Am I wrong in having picked up the idea that clickjackets weren’t even designed for their sound in the first place? The MX Whites came first, and those are greased, ahem, factory lubed, to ensure hysteresis and minimize the audio impact.
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This is correct, although after Cherry realized their design to provide hysteresis was gonna click regardless & they leaned into it hard.
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You’re not gonna believe this:
After using Boba U4T for a week, my Kailh Box Pink have been welcomed as the less noisy option.
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When the clack bigger than the click
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I would have to say that clicky switches largely fell out of favor back in the early 90s when rubber dome membrane based keyboards got significantly cheaper. Since they didn’t really have any advantages over mechanical switches they pushed how quiet they were compared to mechanical keyboards & them being “spill proof” as their major advantages over mechanical KBs. Then when offices largely converted from cubicles to open spaces that kinda made the perfect storm for rubber dome KBs to take over in the office setting.
Thankfully some typing purists + gamers found mechanical KBs & clicky switches to be superior to rubber domes. Keeping enough business from them coming in to keep them in production till gaming KBs with mechanical switches came en vogue again & our hobby started to get big enough to make an impression with what we bought.
As far as in the enthusiast space right now I think @Deadeye summed up why clicky switches are the least used by us. Although I really do believe if someone would make complicated ALPS clones those clickys would definitely garner a fairly big user base. As I feel like SKCM ALPS, beamspring, & both flavors of buckling spring switches all did clicky switches much much better than my MX switches has to date. Kaihl’s clickbar switches got pretty damn close, but still not as good IMHO.
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I would love to try blue skmc Alsp, but not at their going price. Though, in the end, I’d probably gravitate back to silent tactile switches, because I no longer live alone and because of that, I find it really hard to justify buying anything clicky these days. lol
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SKCM blues are very nice switches. I have a few just for my switch collection, but agree that it’s very hard to justify buying them at their going price. They strike a super nice balance between weighting, tactility, & loudness IMO from the few I have. So in my mind that is why they are so sought after. Although if you find a good deal on some I wouldn’t rule out giving them a go! They seem like they would be fine to use around other people if in a dense case.
Early SKCM whites come close to emulating the blues, but they are just a bit harsher. Then the SKCM ambers are a whole different beast, those boys CLICK lol! Definitely a lot louder than blues & a good bit more tactile too. I’d love to do a build with them just to have to use when I could get away with it. Unfortunately those are even rarer than blues & carry a high price tag as well.
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Theyre definitely still in favor at my house. I regularly use boards with Navy and Green switches. I also use those at work frequently too; we have a few other clicky users nearby as well.
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I’m glad to see Chyrosran22 actively advocating for clicky switches 
Chyrosran22 GMMK Pro Review
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Clicky switches put me off mechanical keyboards for several years, as I thought the two were synonymous.
My first mechanical keyboard was a cherry blue that I bought for work. I liked the feel, and didn’t mind the loudness too much though it did seem somewhat stupidly excessive and gimmicky. But after increasingly annoyed comments from my colleagues I felt like a douchebag and had to get rid of it after a week or so. Thinking that mechanical=clicky I wrote off mechanicals until relatively recently. Perhaps some of my colleagues did too.
With the ability to elicit such negative experiences, I’m not surprised clicky switches have receded in popularity as options have grown. They’re only suited to certain people and/or certain circumstances, so it makes sense that they’d be more of a specialised niche than a go-to.
Another factor that has probably played a part is that gaming brands used to use them (the aforementioned cherry blue board was a razer) but have since moved away from them. Most now seem to use linears. This probably improves gamefeel (after all, why should a slight strafe to the left register a sharper tactile feedback than firing a gun with the mouse?). And clicky switches are said to have differing actuation/deactuation heights which is problematic for quick repeated presses. I’m sure gaming keyboards are how many people are introduced to mechanical keyboards, so you now have more people entering the keeb world via linear or tactile switches.
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Indeed!
As for gaming brands, I bet some of that is also streamers and gamers in general not wanting their keyboard clacking away over the headset - not too unlike the annoyed coworkers, I know a guy who streams illustration and he told me his viewers often mentioned his harsh-sounding clickies. (He’s on Gazzew silent tactiles now.)
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I was just reading a reddit post about implementing plate springs for clicky switches. The benefits that the author cited:
- They can generate tactility, a click, and actuate a set of contacts all at once. Since the inversion causes the center of the plate spring to move to a different position, that motion can be used to press down on a set of contacts and close a circuit.
- They are not rattly: this is a huge advantage over click jacket switches, most of which are notoriously rattly. Granted, the sound of plate springs aren’t always appreciated, but I think they have a place in the keyboard community.
- They can be fit into small, individual switches: this is a must if you want something MX compatible and decently ergonomic. Alps managed to do this with their SKCP switches - it’s certainly possible to do it again.
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Personally, I’d love to see it. I love the crispness of a click-bar, but it doesn’t have the elegance of an intrinsically linked sound, actuation, and tactile event.
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Do you mean that the click-bar sound doesn’t match the actuation event? Because that was the deal breaker for me. I don’t use linears so for me the whole point of a tactile is to tell my fingers “ok, you can move to the next key now… I’m actuated”. So when I tried a click-bar switch I was used to using some kind of tactile/sound feedback to tell me that the key has been actuated.
The clickbar would click before the actuation so sometimes I would miss letters because the clickbar sound was the auditory “signal” to tell me that I could move to the next key.
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Not specifically, though I have heard that was an issue with early runs of the BOX clickbar switches (see: Chyrosran22’s BOX White review). I think that’s mostly resolved at this point.
I was referring to the click/tactility and actuation being produced by totally separate mechanisms in the clickbar switches, vs all three being produced by the same mechanism in a plate-spring switch (or some others, like buckling springs, etc.)
This is a legendary clicky switch write up and experiment. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.
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From my point of view, it seems as if there are a ridiculous number of new linears with infinitely small improvements and/or differences, while clicky switches are mature as a design. I recognize that new switches are in the works, but I still feel that what’s available now are quite fine with enough gradation between them to suit individual taste.
I started off with Cherry MX white, but moved to Kailh Box Navy and stuck. I have two boards with the Navies and one board with BKE Heavies. Good enough for me. I’m done. These boards will last longer than I will.
I’m off the hamster wheel. May we all find what we’re looking for.
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:salute:
Wish I could find the exit.
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I hope Zeal does help breathe some life in clicky switches, especially when they’re purported to have an alps-inspired click
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I had a TADA68 w/Box Navies (v1) in a Tofu65 case. Loud af. I kept that at work and would swap keyboards when people thought it would be a great idea to have a non-work related 15 minute chat near my cube. I was sad to have to tear that down when I found about about the shite Box Navy v1 stems that were GMK-damaging.
I still distrust Box stems which is a real shame. I would love to build up my Thermal with Pinks, but I cant get myself to trust that I wont be messing up GMK caps by doing so.
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