I’ll preface this by saying I’ve only used cherry mx brown switches before.
Recently I decided to try Akko Silver linear switch, and while it feels great when I’m gaming, for work I’ve been getting the tips of my fingertips hurting. Is it just me or are they not for this sort of thing?
If you don’t like them, then you don’t like them. It’s all just personal preference. MX Brown have such a small bump anyways they’re basically linear.
Are you bottoming out with a lot of force when typing?
I think so but I’m not sure. I’ve been doing the mental effort to type lightly and it seems to be helping so far.
Yeah, it definitely seems like a more concerted effort to not bottom out super hard on linears, but, if you can manage it, hell yeah. As others have said tactiles give you some physical feedback to tell you when you’ve actuated the switch. If you continue to have issues and really want to stick with linears, perhaps a silent linear would alleviate the fatigue/pain. The bottom is dampened with some kind of rubber or silicone so it doesn’t feel as harsh when you bottom out
I think so. There’s nothing telling your finger when a linear switch is active. That’s why you end up bottoming out, which means you’re using more force and incurring more impact in the finger. One can learn to like anything but typing without bottoming out on linear is playing on hard because you like it. The problem is that if you don’t learn to not bottom out, this does damage to your fingers and it’ll start complaining long term. With that said, typing using the 10-finger system might be more important for avoiding repetitive injury. I imagine overloading several fingers with all keystrokes would be worse than bottoming out. If you type a lot that is. So I’d learn to do that before changing the switches. In any case being able to reliably type without looking is magical. Releases the brain to fully focus on what’s on screen. Or off screen.
preference is always king. Some like tactile, some like linears, some heretical people like clickies.
Switching switches tends to come with a period of getting accustomed to the new feel, at least for me. I switched from cherry mx browns to durock L7’s (68g ones, iirc), so quite the jump and I absolutely love them. Types just fine, but the first week was pretty weird, ngl.
Heretic with Box Jades here. They’re awesome for typing and waking my neighbors up at 3AM.
I’m a hobbyist speed typer (200wpm+), generally prefer linear switches. I do bottom out almost always. To reduce the impact of bottoming out, if this is an issue for you, you can:
-
use a softer and/or more flexible plate. An aluminum or brass plate is very stiff and will absorb less of the impact compared to an FR4 or polycarbonate plate. The mounting style of the keyboard can also affect this, e.g. a gasket mount has the pcb “floating” on rubber pads that absorb shock, and a plate that is screwed directly into a metal chassis will absorb almost nothing. The plate/pcb can have flex cuts added to improve flexibility and absorb more shock.
-
use switch springs with a higher actuation force. Common choice is 63.5g or 68g, which is a little heavier than the Akko switches’ ~45g. The spring can also have a variable profile such that the resistance increases more as the spring is depressed, so it kind of cushions the impact a tiny bit. I use extra long springs which has the opposite effect, the response curve is more constant.
-
use rubber o-rings on the switches. This will make them feel squishy and I don’t really recommend it, but it’s an option if replacing your keyboard isn’t.
FWIW I mostly use an Odin75 keyboard with an FR4 plate and stock alpaca switches. This is gasket mount + soft plate with lots of flex cuts, so it’s a reasonably soft typing experience.