From The Vault: Winkeyless.KR ‘Zeal’ Clear Switch Review

To preface this preface a bit, this week hasn’t gone well in the slightest. It seems like damn near everything has gone wrong including fucking up an exam significantly worse than I had imagined, nearly getting hit in an intersection on two separate occasions, and even straight up not being able to make grilled cheese somehow. Oh, I even forgot the most interesting thing that happened: the UPS store where I get my switches delivered to had an outbreak of COVID and thus has had to shut down since the vast majority of their staff are affected. While normally I can white-knuckle it through a day or two without getting to tear open my latest package of switches and get to gleefully add them to the collection, this package that is locked in that store this weekend happens to contain the switches that were supposed to be in this week’s review. Further compounding this issue, backup prototype switches that I had for review as well are not “sufficiently complete” enough for me to get to give my thoughts on as they wouldn’t reflect what you all would get to buy soon enough. So, needless to say, this has left me in a little bit of a quandary with what exactly I was to write about for this weekend’s review.

**Figure 1:** In case you didn’t even believe me, this is some real shit luck this week.

With no new switches here particularly striking me as something worth writing a full-length review on, I turned my sights inwards towards the piles and piles of switches around my apartment in order to try and find something worth reviewing. Excellent reviews are made from switches that have interesting properties, a neat story, and perhaps a general lack of documentation about them online anywhere else and without a doubt the Winkeyless.KR “Fake” Zeal Clears were my clear winner in this instance. While I’m not particularly thrilled about doing my third Gateron switch review in the last two months’ worth of time, unfortunately the circumstances above have kind of left my hands tied with respect to what I can and want to write about and Gateron has been pushing a lot of interesting switches out over the past few weeks. That being said though, on the flip side this is probably one of the best times to dig into The Vault and pull out a switch tangentially related to the history of Zeal switches as I just got my tracking information for the Zealio V1 Redux switches. Knowing full well that I have very little documentation and discussion about Zeal switches in my repertoire of now 60 full length articles and over 130 scorecards, getting to write all this out will help build up some level of anticipation and overall background knowledge of Zeal stuff while also providing you all with the same level of content that I sincerely take pride in producing week after week.

Fake Zealios Linears from Winkeyless.KR — **Figure 2:** They also do allow for some pretty awesome looking photographs too.

Switch Background

While it is needless to say to those of you who have been around for even a brief instance of time in this hobby, much less years and years on end like myself, the entire history of Zeal switches is both very long and complicated. At one point in time when I wasn’t consumed to the minute every day with research and general graduate school thoughts, I had actually sat down to pace out and take notes for an “entire history of Zeal” type document, but with well over 50 different and unique switches tied to the history over the last 6 years and counting, this would be damn near a book to do in and of itself. Within a history and background of a line of switches that large, tangentially related switches and stories like these would ultimately be relegated to a footnote for most people, or a small paragraph for someone like me since I really like to put the miles on the keyboards. However, these kinds of footnotes and seldom remembered switches are some of my favorites to talk about as a reviewer, and to get to stumble across as a collector.

First listed for sale sometime during the beginning of 2016, Winkeyless.KR “Fake” Zeal Clears were more immediately known simply as ‘Gateron Tactile Clears’ and were offered with a 67g spring weighting in a clear top and black bottomed, KS-8 style switch housing. Sold on the Korean keyboard forum/vendor Winkeyless.KR, these Gateron Tactile Clears as well as several other Gateron switches were sold between $0.33 and $0.35 per switch, with the Tactile Clears purportedly having been priced at $0.35 per switch as per another source on Reddit. Piecing together the very little history that exists of these switches, which is almost entirely based on Reddit and Geekhack discussions from that time that are sourced below in Further Reading, these switches were not and have never been a stock offering from Gateron, and were instead a custom order request either from Winkeyless.KR or a Korean keyboard enthusiast at the time. Not having in-house molds immediately on hand to fulfill this ‘light tactile, ergo-clear like’ switch request made by this buyer though, what appears to have happened was that Gateron used the molds of a relatively new custom switch that had just been made in their factory for the first time just a short while before – Zealios V1 tactiles.

Winkeyless.KR Sales Page Wayback — **Figure 3:** Winkeyless.KR Gateron Sales page as of February 16th, 2016. (According to the Wayback Machine)

At the time these Gateron Clear Tactiles first showed up for sale, Zealios were still a relatively new switch on the scene. While custom switches simply did not exist at that time and Zealios were relatively groundbreaking in this regard, the original announcement teaser for Zealios switches – titled ‘Project Zealio’ – was not even a year old at this point, first being announced on March 5th of 2015. With blurred renders of red, prototype Zealios switches were teased with this announcement, it wasn’t until VesperSAINT received the first set of sample Zealios on April 2nd, 2015 that the famous purple color was revealed. Shortly thereafter on July 29th, the Zealios switches were formally announced as 62g., Purple “MX Clear” stem switches with gold plated springs. Further details about these Zealios switches were released prior to the R1 (Round 1) groupbuy in the following order of dates:

- The first set of samples beyond that of VesperSAINT were shipped out on August 12th and arrived on August 15th, accompanied by the first full bag photo of Zealios switches. (Note, while this time may seem incredibly fast for shipping time, this was the thing that Zeal was known for within the community up to this point, be it for cables or keyboards otherwise.)

- On August 18th, CPTBadAss posted his first impressions of the switches he received, which also contained 65g. and 67g. weighted tactile options as well as a 62g. linear, clear stemmed option beyond that of the initially teased 62g switches.

- Finally, on August 25th, Zeal announced that the groupbuy was to start soon with 62, 65, and 67g. options of both the clear, linear switches as well as the purple, “ergo-clear tactile” switches at a total of $0.75 per switch.

Zealios V1 Review Image — **Figure 4:** Original Geekhack thread photo from CPTBadAss of the Zealios samples he received prior to the R1 groupbuy.

On August 15th of 2015, the R1 groupbuy for Zealios switches commenced with the full list of aforementioned switch prototypes in clear and purple being sold at $0.75 per switch during the groupbuy phase and $1.00 per switch afterwards. Additionally, Geekhackers R3 lube and a Zeal-themed Binge cap giveaway were included alongside this historical switch groupbuy at the time. Within the Geekhack pages of the R1 groupbuy, several interesting historical details were able to be discerned as follows:

- According to Zeal, two molds were purchased in order to make these switches – the clear Gateron bottom housings as well as the purple, “ergo tactile” stem molds. The stem molds, of which, went on to be utilized by Gateron in making the switches that this review was about.

- Zeal was adamant that these switches would never be sold or ‘dropped’ on Massdrop, though funny enough this statement has not stood the test of time as Zealios switches have been ran several times over through Massdrop since 2016. (The first instance of this occurred only a handful of months later during R3, in fact.)

- CPTBadAss released his review of the Zealios switches on September 16th, 2015, effectively making it the very first custom MX-style switch review ever. I’m honored to be carrying on the tradition even though he is no longer active in the hobby.

- Shortly after fulfillment of the switches that were ordered in this groubuy (a total of 179 kg. by 27 boxes worth, according to Zeal), R2 prototypes were teased which sought to resolve chattering issues that were being reported by some users upon receiving their R1 switches. (This was ultimately fixed by modifying the distance between the metal leaves in the R2 switches.)

- The R2 switches, in addition to the improvements to reduce chattering would feature different purple colorings in order to differentiate weightings with the 65g. weight to remain the original purple color used in R1. Samples were stated to be in production as of Jan. 16th of 2016.

**Figure 5:** Certainly one of the more interesting quotes dropped in those original groupbuy thread.

Following these announcements and revision samples, R2 of Zealios switches began on January 17th, 2016 with two new offerings aside the aformentioned differentation in spring weightings by different shades of purple. The first, and still present change came about in the form of the introduction of the heaviest Zeal switch weighting* at 78g. As well, there was also the release of a limited 65g. Zealio tactile variant with milky white bottom housings. With concerns about custom switch soldering still being present at the time, these milky white bottom housings were being marketed as “for beginners” and having a higher melting point such that people would not melt them with soldering irons while building them into boards. While Zealistotles were mentioned in this Geekhack groupbuy thread in passing as a scrapped attempt at a first Zeal clicky switch, as well as R3 of Zealios being teased as ‘later on in the year’, not much else was posted worth mentioning. The switches were received on March 28th with fulfillment running until April 13th, with the R3 groupbuy post coming shortly thereafter.

**Figure 6:** Original R1 Zealios fulfillment boxes photo in the location where Zeal packed switches.

In addition to the first batches of Zealios R2 switches being received on March 28th, this was the date that Zeal also addressed a relatively highly upvoted Reddit post discussing the release and sale of the Gateron Clear Tactile switches by Winkeyless.KR. Stating that he was aware of these switches a week prior, Zeal went on to state that Winkeyless.KR had very very small quantities of these switches and that he would not be stopping them from being sold from Winkeyless.KR but had had a discussion with Gateron such that these would never be made again. While Clear Tactile switches are still shown to have existed on the Winkeyless.KR sales page throughout the rest of 2016 according to several pulls from the Wayback Machine, it is left uncertain as to how long stock of these switches remained. What is certain, though, is that effectively past 2016 these switches fell into relative obscurity and very few, if any people remember of their existence. That is, of course, except Airbud, who is not only a long time member of this community but the incredible individual who sought me out when he came across these switches, wanting to make sure that I would properly care for them and document them at some point.

* Note: Upon editing this doucment I felt it important to note that at the time of writing this, the 3-in-1 clicky switches from Zeal which have been teased to be announcing in Q4 of 2021 are purported to have a 100g. spring option, which would officially make those the heaviest Zeal switches upon release.

Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear Switch Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear switches are effectively indistinguishable from other KS-8 style Gateron switches. Coming with the classic clear top housing over black bottom housing, these clear stemmed tactiles also feature the same ‘normal’ length silver spring as the other Gateron KS-8s of the time with a 67g. bottom out rating with no lube added to the stems for smoothness/scratch reduction. Looking inwards towards the molds of the switches, as well, it’s worth noting that there is not that much more that differentiates these switches from traditional KS-8 style Gateron switches except the usage of the Zealios switch molds for the stems.

**Figure 7:** Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear switches and components.

Taking a closer inspection at the top housings on their own, the outsides feature both a normal, right-side-up ‘Gateron’ nameplate as well as a wide, rectangular LED slot that also has a smaller circular cutout towards the center to better hold LEDs. Internally, there is very little noteworthy as well given that these are effectively just standard Gateron molds from the time. The singular detail worth noting here, though, is that that mold marking designating which machine this part was pressed on is located at the top edge of the top housing, with a single letter mold marking. Based on comparisons between several switches which had never been opened prior, this mold marking on the top housing does not appear to correspond to any particular set nor pattern of bottom housing mold numbers.

Fake Zeal Top Housing Internals from Winkeyless.KR — **Figure 8:** Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear top housing external side showing traditional Gateron nameplate and wide channel LED slot.

Saving the most interesting part for last and skipping directly to the bottom housings, these are unfortunately as skint on interesting details as are the top housings. Internally, they are fairly plain with four circles in the corners of the upper rim, only two mold ejector marks towards the bottom interior of the housing, as well as a south side, curved spring collar to help keep the spring in place. On the underside of the bottom housing, there are three different mold markings, all represented by single letters. There is a very large single letter located between the pins with two smaller ones located just diagonally interior from that of the PCB mount pins. While this was originally, at one point or another, believed to be a mold marking pattern among ‘custom’ Gateron switches, inspection of other stock switches across various KS-X part numbers has shown that this is more so a feature of commonly used molds than it is of a specific type of one.

**Figure 10:** Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear bottom housing internal shot showing mold ejector markings and general features.

**Figure 11:** Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear bottom housing external shot showing various mold markings and LED slot design.

Moving onto the truly distinguishing aspect of these switches, the tactile clear stems are fairly plain looking even full well knowing the interesting details that they have about them. With respect to the more common points of note, they have a decently tapered central pole of normal length, untapered slider rails, and a pair of high set mold markings on the upper corners of the backplate of the stem. Where the real distinguishing feature of these stems are, though, is in the rather uniquely strong tactile bump that they have. Comparing the photo below to a macro shot taken by Zeal, himself, on August 26th, 2015, its rather evident to see that the strong tactile bump as well as stem leg shape is identical to that of the Zealios V1 stems photographed in that macro.

Fake Zeal Clear Tactile Bump from Winkeyless.KR — **Figure 12:** Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear stem side shot showing tactile bump profile.

**Figure 13:** Zealios V1 (left) and Cherry MX Brown (right) stem comparison taken by Zeal prior to the R1 groupbuy thread on Geekhack.

Push Feel

In their purely stock, unlubed form, even as I try and distance my mind from the direct historical intertwining of these switches with Zealios V1s, I can’t help but come back to how remarkably similar these feel to Zealios. While the housing collisions are ever so slightly different than that of the all-clear Zealios V1 switches from what I can recall without direct comparison, the tactile bump is that uniquely Zealios V1 tactility that has a slight bite at the peak of an otherwise medium-sized, ergo-clear style tactile bump. Broadening my comparisons out to the entire realm of tactile switches that exist today, these switches definitely do fit in just on the lighter side of medium tactility. With the concept of hyper tactile switches not even a thing until long after these switches were made, while these definitely would have been ‘stronger’ tactiles of the day, these don’t even feel in the same league of strength as what many people would consider as “medium strength” tactile switches today such as C3 Kiwis or KBDFans T1 Nights.

Moving beyond the tactile bump discussion, though, these switches are otherwise ‘okay’ at best. While they aren’t nearly as scratchy as some of the earliest Zealios switches that I’ve tried, they still do have a fairly decent amount of medium-strength scratch that is at least consistent across the batch of switches that I had tested. Additionally, even though this is more often than not a sound-based feature rather than a push feel one, there is a slight bit of ping in the upstroke that feels as if it is the result of a stem/leaf interaction rather than that of the springs. Ultimately, though, these two features are relatively dwarfed by that of the tactile bump, which occupies most of the push feeling of the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears.

Sound

As for the overall sound of these switches, some of the more nuanced points of the push feel section really become much more noticeable here. Small amounts of scratch and ever so subtle spring ping give way to a decently scratchy sounding and highly pingy sound that is fairly consistent across the entirety of the batch. While these features definitely do decrease a pretty substantial amount with aftermarket lubrication of both the slider rails as well as the springs, in their stock form they are quite subpar for today’s standards in switches. That is not to say, though, that these switches were relatively poor sounding for the time. In fact, I’d make the argument that many people of the era would have enjoyed the sound of these over those of the stock, all-clear Zealios switches as overall improvement in sound with the introduction of opaque bottom housings has long been the reason that many original buyers of Zealios switches in the early rounds (R1-R3) cited for their enjoyment of the milky bottomed switches introduced in R2.

Wobble

Due to the fact that many of you who are reading this, and myself included for that matter, came into the hobby during the era of Zealios V2 switches, it may be hard to think of Zeal-made switches as being relatively subpar in any particular category and especially with respect to the switches of the day that they were released in. Those of you who were around from that time, though, will immediately recognize that I’m building the reader’s anticipation in order to absolutely dunk on the stem wobble of both these switches as well as the R1 Zealios switches. Even with the overall quality of tolerances and attention to such minor details in switches being significantly lower in that day and age, these switches have a gargantuan amount of stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions. There is actually so much so, in fact, that if this amount of wobble was to be present in a modern day, MX-style switch, I’d have no doubt in my mind that they would feature this purely as a marketing point as there is no way that it would accidentally end up this way. These are truly some wacky, wavy inflatable arm stems if I’ve ever seen them.

**Figure 14:** They even come in eggplant purple too!

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features, that can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. This sheet typically gets updated weekly on mail days, and has been a subtle project I’ve been developing for some time now!

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these pieces to the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clear switches side by side.

Various Mechanical Keyboard Switches — **Figure 16:** Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Amethyst, TTC Blueish White, Gateron Azure Dragon, KBDFans T1 Night, Kailh Canary, and Harimau)

If you would like to learn more about these switches, I’ve already completed reviews or scorecards for some of them. If the names below are highlighted in a grey color, click them to be taken to my other content or reviews on them!

Amethyst

- While these two switches are actually surprisingly similar in terms of overall tactile bump strength, the Amethysts are much more ‘dampened’ and rounded than the comparatively sharp and quick tactile bump of the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears.

- Not only are the Amethyst switches significantly less pingy than the Clears, but they also have a distinctly more bass heavy and firm sounding pair of housing collisions.

- The tactile bump of the Amethyst switches is located ever so slightly higher up in the downstroke than that of the Clears, but definitely by less than half a millimeter or so if I had to guess.

TTC Blueish White

- The tactile bump on the Blueish Whites is a slight bit less strong than that of the Clear switches, but it is also significantly longer, feeling as if it occupies almost twice the amount of the tactile bump as the Amethyst switches.

- The tactile bump on the Blueish Whites is also definitely started much earlier on in the downstroke than the Clears.

- While definitely comparable in terms of overall volume, and both fairly high pitched for that matter, the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears definitely take on a much sharper tone even outside that of the spring ping and scratch.

Gateron Azure Dragon

- Not only are the tactile bumps of the Azure Dragons started higher up in the downstroke than the Clears, but they also pack a stronger and much more ‘tight’ punch.

- In terms of both overall sound as well as high pitched tones, the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears definitely beat out the Azure Dragons for this one.

- While the Clears definitely do have a noticeable scratch to them is recognizable even outside of the tactile bump, it isn’t that much worse than that of the Gateron Azure Dragons, which are fairly smooth in and of their own right. Perhaps I’m having a slight bit of psychosis here, but this note definitely did make me rethink how truly the Clears are when actually compared and not analyzed in a vacuum.

KBDFans T1 Night

- The T1 Nights definitely do pack a much stronger tactile bump than the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears, though it is only ever so slightly higher up in the downstroke than the Clears.

- In terms of overall sound, these switches are fairly comparable, though the T1 Nights take on a slightly deeper, more sonorous tone than the comparatively sharp, high-pitched Clears.

- The housing collisions, both at topping out and bottoming out, in the T1 Nights is significantly stronger and more firm than the clears even though they are roughly the same spring weight at bottoming out.

Kailh Canary

- While not nearly as sharp as the Winkeyless.KR Zeal switches, the Kailh Canaries are tone of the few switches on this list that is louder than the Clears in terms of overall volume, which seems a bit fitting for the name.

- The tactile bump in the Canary switches is located higher up in the downstroke than that of the Clears, though it is definitely both smaller and less strong than the bump of the Clears.

- The housing collisions, and especially the topping out of the Kailh Canary switches is significantly more slappy and harsh hitting than that of the Clear switches.

Harimau

- The tactile bump of the Harimau switches is not only significantly stronger than that of the Clears, but it definitely feels much more ‘front loaded’ than the otherwise rather balanced bump of the Clears.

- While the Harimau switches are decently louder than that of the Clear switches on their own, rather than coming by way of the tactile bump, the majority of the sound comes from the bottoming out of the stem pole, instead.

- Not considering the ping and relative sharpness of the tactile bump in the Clears, the Harimau switches simply feel like a much more solid, overall well put together switch than that of the Clears.

Bonus Round

This is the part where I add a witty comment here about how this review is ‘oh so special’ and thus I’ll add another comparison into the list. In all reality, though, I somehow forgot to make this comparison the first time around.

Zealios V1 67g.

- All in all, the tactile bump placement and strength of these switches does feel damn near identical and even testing this on a friend who knows nothing about switches, they seemed to agree as well.

- While the Zealios switch is a tiny bit scratchier than that of the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears, it also doesn’t have the same rattly, loose, and sharp sound and feel to it that the Clears pretty distinctly feature.

- Funny enough, when comparing these switches side by side, the Winkeyless.KR Zeal Clears definitely do feel, all around, like the cheaper knockoff version of Zealios V1 switches.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.