Harimau Switch Review

Knowing full well that I am not the only person who ever has these type of moments, I am still utterly shocked at how intensely personal the realization you get smacked with when you contemplate grand scales of change within your personal life. You know the feeling: the one where you wake and realize you’ve been working on a project for months or years, you’ve been friends with somebody for well over a decade now, or even realizing that you’ve been around a hell of a lot longer than you last remember considering and now you have to do math in your head when you get asked how old you are. While many people have been suffering with this on a much more frequent basis over the past year as a result of the pandemic, I personally got blindsided by this feeling the other day myself.

In less than one month’s time, I’ll be officially starting my graduate level studies and will officially be able to ‘start’ that five year long, endlessly running clock until I am finished. With the obvious weight of that needing not be explained, this multi-day sentiment has bled itself a bit more thinly to where I sit today in realizing how much the reviews, scorecards, and measurement sheets have become my routine. While I can’t say that I necessarily have enjoyed every one of them, nor did they all come out super smoothly free of alcohol and innumerable rewrites, it does really surprise me that we’re past 50 reviews, 100 scorecards, and now even 50 switches on the measurement sheet all in under two years’ worth of time. People referring to me as “us” in the DMs, as if I am a team of writers, and even swearing up and down that I have been reviewing switches for years now has only exacerbated this a bit further and I can say that I’ve lost a little bit of sleep to the matter over the past few days.

Figure 1: Oh boy, 3 AM! Time to write another switch review. — **Figure 1:** Oh boy, 3 AM! Time to write another switch review.

Even though these introductions tend to be a bit more lighthearted from time to time, and this third paragraph where you are now is where we hit the effusive thanks and love for the support, I couldn’t help but take a more serious stab at putting my thoughts about this all into text. While I’m certainly lucky to be here and still writing to the audience that I am, I find it a bit strange that I’ve wound up in this position myself. Really, that’s it. It’s fun. I’m glad you’re here reading this. Go donate to the Patreon and checkout my affiliates. Et cetera. But thanks for continuing to be here to read these reviews and for continuing to support something I thought would just be a benign money sink in this switch collection. It’s all a bit daunting to try and wrap my head around at times, and I think that is what I was trying to put into sentiment here. Fuck it, lets just get on to the part that the vast majority of you have already skipped to after momentarily peeking at the SpongeBob meme above.

Switch Background

Coming amidst an era of nearly weekly, randomized switch releases in the East, from the perspective of both a switch collector and keyboard enthusiast based in the West, the release of the Harimau switches was refreshingly different. Announced by a relatively new vendor by the name of ‘Rebult Keyboards’ based in Malaysia, the Harimau switches and their linear siblings, Penyu switches, were first posted on Geekhack on May 4th of 2021. Coming from the Malay words for “tiger” and “turtle”, respectively, the Harimau and Penyu switches were said to be a “tribute to Malaysian wildlife inspired by frankenswitches” in their first render teasers. (Bukan pun itu perlu dijelaskan, kan kita semua faham Bahasa Melayu di sini.)

Figure 2: Initial teaser render of Harimau and Penyu switches from Geekhack IC post. — **Figure 2:** Initial teaser render of Harimau and Penyu switches from Geekhack IC post.

In addition to the homage to native Malaysian wildlife, Rebult also announced in the initial interest check that some proceeds from the sale of these switches were also going to be donated to wildlife conservation projeects focused on preservation of the endangered species these switches were named after. While no further information about which specific charity nor amount of proceeds has been provided as of the time of writing this review, conversations that I’ve had with Hong of Rebult Keyboards has led me to believe that this is still in the works. Beyond the charity mention and origin story for these switches, the first iteration of the interest check also contained specifics about both of the switches. Coming with long stem poles made of POM, and seated in a combination of nylon top housings and “mystery blend” bottom housings, these switches were to both be made unlubed at Durock/JWK. The Harimaus were to be 67g, high tactile switches initially inspired by Zykos switches, a rather famous frankenswitch that has been the inspiration for a few other tactile switches as of late, such as the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches. The Penyus were to be 57g, linear switches inpsied by the “Creampaca” and “Black Cherry Pie” switches that Hong is a personal fan of.

One month after the initial interest check post for the wildlife switches was made on Geekhack, a set of sound tests were provided by Rebult for both the Harimau and Penyu switches. In addition to providing videos of both stock and lubed and filmed typing tests for each switches, the final color scheme design for these switches was solidified as having white stems, with dark grey top housings, and either orange (Harimau) or green (Penyu) bottom housings. The subsequent announcements after this update focused on the updating of an abnormally large roster of vendors through which the switches will be run for groupbuy. While most switch groupbuys typically only have three or four vendors participating in the sale and distribution, the Wildlife switches were listed as being sold through ten different vendors, including traditionally underrepresented regions such as India, Mexico, and Canada.

Figure 3: Say what you will, but that is unparalleled accessibility for people interested in picking up these switches. — **Figure 3:** Say what you will, but that is unparalleled accessibility for people interested in picking up these switches.

At the time of publishing this review, the groupbuy for the Harimau and Penyu switches has only just begun and thus I do not have historical details about how they sold or were generally accepted by the community at large. Starting on August 8th of 2021, the sale is set to run through August 31st, with the pricing being set at $0.70 per switch, which was decided in order to try and maximize the amount of money that could be raised for the wildlife conservation charity, as told to me by Hong. While these switches I am using here are officially prototype switches, they are finalized prototypes which will be identical to those being run in the groupbuy to the best of my knowledge.

Harimau Switch Performance

Note: In the rest of this review, I will only be fully reviewing the Harimau switches and not both the Harimau and Penyus. Any descriptions or mentions of the Penyus will be specifically marked as such if they occur.

Appearance

As mentioned previously, the Harimau switches are the tactile and orange switch of the Wildlife switch pair being released by Rebult. These come with white, POM stems, a grey nylon top housing, and a proprietary mystery material blend orange bottom housing. While Pantone colors are not necessarily a true match to plastics, the pantones provided as reference in the interest check for the housing components was 419C for the grey top housing 2012C for the bottom housings. Additionally, the Harimau switches come with silver colored, mono-threaded springs at roughly 19 mm in total length, which is quite long relative to other single stage springs of recent releases, which tend to keep much more “normal” lengths around 13 to 14 mm from end to end.

Figure 4: Harimau switch alongside components. — **Figure 4:** Harimau switch alongside components.

In addition to the surface level features of the switches discussed already, and prior to going into a mold level examination of the Harimau switches, there were two relatively interesting surface level appearance points that I wanted to discuss. Firstly, the springs shown above for the Harimau switches are neither the same size nor appearance as those that appear in the Penyu switch samples that were sent to me. Rather than the long, silver-colored springs, Penyu switches feature a more “normal”, 14 mm gold colored single stage spring. As well, both the Penyu and Harimau switches that are being shown here are different in appearance than the very first renders of the switches as well as their first prototypes. The first prototypes, which also varied slightly with respect to certain performance aspects which will be noted below, featured black top housings rather than the dark grey ones shown in release.

Figure 5: Penyu and Harimau switches and their respective stock spring designs. — **Figure 5:** Penyu and Harimau switches and their respective stock spring designs.

Figure 6: Harimau Black-topped prototypes (Left) and Grey-topped release switches (Right). — **Figure 6:** Harimau Black-topped prototypes (Left) and Grey-topped release switches (Right).

Moving into the mold level features of the Harimau switches, the discussion will be focused around the ‘Types’ of molds used as I’ve previously established such for Durock/JWK made switches in my Naevy V1.5 Switch Review. While I will still mention the specific features as I come across them, referring to the mold chart in this review may be in your best interest if you are reading this or other Durock/JWK based switch reviews of mine. Looking to the top housings of the switches they are rather unadorned and plain on the outside, featuring no nameplate nor special markings. Internally, there is no specific features of strong note other than the right side, single number mold marking underneath the nameplate region akin to a ‘Type C’ top housing mold from Durock/JWK. These were first noted in Lavender switches upon their release at the end of 2020.

Figure 7: Harimau top housing internals showing ‘Type C’, single numerical mold markings on the upper left-hand side of the image. — **Figure 7:** Harimau top housing internals showing ‘Type C’, single numerical mold markings on the upper left-hand side of the image.

Verbing onto the next to the stems of the Harimaus, they are first and foremost notable for their length compared to other Durock/JWK released stems. Relative to the 25 other switches from Durock/JWK that I have measured as part of my measurement sheet, these have a significantly longer total stem length at 13.44 mm. as opposed to the average of 12.55 mm. of the 25 other switches tested. The stems also feature tapered slide rails and large mold circles featured on the backplate above the outer edges on either side as is common for the vast majority of recent Durock/JWK releases. These molding design features make these most akin to this ‘Type B’ stem, which have also been seen in many switches such as the Durock POM and Alpaca V2 switches.

Figure 8: Harimau stem showing ‘Type B’ mold circles on back plate and tapered slider rails. — **Figure 8:** Harimau stem showing ‘Type B’ mold circles on back plate and tapered slider rails.

Interestingly, and for the first time in quite some time, the mold section of a full-length review has something new to show off. The Harimau switches have a new design in the interior of the bottom housings, towards the bottom of the slider rails. This extra plastic ledge here has been assumedly added in order to help ‘pad’ the bottoming out of the stem in the bottom housing and to change the sound of the switches overall at bottoming out. While this has been seen previously in more conservative shapes in Tecsee and other Durock/JWK releases, this new “camel bump” like padding design is the first I’ve noted of in a full-length review. Overall, its also a relatively new design to Durock/JWK, as this camel bump feature has only been previously seen in the Quartz prototypes I received and some other eastern facing releases, to the best of my knowledge. Featuring the 10 mold circles around the upper internal lip of the bottom housing and double digit, numerical mold marking on the underside that have been previously seen before, these new ‘camel bumps’ make these officially the first recorded “Type D” bottom housing mold.

Figure 9: Harimau ‘Type D’ bottom housings showing off the camel-bump style bottoming out pads at the base of the slider rails. — **Figure 9:** Harimau ‘Type D’ bottom housings showing off the camel-bump style bottoming out pads at the base of the slider rails.

Figure 10: Bottom side of Harimau bottom housings showing two number mold markings between LED/Diode pins. — **Figure 10:** Bottom side of Harimau bottom housings showing two number mold markings between LED/Diode pins.

All of the mold types mentioned and shown here for Harimau switches, including the new Type D bottom housing molds, are consistent with the molds seen in the Penyu switches as well.

Push Feel

Being marketed as a switch that was born out of inspiration by something as tactile, hard punching, and no-frills as a Zykos switch, a switch really has to pack in a lot of tactile force in a relatively short amount of space to be able to do such. To those ends, the Harimau switches do all of these things surprisingly well. Coming out of the resting position and into the downstroke, the Harimaus have a steep tactile force increase to between 70 and 75 grams in less than a millimeter’s travel distance which is soon thereafter met with a relatively solid, punchy bottoming out on the stem pole. While there is the tiniest fraction of what feels like ‘pretravel’ as the force of these springs ramp up, they absolutely nail the hard and strong hitting force that they were initially shooting for.

Figure 11: Harimau switch force curve as provided by Pylon. — **Figure 11:** Harimau switch force curve as provided by Pylon.

Those praises being said, though, there are a few things worth noting about this push feel aside the main attraction in the tactile bump. To some downside, there is a fairly decent scratch to these that may or may not be noticeable in the linear travel region after the tactile bump. While these do come factory unlubed, and thus this could easily be fixed, it really does kind of question the “why” in the mystery material marketing of the bottoming housing from Durock/JWK. On the flip side of this, and much to my surprise, looking at the force curve that was completed by Pylon, whose other curves are linked here, I couldn’t believe the total travel of these switches was sub 3 mm. in total length. For perspective, normal switches travel much closer to 4 mm in total travel distance, and one of the biggest personal issues I’ve had with long stem pole switches previously is that they feel like they are abruptly cutting off the switch at bottom out and attempting to cram too many features into too small of a space. Even though I knew these had long stem poles prior to testing, I honestly did not think that these felt nearly as short of a travel distance as what the force curves belay, which is quite an impressive feat to me.

As well, to help further describe the type of tactility shown here in the Harimau switches, even though the force curve does belay their sharpness to some extent, I do want to introduce you all to the two types of tactile leaves seen in Durock/JWK switches thus far. Discovered by other people through testing and frankenswitching and simply belayed to me since I am a stone aged animal, the tactile leaves in Durock/JWK switches appear to come in two variants often discussed as “medium tactile” and “T1 style”. Medium Tactile leaves, being the weaker of the two, are used in switches such as Kinetic Labs’ Penguins whereas the T1 Style leaves are used in switches such as KBDFans T1s and Moyu Blacks. More scientifically, both of these leaves appear to be angled towards the stem more than something like a linear leaf, with the T1 Style leaves having a larger bend towards where the stem resides and thus leading to an increased interaction between the stem and leaf of a switch.

Based on this understanding of these two types of leaves, its easy to test if an unknown Durock/JWK tactile leaf is similar to a T1 Style or Medium Tactile styles by simply swapping the stems from a known type of switch to the unknown one. If the stem from a T1 switch, for example, produces a similar feeling tactile bump in the unknown switch to that of the original, stock T1, then its able to be said that the unknown leaf is “T1 style”. If it produced a different feeling in this test, then we would know that that Durock/JWK leaf would be a “Medium Tactile” type as. Further testing done by Pylon, in this fashion, would appear to indicate that the type of Durock/JWK leaves used in the Harimaus is most likely the more aggressive, T1 Style leaf, as they produce a nearly identical force curve with T1 stems in the housings as they do with normal, stock stems. Interestingly, though, it appears that the initial, black-topped prototypes of the Harimaus featured the ‘Medium Tactile’ leaf, rather than the final ‘T1 Style’ that they settled with, as they are not nearly as harsh with respect to the tactile bump as the release versions.

Figure 12: Force curve test by Pylon demonstrating that Harimau switches have “T1 Style” leaves in their hosings. — **Figure 12:** Force curve test by Pylon demonstrating that Harimau switches have “T1 Style” leaves in their hosings.

Sound

Of all of the sections here in this review, the sound is truly the one distinct area where the good and the bad parts of the Harimau switches really shine through. On the good side, the nylon top housing and mystery material bottom housings are a fairly great match in this switch as they both provide flattened, muted, and firm collision sounds with them. While the bottoming out is a bit more sharp and slappy sounding because of the stem pole bottoming out, they are relatively fairly well balanced between each end and the housing collisions both complement a fairly muted, yet solid tactile bump. On the other side of the coin, though, the one bad feature really accented in the sound of these switches is the scratch. Be it by stem/leaf interaction, or slider rails, the Harimaus definitely pick up more of a scratch noise than they do a scratch feel in stock form, and will likely require lubing by the vast majority of people in order to reach a more desirable sound for a build.

Wobble

Both the stem wobble and the top housing wobble on these switches are surprisingly good relative to other long-poled, highly tactile switches of the like. While Durock/JWK hasn’t produced something quite like this in some time relative to newer manufacturing houses such as Tecsee, clear strides and improvements have been made since the introduction of this style of tactile switch with Moyu Blacks. There’s very little N/S and E/W stem wobble, as a whole, though there is some level of variation more across a batch than I have seen in previous releases, though not to such an extent that it would likely bother most users.

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!

Other

External to the switches themselves, one thing that was sent alongside my samples which I found incredibly interesting enough to mention was the bag that the Harimau and Penyu switches are going to be sold in. While recently we’ve seen an uptick in the reusable storage containers and bags for switches such as with TKC’s bins, AshKeeb’s switch bags, and so on, the Rebult switch bag is even more interesting than a simple reusable bag as it is said to be 100% biodegradable and compostable. While Hong has pointed out that this may be a bit overkill given that these are reusable already, and thus kind of eschew the traditional usage of biodegradable designs for single use plastics only, I think this is actually a great initiative that I’m surprised I’ve not seen yet in the keyboard community.

Figure 14: Biodegradable, compostable, and reusable switch bag coming with the Harimau and Penyu switches. — **Figure 14:** Biodegradable, compostable, and reusable switch bag coming with the Harimau and Penyu switches.

While I have no room whatsoever to talk about hoarding of plastics, this community at large really does love its fancy packaging and at times it can feel a bit extra with respect to the amount of it that does get thrown away. Given that we as a community seem to be relatively aware of the impacts on the world and all love our charity-themed keyboard material, I would absolutely love to see more vendors starting to offer packaging as such that is more eco-friendly. Even though it may be a bit more expensive per product, I can personally attest that I would absolutely be in favor of trying to make all packaging either reusable, sustainable, or an excellent intersection of both as we see here. Be it only a small gesture by Rebult Keyboards in doing such, I still think it an excellent idea and I genuinely hope it inspires change in other vendors here in the future.

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 Harimaus side by side.

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!

Moyu Black

- While the tactile bump feels as if it is located in nearly the same position between these two switches, the Harimaus feel ever so slightly flatter and more rounded than the comparatively sharper tactile of the Moyu Blacks.

- Additionally, the sound of the Harimau switches also carries this ‘flatter rather than sharper’ vibe to the housing collisions as well as the tactile bump when comparing them to Moyu Blacks.

- The stem wobble between these two switches is more similar than any other switch comparison on this list, but the Harimaus are just the tiniest bit better in both directions.

Neapolitan Ice Cream

- In opposite fashion to the Moyu Black switch comparison, the Harimaus feel a bit sharper and more pointy in the tactile bump than the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches, which were also inspired by Zykos switches.

- The stem wobble, in both N/S and E/W directions is noticeably better in the Harimaus than the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches.

- Whereas the sharpness of the spring is more noticeable in the Neapolitan Ice Cream switch sound, the slight scratch and bottoming out of the Harimau switches is the most recognizable feature of its sound.

Massdrop x Invyr Holy Panda

- Surprisingly, the Harimau switches feel like they have a slightly more strong, and well-rounded tactile bump as compared to the Massdrop x Invyr Holy Pandas. While one may initially chalk it up as a difference in spring weight alone, Lord Google has informed me that they actually share the same bottoming out spring weight, which really keys in that it is a design-based difference and not just a weight-based one between their comparisons.

- The bottoming out of the Harimaus is noticeably more pointed and sharp than the bottoming out of the Holy Pandas.

- Unsurprisingly, the stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions of the Harimau switches is noticeably better than the wobble in the Massdrop x Invyr Holy Pandas.

SP Star Magic Girl Classic

- In terms of raw analogy, the SP Star Magic Girls feel like the softer, squishier, and lighter tactile version of the Harimau switches. While most people would place these in entirely different categories of tactile strength, though its not a stretch to think that one would easily draw comparisons between these switches in a vacuum.

- In much the same fashion as the tactile bump comparison, the Magic Girl switches are noticeably more quiet and subtle sounding at all points in the switch as compared to the loud Harimaus.

- The stem wobble, and especially so in the N/S direction is noticeably better in the Harimau switches than in the SP Star Magic Girl switches.

Kailh Box Royal

- The tactile bump of the Kailh Box Royals, which is located more central to the downstroke than the Harimaus, is noticeably more sudden and short in length as compared to the more long, drawn out feeling bump of the Harimaus. (That is not to say that one is more strong than the other, rather the overall tactile bump length is quite different.)

- In stock form, there is a noticeable amount of spring ping in the Box Royal sound that is simply not present in the Harimau switches.

- While these switches feel relatively similar in terms of scratchiness, the overall sound is more noticeably impacted by the scratch in the Harimaus than the Kailh Box Royals.

Gateron Kangaroo Ink

- While the Gateron Kangaroo Inks may feel just the tiniest bit stronger in terms of peak tactile bump force, they have a surprisingly similar tactile bump length. I’d venture to guess that on tactile bump alone that if you’re a fan of the Gateron Kangaroo Inks that you’d likely be a fan of the Harimaus as well.

- Much like with the Moyu Black comparison above, the tactile bump sound of the Gateron Kangaroo Inks is noticeably sharper than the comparatively flat Harimau switches.

- Unsurprisingly, the stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions, and especially the N/S direction, is better on the Harimau switches than the Gateron Kangaroo Inks.

Bonus Switch

You can’t tell me that the sole inspiration for a switch is a Zyko and expect me to not pull one out of the pile to test it against. These are made with Drop Invyr Panda top housings, Zealio V2 bottom housings, Halo True Stem, and a 67g. Zealio V2 spring.

Zyko

- Comparatively speaking, the Harimau switches not only have a much stronger tactile bump, but one that is much more pronounced and wide. They have an all-around bigger tactile bump than the Zykos I made here.

- While the Harimau switches are louder overall than the Zykos switches, they still have a noticeable bass heavy component to their housing collisions that is simply missing from Zykos.

- As well, the stem wobble of the Harimau switches is better than the Zykos in both N/S and E/W directions.

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.