Kinetic Labs Salmon Tactile Switches

https://kineticlabs.store/switches/kinetic/salmons

New tactile switches from Kinetic Labs released today. They’re a super cute pink color and are pretty inexpensive.

From the Kinetic Labs: Salmons have a large and rounded tactile bump, similar to Holy Pandas. Salmons have a long stem, so the tactile bump leads right into the bottom-out.
The stem is POM. The housings are a custom PC Polymer. The springs are gold-plated stainless steel (Symmetric Long Springs 63.5g).

I’ve got my suspicions that these are Tecsee tactile switches spring-swapped with Kinetic Lab long springs. The bottom housings seem to match exactly with the Tecsee Purple Pandas and Tecsee Blue Velvet Tactiles I have on hand. All 3 also have the mold markings around the switch name plate on the top housing. I’d take a guess and say that the “custom PC Polymer” mentioned on the sales page is PME, just like Blue Velvets and Purple Pandas.


Also, I wonder how these will compare to Cannonkey’s Neapolitan Ice Cream switches which should be coming out soon.

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Very reminiscent of the Tescee Blue Velvet housings I got too, think you may be right with your guess of where these switches are from. I am not a fan of the name though, when most keeb enthusiasts hear salmon & tactile in the same sentence they are gonna be thinking ALPS SKCM Salmons, which these will in no way resemble or feel like. I doubt these were named that to make anyone think they will feel like SKCM Salmons, but just naming them something that wasn’t taken would’ve avoided any confusion there. :thinking:

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Good point, I thought it was a reference to pink salmon, going by their theme of naming their switches after marine animals that exist in the north, and pink salmon because the housing is pink. This is my speculation. I agree it could be misleading info for some people

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Just got these in today. I think I need to lube them before I have a worthy opinion. I’ll try to share my thoughts when I get around to putting these in something!

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I just got them today. The top housings have the same PME flakes as the other Tecsee switches like the Blue Velvets. The same small bump if you switch out the long springs for the Blue Velvet’s smaller ones.

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I can’t wait for people to confuse these with salmon alps in random passing conversations

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which out of the 2 do you recommend

I’d recommend the Salmon switches if you’re looking for actual tactility similar to a Panda’s and not just “panda-like” / rounded or some other buzzword. As far as I can tell, there should be almost no difference between the two save for the longer springs in the Salmons which lets you feel more of its tactility.

thanks.