What Is Smart Tap?

Smart Tap is a Hall Effect keyboard feature that assigns two independent actions to a single key, one that triggers on a brief press, and another that triggers when the same key is held. Where a standard key binding outputs one action regardless of how the key is pressed, Smart Tap uses the duration of the keypress to determine which of the two assigned actions fires.

Smart Tap detects two key behaviors, tap and hold, which are determined by the firmware rather than the game itself. The key outputs whichever action is bound to the detected behavior, instead of outputting on a certain actuation point.

A standard key binding maps a single action to a key; it activates when the key is pressed and stops when it is released. Some games implement their own hold-to-modify behavior natively (for example, holding a key to aim down sights), but this key logic is game-specific and not configurable at the hardware level.

Smart Tap moves that behavior to the keyboard firmware, making it available on any key, regardless of what the game or software supports. This also means the tap and hold actions can be completely unrelated inputs. A tap could send one keyboard shortcut while a hold sends an entirely different one, with no requirement that the two share any in-game relationship.

The main distinction from layer switching or FN modifier combinations is that Smart Tap requires no additional key to activate. The same physical key handles both actions; the press behavior alone determines whether the tap or held action activates.

Through CORSAIR Web Hub users can configure any compatible keyboard with the Smart Tap feature. The setup process follows:

Step 1 — Select the Target Key

Open Web Hub, navigate to the Smart Tap tab, and select the key that Smart Tap will be assigned to.

Step 2 — Assign the Tap Action

With Smart Tap selected, the configuration panel will present two assignment slots: one for the tap input and one for the hold input. Assign the desired action to the tap slot. This can be any standard keyboard input, modifier key, media command, or macro.

Step 3 — Assign the Hold Action

Assign the second action to the hold slot. This action activates when the key is held past the tap threshold duration. The hold action activates continuously for as long as the key remains held and stops when the key is released, behaving like a standard held key input.

Step 4 – Configure Hold Duration

The hold duration setting determines when the hold action activates. At the default 150ms, any keypress shorter than 150ms is treated as a tap, and anything held beyond that threshold activates the hold action. Increasing the hold duration requires a longer physical hold before the hold action fires; decreasing it makes the threshold more sensitive.

Configuration Example

The following example shows how Smart Tap can restore arrow key functionality to a 60% layout without remapping any keys.

In this configuration, each key in the bottom-right cluster retains its original function on a hold while delivering an arrow key input on a quick tap. On a 60% layout, dedicated arrow keys are absent by design and are typically only accessible through FN shortcuts. Smart Tap removes the dependency of FN shortcuts, making the layout fully functional without adding any physical keys.

On a standard keyboard, every key performs a single action whether the key is tapped briefly or held. Smart Tap expands on a key where a tap and a hold on the key are treated as two distinct inputs without any modifier involvement. The distinction is made entirely by the firmware, which means it is consistent, low-latency, and requires no change in how the user interacts with other keys.

The broader value is the ability to expand smaller form factor keyboards without adding more physical keys. On a 60% keyboard, the absence of dedicated arrow keys, function rows, and a numpad is a trade-off for the size and portability of a 60% keyboard. Smart Tap provides the ability to have these high-priority functions within the keyboard constraints, not by adding keys, but by layering additional actions into the keys that are already there. For players who need both the compactness of a 60% form factor and access to inputs that a 60% layout doesn't natively include, Smart Tap is one of the primary tools for closing that gap.