.
A key that types the wrong character is not a broken key
The most common "broken keyboard" is a keyboard working perfectly under a layout the operating system picked without asking. The symptoms are identical to hardware failure until you look at the right value.
The physical position tells you which key the hardware reported. If the position is correct and the label is wrong, the switch is fine and the layout is the culprit — a software fix, not a purchase.
Reading the panel like a technician
- Position correct, label wrong: change the layout, not the keyboard.
- No event at all on one key: that is the case that points at hardware.
- The panel deliberately ignores keys pressed inside text fields, so click the dashed area first.
- Media and brightness keys are often consumed by the operating system and never reach any page.
- On-screen mobile keyboards report far less than physical ones — this test wants a real keyboard.
- Accessibility features such as sticky keys change the event stream; turn them off before concluding anything.
Label versus position, with an example
On a Brazilian ABNT2 layout and a United States layout, the same physical key can produce different characters. The position value stays the same on both, because it describes where the key sits on the board rather than what it types.
That is exactly what makes it useful for diagnosis: it is the one value that does not move when the software configuration does. The W3C keeps a published list of these position names, linked below.
What this test cannot tell you
It cannot measure how many keys register simultaneously, because that is a property of the hardware matrix rather than something a page can probe reliably. It cannot measure switch bounce, and it cannot see keys intercepted before the browser — the function layer on a laptop, most media controls, and anything the operating system claims first.
It also cannot prove a keyboard is healthy. It can prove a specific key produced an event, which is a narrower and more honest claim.
The legacy numeric code
The third value is a deprecated numeric identifier kept because remote support scripts and older documentation still refer to it. It is inconsistent across browsers and platforms, which is precisely why it was deprecated.
We show it when the browser provides one and stay quiet when it does not. Treat it as a compatibility note rather than as evidence.
When the evidence actually points at hardware
One position that fires no event, on more than one browser, after ruling out layout and accessibility settings — that is a hardware conclusion you can act on. Anything short of that and a new keyboard is an expensive way to not fix the problem.