Keyboard CPS Test: Peak Speed, Pace Chart and Shareable Runs

The Keyboard CPS Test has become one of the most used pages on key-test.com since it launched in July. Until now it ended with a single figure, your average keys per second. That number is honest, but it hides most of what happened in the run. This release shows the rest.

Your peak second

Next to your score there is a new Peak figure: the most key presses you landed inside any one-second window of the run.

The window slides, so it is not tied to the clock. If your fastest burst ran from 2.4 to 3.4 seconds, that is the second that counts. Your average says how fast you were overall; your peak says how fast your fingers and your switches can go when everything lines up. A wide gap between the two usually means you started hot and faded.

A pace chart, second by second

Under the result there is now a small bar chart with one bar for each second of the test. A flat row of bars is a steady run. A tall first bar followed by a slope is the classic sprint start. A dip in the middle is where you lost the rhythm.

It is most useful on the longer tests. On 30 and 60 seconds the average alone cannot tell a consistent 8 CPS from a run that opened at 11 and finished at 6, and those are very different results if you are practising for a rhythm game.

Your recent runs

The test has always remembered your best score for each mode. It now also keeps your last 20 results, and shows them as a row of bars with the newest one highlighted.

Below the bars you get your average across those runs, and a small plus or minus figure: how the run you just finished compares with the average of the ones before it. Green means you beat your own usual pace.

A few details worth knowing:

• History is kept separately for every combination of duration and keys. Ten seconds on Space and ten seconds on Z X are different lists, because they are different skills.
• Runs that stop early, because you pressed Esc or the window lost focus, are not saved and do not affect the average.
• Everything is stored in your browser, on your device. There is no account and nothing is uploaded. The Clear button next to the chart removes the list for the current mode.

Share a run, and the exact test behind it

The result card has a new Share result button. It copies a short message with your score, the keys you used and the duration, followed by a link.

The link is the useful part. It opens the CPS test already set to the same duration and the same keys, including a custom key set, so whoever you send it to takes the same test you did. A link that ends in #d=10&k=KeyZ.KeyX means ten seconds on Z and X. If your browser blocks clipboard access, the link appears in a box under the button so you can copy it by hand.

The settings travel in the part of the address after the #, which browsers do not send to the server. Opening a shared link tells us nothing about who shared it.

What has not changed

The rules of the test are the same. The timer starts on your first press. Holding a key down does not count, because auto-repeat is your operating system typing, not you. You can still test with any key, a preset such as WASD or the arrow keys, or up to eight keys of your own choosing, and several keys pressed together each count.

Lighter pages, again

Every page on the site used to carry a full copy of that language's text, including long passages it never displayed. Pages now receive only the text they use. The English home page is about 7% smaller and the Thai one about 11% smaller, with the CPS page around 10% lighter. It continues the work described in A Faster, Lighter Keyboard Test.

The new labels are available in all 32 languages. They were machine-drafted and are being reviewed by native speakers, so if something reads oddly in your language, tell us through the Comments link in the navigation. The full release history is on the changelog.