When two things rub together, they create friction, and friction slows things down and creates wear. That includes not just things like analog sticks, but the keyswitches in our keyboards, too. Cherry, the German company that sets the standard for keyswitch quality and consistency, is offering their own answer to those problems with some of their latest keyswitches, announced this at this year’s Computex computing convention, held yearly in Taipei, Taiwan.
One of the most common (and annoying) ways we see frictional wear as gamers analog stick drift, which occurs when the potentiometers beneath your analog sticks begin to wear out or get debris caught in them. Cherry has two of their own switches that look to prevent this issue, the MK and IK switches. Cherry name is so synonymous with their MX switches that you might think the company’s name is Cherry MX, but these two switches help prove otherwise.
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Cherry showed off a preview of the MK magnetic switches at the show. They don’t have a release window for these just yet, but they’re in the works. Magnetic switches promise to offer “frictionless speed and gaming grade precision,” according to Cherry. With these just in preview, they didn’t have more more to say.
More imminent are the IK Series of inductive keyswitches, which the company says will release in Fall of 2025. These switches work on a similar principle to Hall Effect switches, but with Cherry’s own patented design, which they say consumes 5% of the power required for Hall Effect switches (and 50% of the power as compared to the aforementioned MK magnetic switches). According to Cherry, the IK switches feature “a robust, magnet- free metal-based design for enhanced reliability, analog precision, and long-term stability.” This is coupled with “enhanced RGB lighting, customizable actuation, and ultra-low power usage.”
However, if you prefer the traditional physical MX switch series–don’t worry. Cherry still has you covered with three new switch offerings: MX Honey, MX Blossom, and MX Falcon.
The Honey switches are silent, tactile switches, meant to give the user the satisfying feedback of a tactile switch without the clicky-clack of traditional tactile switches. The MX Blossom switches, meanwhile, are the lightest linear mechanical switches the company has offered yet, with an actuation force of just 35 centinewtons (cN). For comparison, many of Cherry’s other MX switches require between 60-70 cN, with others as low as 45 cN. So these switches are light and quiet. Finally, the MX Falcon switches are for heavy typists who want “bold feedback and a satisfying tactile punch,” which the company says was inspired by the “crisp snap of typewriters.” Even the look of the switch–which you won’t see after installation unless you pull off the keycaps–was inspired by ’90s retro design,’ with a PC-beige-and-black housing and orange key stem.
These new MX switches will be available next month, with 36-switch consumer sets to follow a bit later.
