alt Hacker NewsThe botique keyboard space exploded during that time, especially towards the latter half of the 10's and through the pandemic years. There were countless one-off group buys across the price spectrum all offering more interesting products, and in the last 5 years or so there's been a number of vendors offering enthusiast-level features in mass production boards (e.g. Keychron).
It's definitely not a market where one can stand still.
Replies
We've lost some classic names in keyboards. It's not mechanical but Keytronic made amazing rubber dome keyboards, and they left the business. I don't know what I'm going to do if I ever need to replace my current one.
I bought a ~60€ Redragon linear switches keyboard for my office desk to replace the company-provided shitty Logitech, not expecting much, and was very surprised by the quality. So competition is definitely tough.
and they all suck. I bought the most silent and lowest-weight keys I could, and typing on it takes a ton of force and is very loud. Typing should be almost no force whatsoever and should not produce any sound at all, just the slightest bump you could imagine. Instead, it's loud enough to disturb whoever I'm with, while feeling like I'm not only getting my thoughts out but kneading dough at 100 WPM. It's nicer to type with just my thumbs on a tiny phone's glass virtual keyboard, as I'm doing now. true, at zero mm of key travel it's not ideal, but at least I'm not kneading dough while I do it.
In another universe, I can see Filco ergonomic keyboards. LED glass-screen keys that actually made sense on the very high end. Hot swaps. An enterprise line up with partnership with Dell and other big manufacturers, an affordable 3y lifespan silent mechanical keyboard would have pleased big tech workers. They had the talent and cash flow to make it happen and take the lead with economies of scale.
Nothing wrong with sticking to what works, but the way to beat pale competition is to innovate.