"You Want What??...": You Still Want What?? Mechanical Keyboards for Work

History and Motivation

I had slowly shifted to working from home years before the pandemic hit in 2020 but when it happened and I found myself at home and in online meetings like never before, it occurred to me that the gaming keyboard I had been using at home for both work and personal was becoming too noisy to use during meetings. I began to ask myself if there was a solution to this problem where I can get a quiet keyboard that types as well as my 4 year old gaming keyboard but without all the noise. You've probably guessed from the title of this article that there wasn't an off-the-shelf solution and you'd be right because when have any of my ideas or problems ever been solved and waiting for me to discover them?...

The Requirements

First, I write code and occasionally documentation for a living, certainly I write enough emails along the way as well. To make coding more efficient, a ten-keyless keyboard form factor is my preference: in short, TKL = full-sized keyboard - number pad. TKL (aka. 80%) is more compact and ergonomic vs. full-sized while retaining all the important keys to make navigating and editing code much quicker (vs. using the mouse and GUI menus). And you don't realize how much you miss the PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, Del and Ins keys until you don't have them, same goes with the Function Row at the top of the keyboard. TKL's removed numpad area also allows the mouse or trackball to be placed closer in, no more needing to slide the keyboard off center to make room for it. TKL isn't rare, but finding a quiet one with tactile feedback is.

The second requirement is that the keyboard be "mechanical," meaning they use key switches with good old metal springs inside and spring metal contacts rather than the silicone membrane keyboards that come with the standard office Dell workstation. Mechanical switches tend to last much longer, 50M+ keystrokes long, and have more customizing options than any membrane keyboard (more on this later).

The third requirement is that the keyboard must support "hot-swapping" of key switches which allows for easy serviceability and customization. There's no significant benefit to opening up the entire keyboard to solder/resolder switches when clip-in sockets only requires seconds to replace switches.

The fourth requirement, if possible, was that the key switches be tactile. My limited experience said I wouldn't like linear switches that did not have any typing feedback, that notable "click" or "bump" feeling to know when your keystroke actually makes contact, preferably without all the sound.

Keyboard form factor comparison diagram

Retail Me Not

There aren't many work-focused mechanical keyboards ready out of the box to begin with, let alone ones aimed at being quiet. This is a bit disappointing though not surprising. The closest I've come across in retail is the Matias keyboards that are essentially third party Mac styled keyboards with the same low profile chiclet keys and similar typing experience. While they don't have the ability to change switches, they are reasonably priced around $99 USD and have LED backlighting as an aid to those who work in dimly lit areas.

There are smaller companies who mass produce "enthusiast" keyboards who offer hot-swap sockets in different form factors: Glorious Gaming, Keychron, and Ducky to name a few. On paper it would seem this is the easiest way to a hot-swap TKL keyboard but being as particular as I am, I also wanted the on-the-fly software programmable keys/macros found in many gaming keyboards that these keyboards didn't have, so that ruled out these makes and models.

I probably should've stopped here and be done with it but knowing me, I kept going down the rabbit hole and explored the custom keyboard subculture, but I won't delve into that here.

Mountain of a Keyboard

My keyboard search ended with the Mountain Everest Max gaming keyboard. You won't find it at your local computer stores, they're online order only in 2021 (mine was shipped from Europe). I could've picked one of several hot-swap TKL keyboards sold at computer stores instead, but the Everest Max has so many bells and whistles that when I thought of the number of hours I'll continue spending on the computer, it was easy to justify spending more up front. A removable numpad that also fits on the left side was the biggest draw, I could finally place my trackball closer on the right while having shortcut keys on the left. The keys are also programmable with macros thanks to Mountain's software.

The Everest Max modular hot-swap keyboard

Silent but Tactile: (The Great) Gazzew Boba U4 Key Switches

A bells and whistles keyboard isn't the key to a quiet keyboard, it's the switches that go into them. During my foray down custom keyboard lane, I discovered a handful of silent switches. The one model that stood out to me was the Gazzew Boba U4 because not only was it quiet, it didn't require additional lubrication to feel and sound quiet. They are also a tactile switch (Requirement #4)! Not knowing quite what to expect, I ordered the 62 g option, the lightest spring force option for this model.

Inside the Boba U4 switch

Everest Max + Boba U4

The first impressions were great, I had finally put together the keyboard solution I was looking for, or so I thought. The overall typing experience was much quieter than my old gaming keyboard outfitted with Cherry MX Blue super-clicky switches, and at first the pronounced tactile 'bump' feeling from typing was very satisfactory. This new keyboard and switch combination is still much quieter than the Cherry MX Browns that were installed originally, a night and day comparison in both cases. It might help that the Everest Max includes a layer of soft foam in between the PCB and top housing to reduce possible echo inside the keyboard.

About 2 weeks after the honeymoon period ended, I started to notice knuckle fatigue when I typed for more than an hour at a time. Contrast this with my Cherry MX Blue keyboard that never gave me any issues with prolonged use. Also, I discovered that the pronounced tactile bump that I thought I liked so much was also responsible for some of the larger, stabilized keys to rattle, with the worst being the big space bar causing the keyboard itself to buzz upon being released. Surely to come all this way, this can't be the end...

Silent But Linear: Bobagum Switches?

With the desire to spend as little effort as possible, I ordered something I never thought I'd consider, a silent but linear switch by Gazzew, their Bobagum, this time in the lightest 52 g option. I realized I may have dismissed linear switches too early because they do very well in keys that get pressed quickly and often, i.e. gaming. It also turns out that navigating code has the same keystroke patterns, especially with the arrow keys and others.

Unfortunately, the 52 g springs just weren't strong enough to lift that space bar with its 3 stabilizers and highest static mass of all the keys.

Spring Into Action

Neither the 52g or 62g stock Boba springs in their respective switches were getting the job done. Not wanting to go the option of paying more for shipping switch springs than they cost, I resorted to swapping the 55g springs from the Everest's stock Cherry MX Brown switches into the Boba switches. While not ideal, this experiment would tell me much sooner and with less money if spring tension was my problem and also my solution.

Turns out 55g worked really well on the alphabet keys where they don't get pressed more than twice at a time for regular typing patterns (i.e. not gaming). The knuckle fatigue went away, though the tactile feedback was reduced as well. It's not entirely clear if the higher spring force or the vibrations caused by stronger rebounds caused my knuckle fatigue since both attributes changed at once when the springs were swapped. The 62g Bobagums worked really well for the spacebar and the other stabilized keys too, though I probably put the 55g springs inside some. Out of laziness, I kept the infrequently used keys as 62g tactile switches because opening 104 switches (times 2) is very tedious and time consuming and wouldn't necessarily be noticable enough to justify the effort.

To Summit All Up...

The final combination of the Everest Max keyboard, Boba switches and spring forces is a strange mix of linear and tactile all on the same keyboard: 55g tactile for the alphabets, 55g or 62g linear for "navigation" keys, numpad and the space bar, 62g tactile for the numbers, function row, and everything else. It might seem weird to have 3 or 4 simultaneous combinations of feelings but I don't even notice the differences, and it solves my more outstanding problems of pain and noise.

For those looking only for the bare necessities, there are other ways to put together a work-focused, quiet mechanical keyboard with a less expensive keyboard as its base. There are a number of hot-swap mechanical keyboards in different form factors but for writing code, my experience says TKL can't be beat. The companies mentioned earlier (Keychron, Glorious and Ducky) make hot-swap keyboards that will easily fit the switches of your liking and they should be available at more specialized retail computer stores. You could even get "Amazon's cheapest hot swap TKL keyboard" and call it a day as one Youtube video has demonstrated.

Being that the key to quiet typing is mostly from the switches, I still recommend the Boba silent switches with a couple bags of different spring forces to customize them to your specific preferences. The Boba design doesn't seem to require any additional lubrication, which if you've seen time lapse videos is very tedious and messy process. Gazzew switches aren't as readily available so check with the different mechanical keyboard specialty stores online for pricing and availability.

"You Want What??..."

Raison d'Etre

You Still Want What?? Mechanical Keyboards for Work