Software

The software driver for the Thermaltake Level 20 GT RGB keyboard is TT iTAKE Engine and can be downloaded from their downloads page. The latest public version when testing was 1.4.2009, and the installer is 36.7 MB in size. As seen above, installation is fairly straightforward, and the final package takes up approximately 63 MB. The package is fairly light on system resources. When you do open the program, it is best to have the keyboard connected, although you can still play around and get familiar with the program without any hardware connected.


Opening it for the first time with the keyboard connected, I had a message pop up about an available keyboard firmware update. The update was very quick and done within the drivers itself. Once done, we see a homepage that is well laid out with a top row that lists the various connected, software-compatible products. Note, however, that I cropped part of the bottom slightly because TT iTAKE Engine displays your desktop name and IP address there for some reason. At the top is a keyboard tab, so other product categories presumably appear up there depending on what else you have compatible with TT iTAKE Engine.

There is not a lot to see in the settings menu except for all that advertisement of what else you can do outside of TT iTAKE Engine. It comes off a bit obnoxious, but is at least kept away from the user experience as a whole. There is a mobile app, other desktop programs, and Amazon Alexa integration, just in case it interests you. I have none primarily because I lack another compatible device, so I moved on. In the video above, you can also see how there is software control over the six onboard profiles, which can be associated with programs and renamed too, and have pre-programmed lighting effects for a quick visual identifier.

A large virtual keyboard is the base for the customization menu, including selecting a key and remapping it to a plethora of options, such as assigning a macro, game shortcut, opening a program or URL, and disabling it altogether. The tab alongside allows for the creation of new macros and recording, as well as the ability to edit them, including moving keystrokes up and down and changing delays between keystrokes, which ties back into the key mapping functionality as well.

The third tab is titled "Lighting" and works just as the name suggests. There is a good set of functionality and customization here, including static, dynamic, and reactive effects. These are available on a per-key basis with 256 steps of brightness control through R/G/B channels, for a total of 16.8 M colors for each key. Each effect also has sub-menus for more options, although there are only two control steps for most with speed and direction. A big difference here compared to the Level 20 GT RGB keyboard is the presence of more lighting zones—32 around the keyboard and another six on top, with one also illuminating the cutout in the aluminium frame for that extra bit of pizzazz. The final tab is TT Sync. While I have no other compatible device, it presumably works as expected—I can't test it at all.

As mentioned before, there is also an iOS and Android companion app for TT iTAKE, which requires you to have the app installed on a device that is on the same Wi-Fi network as the PC with the full drivers installed. In theory, you are then able to pair your app device for control over lighting effects and the creation of simple macros, in addition to actually playing PC games with a virtual controller on your smartphone. Unfortunately, the app just kept crashing every single time I tried to pair it, and it appears that this is more common than not at this time. The Level 20 RGB is also part of a product lineup supported by Tt's RGB PLUS unifying software for lighting and can be synchronized with other compatible products of which I have none to test. Take it for what you will as I could not test any of these extra control options, especially considering that the Level 20 RGB keyboard with Razer Green switches also supports Razer Synapse, if you have other Razer products.