Glorious Mako Ultralight Switch Review

I know that I’m only one week off from my normal full-length switch review writing schedule, but man does it sure feel like it’s been a lot longer than that. As I notified some of you via Patreon and my other various social media platforms a few weeks back, my delay in getting this review out was due to a several day trip which kept me far away from my normal review preparation space and time. In an unusual twist of events, my trip was centered around actual, real life grass touching with a sprinkle of hiking in alongside it. Since I am based in Ohio, my significant other and I decided to burn some of our remaining vacation days at work and take a small trip out to Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania to hike, camp, and just enjoy being completely outside of cellphone service for as long as we could. If you’re relatively near this area and have a chance to visit this particular state park, I can’t recommend it, nor are all the things that can be done there enough. While we mostly stuck to hiking, mushroom identification, and some sparse fishing in our roughly three days there, the park at large has white water rafting tours, biking paths, rock climbing, and something like 75 miles of all forms of trails for people to go on. In a bid to convince you that I did actually go out into the world and can survive for a handful of days without touching keyboard switches, I’ve attached a few photos of the trip below that were taken in and around the Ferncliff Peninsula out near the town of Ohiopyle.

Figure 1: The western side of the Ferncliff Peninsula looking towards a foot bridge on the Great Appalachian Path.

Figure 2: The eastern side of the Ferncliff Peninsula overlooking falls on the adjacent river. Ohiopyle, PA is on the other side of the river.

Figure 3: My personal favorite fungus that we saw on the trip. There were a couple of the guys on trees in various different parts of the park.

While the whole of the trip was a refreshing break and I certainly hope to find myself back there in future years around this change of the seasons, I have to admit that I am at least a tiny bit glad that I’m back home and surrounded by all of my switches. Just the routine of working on content, alone, is hard enough to break sometimes and it still astounds me just how much it has become a part of my regular day to day life. Before I move more concretely back into switch content here in the upcoming few paragraphs, I did also want to point out to all of you here that I did publish a short article titled ‘2024 Manufacturer Update’ last weekend upon my return that is absolutely worth checking out either before continuing or after this review. Much like with its predecessor in 2023, this short article will introduce you to a few new manufacturers who are making interesting new forays into the switch scene and who you’ll see me discuss more of in the coming months. As for the more immediate switches at hand, let’s go ahead and start the deep dive into the background of Glorious and how I’ve ended up here at the Mako Ultralight switches…

Switch Background

As is tradition when I have previous or direct involvement with companies whose switches that I’m reviewing here in these full length reviews, I like to include a brief note stating that relationship in order to alert you all to any biases that I may have. Rather than kicking off this background section with a soft spoken note of my previous engagement with Glorious some years back, I figured I’d dedicate a paragraph or two to for the entertainment of you all as it has stirred up some controversy behind the scenes. (And I know everyone in the keyboard community sure loves their controversy.) While I won’t feed the drama hungry beasts too much and name names explicitly, my previous engagement with Glorious has led to some sporadic shit talking on various social media platforms and more prominently a working relationship between a dedicated switch seller and I being permanently ground to a halt after they accused me of “selling out the community” for getting involved with Glorious during that stint. This is also despite the fact that that individual actually has no idea what I did or did not do while cooperating with Glorious. I’ll leave it to you to guess which conspiratorially slanted individual that may or may not be referencing. So what was this collaboration in question that led to me “selling out the community”, you ask? Well, it went a little bit like this:

- In the middle of 2020, I was reached out to directly by the CEO of Glorious to have some broad, non-specific discussions about switches and the state of offerings at the time. This conversation was started as a result of the CEO being a fan of the switch reviews here and reaching out, himself.

- Following our back and forth conversations, I completed some internal testing of some prototype products for them where I provided written feedback and answered questions that they had had about the performance of said products. I had not helped design the product, was not asked for feedback which altered the design, and was not allowed to keep the prototype product. In fact I have zero awareness at all if anyone even read said feedback and considered it.

- A few months after that in August of 2020, I was provided a set of Glorious Panda switches in advance of their release date for review writing purposes. In identical fashion to all other content creators which posted reviews of these switches at the time, I was subject to an embargo time which I was prevented from posting my review before but Glorious was not aware of nor had any input on the content of the review.

- Later on in 2021, I was gifted a GMMK Pro Staff Edition keyboard directly from the CEO as a result of our great working relationship and the help that I had provided them with respect to that earlier test feedback. Afterwards, I completed another round of internal testing feedback which finished up in early 2022. The results and process for this testing were effectively identical to that of the first time around.

- Finally, my last communication with them in any capacity was by way of reaching out to a sales representative in March of 2023 to ask a question upon which I was ghosted, effectively severing communication with Glorious altogether.

At no point throughout the entirety of this working relationship did I explicitly design any products for Glorious, receive any direct feedback in regards to my testing that I provided to them, nor did I receive any money for the efforts at all. In fact, I didn’t even provide any information other than my own personal opinions that wasn’t already out in the open world and able to be found by the Glorious team already. If the idea that a company like Glorious might reach out to me about my feedback on keyboard related stuff might sound a bit strange to you as a reader of my website, let me further blow your mind by saying that Glorious was not the first nor the last company that I’ve had this sort of working relationship with before. Over the years I’ve had conversations, provided feedback, and done some internal testing of products for dozens of different companies, vendors, and really anyone and everyone involved with the keyboard community at large. When you spend as much time as I have working directly on keyboard related things, it’s only natural that these kind of collaborations pop up. And in case you think that this situation is unique to just me because of the writing, I can also assure you that this exact sort of thing happens with any and all content creators in the keyboard community who have been around for some time now, and no your favorite creator isn’t an exception to this either. While this all perhaps seems a bit exaggerated for me to go on about at the start of a proper switch review, the sheer amount of bullshit I’ve received as a result of all of this has really led to me wanting to clear the air and make sure everyone was fully aware this time around. In doing some pro-bono testing for a company because of a friendship I had developed with their CEO, I’ve sold us all out as a hobby and doomed us for eternity. Maybe one day I’ll be up on the same list as all the other scammers in the community. Now as for the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches which I’m reviewing here today, you’ll note that my involvement with Glorious dropped off in early 2023 meaning that I’ve not been aware of anything they’ve been doing for at least a year and a half now at the bare minimum. (In all reality, it’s been much longer than that.) As I was not aware that Glorious was working on any of these switches nor did I receive them from Glorious, all of the new switches shown in this review were sourced directly from my good friends and sponsor of the website in SwitchOddities.

I think that more or less does it for clarifying my potential biases here.

Glorious, as a larger computer peripherals company, has continued its expansion into the grey area between the prebuilt and custom keyboard marketplaces since I last covered them in depth here via my Glorious Panda Switch Review in September of 2020. While I’d like to pretend that I could have or did keep up with their various keyboard releases over the time in between now and then, the reality is that I’m simply not the target demographic for those kinds of keyboards. I have really only been keeping an eye on Glorious for the various switches that they’ve teased and released in that time, instead. Glorious Lynx switches here, the debut of the new clicky Raptors there, and a few other teasers have drawn me around to to their various social media pages a couple of times over the last handful of months though not for much longer than an a handful of minutes and perhaps an order of switches. However, my full attention was pretty strongly pulled squarely onto Glorious for the first time in many yeas in the middle of September 2024 following the announcement of their GMMK Pro 3 keyboards. While this was in some small part due to the sheer uproar that was generated by the army of average r/mechanicalkeyboards commenters on Reddit complaining about the price of MX and HE style keyboard offerings showed off in this launch, the much larger attention grabbing feature for me was Glorious’ new range of keyboard switches being offered alongside the GMMK Pro 3 boards. Unlike previous switch releases by Glorious which featured one or maybe two variants of switches being announced at a time, Glorious effectively debuted nearly a dozen brand new switches featuring both slight tweaks on old classic design of there as well as an entirely new family of switches alike. The following is the full gamut of switches and switch families that were marketed by Glorious in this release:

Glorious Fox

Figure 4: Glorious Fox family debut card from Glorious' new switch Twitter announcement.

The first of the new families of switches introduced by Glorious in their debut of an “exciting new range of switches” on September 17th, 2024 was that of the Glorious Foxes. While the original Glorious Fox switches were available as a prebuilt-only RGB friendly linear option for some previous releases of keyboards from Glorious starting around 2021, this announcement saw the availability of these switches as loose, aftermarket options alongside several new variations of these linear switches. In addition to the original Glorious Fox switches now being referred to as “Standard Fox MX” switches, this announcement debuted the release of Fox Heavy MX, Fox Ultralight MX, and Fox HE switches. As the names might suggest, the heavy and ultralight versions of the MX Fox switches were simply just identically designed linear options with different spring weighting (40g / 60 / 65g Bottom Out Force UL / Std. / Heavy ) and slightly different stem colors available at the same $0.32 per switch price point in packs of 110. The Fox HE switches, on the other hand, were a new line of Outemu-made HE compatible switches to be paired directly with the HE compatible versions of the GMMK Pro 3 keyboards. With dustproof stems and slightly different housing configurations, the Glorious Fox HE switches are currently available at a higher price point than their MX counterparts of $0.69 per switch.

Figure 5: Glorious Fox switch family including (L-R) Fox Ultralight, Fox Standard, Fox Heavy, and Fox HE switches.

Glorious Lynx

Figure 6: Glorious Lynx family debut card from Glorious' new switch Twitter announcement.

Unlike the Glorious Fox switch family debuted first, the Glorious Lynx switch family was clearly built upon the company’s first foray into linear switches in the opaque, baby-blue linear Glorious Lynx switches. Initially released shortly after the successful launch of the Glorious Panda switches, the Lynxes were available in pre-lubed and unlubed variants and were for at least a year the only Glorious-branded linear MX option available for GMMK Pro keyboards. While the debut photo from their Twitter announcement above seems to suggest that Glorious went for an inverted color scheme in this new release of the Lynx switches, the showcase video for these switches on YouTube showed the ‘Lynx Standard MX’ switches to still be featuring the light blue housings and white stems, starting just a tiny bit of what will soon become a very wide swathe of confusing marketing details. The other variants of Lynx switches debuted here, in the form of the Lynx Silent MX, Lynx Standard HE, and Lynx Silent HE all do feature the housings as rendered above, though. Even more confusingly, the pricing for neither versions of these switches remained the same as the Glorious Fox switches above, with the Lynx MX switches being $0.97 per switch and the Lynx HE switches being $1.11 per switch, with both prices being same for standard or silent configurations.

Figure 7: Still image from Glorious' new switch debut YouTube video showing color mismatch between new and old Glorious Lynx switches.

Figure 8: Glorious Lynx switch family including (L-R) Lynx Standard (Lubed), Lynx Silent, Lynx Silent HE, and Lynx HE switches.

Glorious Panda

Figure 9: Glorious Panda family debut card from Glorious' new switch Twitter announcement.

If you’re still reeling from the whiplash in price changes that came with the Glorious Lynx switches in the previous entry, rest assured that all of the inconsistent design and pricing practices demonstrated there are consistent here in Glorious’ flagship tactile switch. Spawning from the switch that drew them a whole lot of attention back at the tail end of the 2020, the Glorious Panda switches also have Panda Silent MX, Panda Standard HE, and Panda Silent HE variants with the same set of clear housings that mismatch from the opaque white housings of the original Panda Standard MX switches. In fact, you can even see this point as well in Figure 7 above even though you probably missed it while being transfixed by the blue housings of the Lynx Standard MX switches. Despite the original Glorious Holy Panda switches announcement debuting the switches at $0.69 per switch back in August of 2020, the Panda MX switches here are not being sold at $0.97 per switch and the Panda HE switches are being sold at $1.11 per switch.

Figure 10: No, seriously - the original price for the Glorious Panda switches was significantly cheaper than it is today.

Figure 11: Glorious Panda switch family including (L-R) Glorious Standard Panda, Silent Panda, Panda HE, and Silent Panda HE switches.

Glorious Raptor

Figure 12: Glorious Raptor family debut card from Glorious' new switch Twitter announcement.

First hitting the market a bit over a year ago in August of 2023, the Glorious Raptor switches were unique both for being the first clicky switch offered by Glorious and much more interestingly for their strange clickbar mechanism and lack of distinctive manufacturer branding. Despite the intrigue that the design of these switches kicked up from collectors and switch enthusiasts until a similar design popped up in the BSUN-made Invokeys Pea Flower clickies, the general enthusiast community at large seemed rather unhappy with these switches at their nearly $1 per switch price tag at the time of release. While not much has changed since the initial release of these switches, price point included, the newest variant released alongside the Raptor MX switches was that of the Raptor HE switches. Despite confusingly sharing a name with Geonwork’s Raptor MX and HE family of switches, the Glorious Raptor HE switches are the first HE switches to feature a clicking mechanism as of the time of writing this review. (No, we will not be addressing why this hardly makes any sense to have in a switch with variable actuation in this review, either.) With that novelty they in mind, the HE versions of the Glorious Raptors are at least a tiny bit more deserving of their price point of $1.11 per switch, which is identical to that of the other Glorious HE switches debuted here.

Figure 13: Glorious Raptor family including Raptor Standard MX (Left) and Raptor HE (Right) switches.

Glorious Mako

Figure 14: Glorious Mako family debut card from Glorious' new switch Twitter announcement.

Sticking with the consistently inconsistent theme of Glorious’ switch releases, the new tactile ‘Mako’ family of switches is different from all of the other families announced in this release for several different reasons. First and foremost, these lightly tactile purple switches were not based on any previous Glorious offering and thus were debuted in entirety with the GMMK Pro 3 keyboards in September of 2024. Additionally, the Glorious Mako switches are the only switches of all the families presented to not feature an HE variant of the switch. Despite this, there are Ultralight versions of the Mako tactile switches (50g / 55g Bottom Out Force UL / Std.) – something that wasn’t present in the other tactile switches in the Pandas above but was present in only one of the linear options in the Foxes. Priced at $0.32 per switch, these seemingly are aiming to be more budget-conscious offerings for their customers alongside that of the Fox line of switches, but to be honest I’m not sure I can tell that for a fact or not given their sporadic pricing practices. The sheer jumble of all of these offerings, which mind you has necessitated me making the table below in Figure 16 , has left me just largely confused about the explicit designs and marketing goals behind each of these switches even in spite of the friendly marketing and bright, bold color scheming of their announcements.

Figure 15: Glorious Mako switch family including Mako Ultralight (Left) and Mako Standard (Right) switches.

Figure 16: Yeah, that's not confusing in the slightest…

Mako Ultralight Performance

Note: This review will specifically be covering the performance of the Ultralight variant of the Glorious Mako switches. Any direct references to the ‘normal’ Mako switches or any other Glorious offerings will be explicitly stated if and/or when they occur.

Appearance

At the highest level, the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches come a completely transparent clear housing with a very faintly purple colored stem. While my mind immediately jumps to compare the stem color to that of the stems of the old Durock/JWK Mauve switches released many years ago, the fact that these are light tactile switches leads to believe a more apt description of the color would be that of the “lightest unreleased Zealio switch” purple. While these are easily discernable from their release partner in the normal Glorious Mako switches which have darker purple colored stems, the rather plain aesthetic of these light tactiles may make them hard to distinguish from the thousands of available MX-style switches out there currently. Some clues which help readily identify these as being the Glorious Mako Ultralights, though, is that of the rather compacted, raised, and inverted ‘GLORIOUS’ nameplate on the top housings as well as the ‘cross shaped’ LED/diode slot that is specific to the manufacturer of these switches in Outemu. While there have been many an Outemu switch made over the years with entirely transparent housings, this is a fairly rare feature to see in entirely clear switch housings in 2024 as Outemu’s more custom offerings as of late have been largely opaque or barely translucent in design. All other details worth noting about the Mako Ultralight switches occurs at the sub-part level and may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 17: Tell me I'm wrong. The Glorious Mako Ultralight and Mako Standard switches do decently well extend the Zealio colorway spectrum.

Figure 18: Glorious Mako Ultralight switches and their components.

Starting at the transparent polycarbonate top housings of the Mako Ultralight switches, I’m greeted with a slew of features I’ve not covered on this website in some time though nothing especially indicative of performance-based tweaks to their designs. Externally, these four pin top housings feature an inverted, raised text ‘GLORIOUS’ nameplate that has noticeably tighter kerning than I can recall having ever seen on text nameplates previously. As well, they feature an uneven ‘cross shaped’ LED/diode slot that is exclusive in design to that of Outemu, who made both the majority of the Glorious MX and all of the Glorious HE switches debuted above. Internally, the top housings feature nothing of particular note other than that of the odd mold marking location, which can be found on the upper right-hand lip of the top housing close to both the nameplate and the bottom housing attachment pin.

Figure 19: Glorious Mako Ultralight top housing exterior design showing inverted, raised 'GLORIOUS' nameplate and uneven cross shaped LED/diode slot only seen in Outemu-made switches.

Figure 20: Better view of the new, condensed 'GLORIOUS' nameplates present on the switches debuted alongside the GMMK Pro 3.

Figure 21: Glorious Mako Ultralight top housing interior design showing mold marking on lip of switch in the upper right hand corner and nameplate supporting beams connecting the north side slider rail to the edge of the housing.

Moving next to the POM light purple stems of the Mako Ultralight tactile switches, these too feature little to no design details that suggest these switches were specifically designed to be high performance light tactile switches. While perhaps already suggested by their fairly low price point, the stems of these switches are almost certainly a match to some other light tactile Outemu offering out there and feature marginally tapered slider rails, a slightly shorter than average total stem length, and mold ejector circles on the front plates above the stem legs like the vast majority of other modern switches. There is factory lubing that is present on the stems, though it is fairly light in its application and almost exclusively located on the slider rails. There did not appear to be any factory lubing on the front nor back plates of the stems that I opened to inspect.

Figure 22: Side by side view of the front and back of Glorious Mako Ultralight stems showing barely tapered slider rails, normal stem pole length, and mold ejector circles on the front plate of the stem.

Figure 23: Side profile of Glorious Mako Ultralight tactile switch showing off the subtle tactile bump on the stem legs.

Finally arriving to the transparent polycarbonate bottom housings of the Mako Ultralight switches, I’m again greeted with a slew of average features that would be expected of really any OEM Outemu offering. Internally, the bottom housings are pretty barren of details, featuring only really a set of mold ejector circles in the base and the tiniest, barely present south side spring collar as something worth noting. Factory lubing is present in the inside of the bottom housings, though unlike more aggressively lubed switches, it’s entirely present only in the slider rails of the bottom housings. Interestingly, though, the leaves of the Mako Ultralight switches are entirely silver in appearance as opposed to the much more traditional copper colored leaves of the majority of traditional, MX style switches. Whether or not these silver leaves are potentially cheaper than the copper ones is not something that I’m aware of. As for the exterior of the bottom housings, the Mako Ultralights only come in 5-Pin/PCB mount variety and have a small, capital letter mold marking on the bottom right hand corner just off of the side of the LED/diode through hole. This hole, itself, is a bit more square like in shape than the top housing LED/diode slot, though it is also larger to accommodate a larger variety of potential through-switch LED offerings.

Figure 24: Glorious Mako Ultralight bottom housing interior design showing quite small south side spring collar, mold ejector circles in the base of the housing, and silver-colored leaves.

Figure 25: Glorious Mako Ultralight bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins and small capital letter mold marking located in the bottom right-hand corner of the housing.

Push Feel

Generally speaking, people who are situated more towards the hardcore enthusiast end of the mechanical keyboard hobby tend to be a bit critical of Glorious for their overzealous marketing strategy when it comes to any and all of their products. While I’ve never personally been bothered by this myself, just researching these switches a bit during my review preparation and note taking stages did make me chuckle a bit with just how many different ways I saw Glorious describing them. So, in order to set the same sort of expectations in your minds that I was greeted with prior to reaching this point in my writing, here’s just a handful of the marketing details that I came across regarding the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches:

- “High-performance mechanical gaming switch featuring a gentile tactile bump that signals activation without slowing down your press” – Twitter

- “Responsive keystrokes with subtle haptic feedback that won’t slow you down” – Twitter

- “The perfect balance of speed and tactile feedback. Mako’s light actuation and gentle, low-resistance bump ensures nothing slows down your gameplay” – Sales Page

- “Experience fast, highly responsive gaming with Mako’s gentle tactile bump. It’s subtle tactility confirms each press without compromising speed.” – Sales Page

- “Enjoy the haptic feedback of Mako’s gentle tactile bump combined with its light press resistance to keep you gaming at full speed.” – Sales Page

- “Designed for gamers who want that extra edge, Mako Tactile switches are quick, responsive, and always in control. Each press delivers subtle tactile feedback, giving you the confidence that your commands are registered without missing a beat.” – Sales Page

Keeping in mind that I have earned more than enough criticism from readers in the community that say I “say so little in so many words”, I’d like to point out that it clearly could be much, much worse as seen above. What absolutely none of those marketing points even begin to address is that the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches are incredibly light tactile switches with a tactile bump that feels like its situated midway through the stroke of the switch and pushes back with the ever so slightest dull prod of a feeling. While these are far from the softest of tactile switches that I’ve ever tried, they are noticeably lighter than what the vast majority of tactile switches out there today offer, making for a more beginner-level tactility that perhaps well matches their price points and assumed target demographic. Despite the fact that the tactile bumps of these switches most definitely feel as if they’re towards the center of the downstroke than situated closer to either top out or bottom out, the force curve below clearly shows these light tactile bumps as being located about 25-30% of the way into the downstroke in a not dissimilar fashion to other light tactiles like Cherry MX Browns or Invokeys’ Blueberry Chiffon switches. Given that the housings are made of polycarbonate on the Mako Ultralights, both the topping out and bottoming out are especially more noticeable in terms of their sharper and slightly more snappy collisions than that of the actual tactile bump in most switches. The average topping out of the Mako Ultralights is especially more noticeable here too because of a slight sticking phenomena that appears sporadic and inconsistent across the batch that I received.

Figure 26: Force curve diagram for the stock Glorious Mako Ultralight switch.

Speaking of inconsistencies, perhaps the single most important point to be discussed about the push feeling of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches is that of the wide swings in feeling across the batch of switches that I received. While you may think that this is just addressing the last of the performance metrics I have yet to cover in the factory lubing, the swings from thinly smooth to broad grain scratch in the switches that I received are actually the most subtle of the variation that I feel in the Mako Ultralights. Affecting smoothness, tactile bumps, and the force and feeling of housing collisions, the batch of Mako Ultralights that I received is wildly inconsistent and can swing anywhere from a fairly smooth, subtly scratchy light tactile with relatively soft housing collisions all the way to a scratchier switch with a noticeably heavier tactile bump and sticky and sharp housing collisions. The combinations of bad and good qualities in the Mako Ultralights also runs the full spread of combinations on each of those points as well, leaving me with a batch of switches that is simply hard to put a coherent set of descriptions on. Looking back to the previously written paragraph above, I’m almost impressed I hardly managed to let this point creep in at all in those initial descriptions. In that retrospection, it almost seems as if the marketing points above were almost prophetically vague about the actual feeling of these switches as there’s really no way you can really categorize them well beyond just calling them light tactile switches with a low force to press.

Sound

Following the age old meme in these reviews of the sound profile of a mechanical keyboard switch being incredibly similarly described to that of it’s push feeling notes, the Glorious Mako Ultralights are also an absolute unpredictable mess of a pile of switches. Broadly speaking, the sound profile of the Mako Ultralight switches is loud, with the thin, prickly nature of polycarbonate housings sticking out and drowning out any semblance of coherent noise that would otherwise be generated by the light scrape of the stem legs across the leaves. In some switches you get the aforementioned sticky tones towards the topping out that were noted above. In other switches you get crinkly, metallic undertones that are hard to pin down in origin. In yet even more switches the tones are flat and not really well rounded. And in a final vague set of other switches outside of those three previous categories, you get tones that are complex and come across with high and low pitches in the background of the plasticky cacophony. Honestly I don’t think I’ve come across switches that are just so disjointed and inconsistent with one another in so very, very long. I could almost be convinced that these were original Outemu switches from the OEM-switch era of 2014-2016 if you guessed me to identify what years they came from based on their sound profiles, alone.

Wobble

Perhaps the only semblance of a saving grace in the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches is that they have an okay-ish amount of stem wobble for a super budget offering released in 2024. With more stem wobble in the E/W direction than the N/S direction, there is also some inconsistency between switches on this point as well though they all are at least semi-close to each other. It’s either that or by this point in my testing I’ve just become numb to what a wide degree of variability actually is.

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 which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 28: Numerical details regarding the stock Glorious Mako Ultralight switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1000 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- At 17,000 actuations, the noted inconsistencies in the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches only somehow manage to get worse, both with respect to push feeling and sound. Where this is most apparent, though, is in the increase in switches that have noticeable metallic twangs and spring pings to their tones.

- Like the majority of switches which I’ve subjected to break in testing for full length reviews, the Mako Ultralight switches increased in stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions after having been broken in to this point in testing.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the noted inconsistencies continue to increase in intensity, with the switches both beginning to take on a physical pinging feeling while audibly becoming more scratchy. These switches just seem to increase in chaos the more that they are broken in, which is a bit surprising given just how inconsistent they are in stock form as well.

- There was no further increase in the stem wobble of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches broken in to 34,000 actuations than was noted at 17,000 actuations.

51,000 Actuations

- Against all odds, the Mako Ultralight switches broken in to 51,000 actuations did not seem to significantly get more worse or inconsistent than their counterparts broken in to 34,000 actuations. While there were a few switches which definitely did stand out from the rest of the crowd due to some of the aforementioned negative performance metrics, the switches are so inconsistent that it’s hard at this point to determine if this is due to sampling or an actual noted change in performance due to the break in machine.

Figure 30: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches throughout the break in process.

Other

While I think that Glorious is more than deserving of a heaping share of criticism for the execution of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches, one thing that nobody can really give them any grief for is the packaging of their switches. All of the switches that debuted in the background section of this review also were accompanied with larger, newly decorated switch boxes that immediately struck as an improved version of the black rectangular boxes that the Glorious Pandas, Lynx, and early Raptor switches came in. Photos of the broken down box for the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches may be found below:

Figure 31: Front and side flaps of Glorious Mako Ultralight switch box.

Figure 32: Back and other side flaps of Glorious Mako Ultralight switch box.

Figure 33: Closer view of upper informational panel on the backside of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switch box.

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 switches to the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches side by side.

Figure 34: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Cherry MX Brown, Hojicha Reserve, MODE Tomorrow, Zaku II, Ajazz x Huano Banana, and G-Square Ram V2)

Cherry MX Brown

- Compared to the polycarbonate housings of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches, stock Cherry MX Browns sound incredibly quiet and have deep housing collisions that sound more like silent tactiles than normal ones. As well, in direct head to head comparison the normally present and in-your-face scratchiness of the MX Browns almost entirely disappears.

- While the average Cherry MX Brown switch has a touch more stem wobble to it than the average Glorious Mako Ultralight, the Mako Ultralights are noticeably more inconsistent than the Cherry MX Browns on this point.

- As is pretty evident by the comparative force curve between these two switches below, these switches almost feel as if they have identical tactile bumps in terms of both placement in the downstrokes and overall tactile force. Some Cherry MX Browns feel as if they might be slightly more forceful than the Mako Ultralight switches, but given the general inconsistency of the Mako Ultralights it’s hard to know if this is truly a real note difference or not.

Hojicha Reserve

- In terms of their tactile bumps, the Hojicha Reserve switches feel like they have a stronger, smoother, and more even feeling tactile bump that kicks off right at the start of their downstrokes as compared to the mid-stroke, soft, and sometimes jittery feeling bumps of the Mako Ultralights.

- There’s hardly a comparison to be made here in terms of stem wobble as the Hojicha Reserve switches have notably less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble to them than the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches.

- With respect to their overall sound profiles, the Hojicha Reserve switches are much more subtle and subdued, with housing collisions that are deeper and generally more pleasing to the ears than the thin, high pitched, and sometimes plasticky housing collisions of the Mako Ultralights.

MODE Tomorrow

- Despite both of these switches having been made by Outemu, the MODE Tomorrow switches are clearly the more refined, smooth, and well designed light tactile switch of these two. While there are obvious price differences between these two, this is the kind of comparison that is instructive to newer people as to why some switches are worth their increased price point over others of a similar type.

- There is noticeably more stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions in the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches than there is in the MODE Tomorrow switches.

- Even though the comparative force curves between these two switches make them seem quite a bit different, the MODE Tomorrow switches actually feel as if they have the most similar tactile bump strength to the Mako Ultralights of any of the switches on this comparison list. With that in mind, though, the bumps in the Tomorrows definitely does feel noticeably more extended than in the Mako Ultralights.

Zaku II

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Zaku IIs feel as if they are the most disparate in terms of push feeling, both as a result of differences in overall tactile bump strength as well as the noted ‘double bump’ feeling to them.

- In addition to the tactile bump of the Zaku II switches feeling noticeably more heavy than that of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches, their bottom outs onto their stem poles also feels much more pointed, forceful, and firm than the polycarbonate bottom outs of the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches.

- Like all switches on this comparison list, the Zaku II switches sound a bit quieter and much more well composed and crisp than the Mako Ultralight switches.

Ajazz x Huano Banana

- In spite of the fact that the comparative force curves for these two switches below makes it seem like they’d have similar tactile bump strengths, the Ajazz x Huano Bananas have tactile bumps that feel much more forceful, rounded, and punchy than the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches.

- In terms of stem wobble, the Ajazz x Hauno Banana switches are actually fairly similar to the Mako Ultralights, though significantly more consistent from switch to switch.

- While the housing collisions of the Ajazz x Huano Banana switches are a bit louder than the Glorious Mako Ultralights on average, it’s a much more well-rounded and pointed sound that is consistent amidst a sea of fluctuating sounds form the Mako Ultralights.

G-Square Ram V2

- The G-Square Ram V2 switches are all around a more consistent, well-polished, and smoother tactile switch than the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches and it’s honestly hardly even close.

- While these two switches do have similar amounts of E/W direction stem wobble, the Ram V2 switches both have less N/S direction stem wobble than the Glorious Mako Ultralights and are more consistent on this metric from switch to switch.

- The bottoming out the G-Square Ram V2 switches is noticeably more forceful and responsive than the Glorious Mako Ultralight switches as a result of their increased stem length.

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.