I thought this question was going to have a yes or no answer, but it turns out it’s more of a multi-faceted one.
I just love it when that happens.
Impromptu showdown essay time!
Alright - let’s take a look at these kai-hooey* clickies on my desk here, and talk about which one is “more tactile” than the other:
So - the BOX (Crystal) Navy’s tactile event is more abrupt, but the peak force of the Speed Navy’s bump is higher.
Trying one in each hand, that abruptness had me about to say “oh yeah the BOX one is totally more tactile,” and then I tried them stem-to-stem, which has me questioning “what even is tactility?”
When pushed stem-to-stem (slowly and straight-on) the Speed pushes the BOX’s stem all the way to bottom before cresting its own bump (in this case clearing the click-bar) - so it’s clear its bump is “stronger” in terms of how many grams of weight it takes to clear it.
However, doing that same test a bit more quickly sometimes has the BOX stem pushing through the Speed’s bar.
The meaningful difference: the lead-up to and release from the tactile event are quite different between these two switches, as similar as the peak itself may be.
With the BOX (Crystal) switch, there’s a tiny bit of pre-travel before you hit a basically flat wall of increasing pressure until you clear the bar and almost unavoidably hit bottom, as it takes more pressure to clear the bar than it does to fully compress the spring in the switch.
BOX (Crystal) Navy: You climb a wall, and then fall flat on the floor.
With the Speed switch, there’s essentially no “pre-travel” in that the stem cam immediately engages with the bar - however that engagement itself represents a more gradual climb in resistance before clearing, unlike the BOX’s sheer cliff. Once you clear the bar, you’ll find it much easier to avoid bottoming-out, or at least to not bottom-out as hard, thanks to a fast-curve spring that quickly increases in weight towards the bottom of the travel - and thanks to the peak being higher-up in the travel, giving more space to slow down.
Speed Navy: You climb a short, steep hill and jump off onto a big mattress.
Personally, I found the BOX Navies to be a bit too much to use for actual typing, but they’re grand for lock keys to simulate locking switches. The Speeds, on the other hand, I find significantly more usable. Not for very long, mind you… Still, the difference in the typing experience is significant.
The Speeds might be heavier, but they’re also decidedly less harsh.
*Dumb fun fact: some text-to-speech programs read “Kaihua” as “kai-hooey” and I chuckle every time.
