Husky Switch Review

Fruit salad.

Often times when I sit down to actually start writing reviews, I find it difficult to physically get writing because I don’t want to rehash an introductory section that I’ve already played up elsewhere. I’ve used the ‘been too long’ approach, the kickoff with a poem, but never before have I kicked off a review with ‘Fruit salad’, so that is where we are starting today. Plus, this introductory section is certainly one of the more unique ones that I’ve had, necessitating the odd and delicious introduction.

Over the past month or so since my undergraduate studies have been finished, I’ve been fairly hard at work catching up with all the keyboard and switch stuff that I’ve been behind on. Aside completely restructuring my switch collection list as well as revamping the hell out of the switch measurement sheet that I’m adding to each week, one of the biggest things I’ve been working on is pulling in all of the proxy deals and lots of switches I haven’t had time to hash out after having discussed them with people in the weeks prior. One of these lots, in fact, happened to come packed with some switches that I’ve not only been looking for for years, but also have extremely little evidence of existing at all. So, given the uniqueness of kicking off a review with ‘Fruit Salad’, I present to you the picture that was sent to me as these were packaged up at Gateron:

Figure 1: Ta-da: Fairly normal looking Gateron switches! — **Figure 1:** *Ta-da:* Fairly normal looking Gateron switches!

Wholly anticlimactic, I’m aware. For the dozens of you out there who really know your Gateron part numbers by heart, this may seem slightly more exciting for you as you’ll recognize some of these almost immediately. For those of you who don’t, though, I’ll go ahead and add the labels that were sent in the follow up photo from my proxy.

Figure 2: Ta-da: Fairly normal looking Gateron switches, but now with phone drawn labels! — **Figure 2:** *Ta-da:* Fairly normal looking Gateron switches, but now with phone drawn labels!

Now this is something climactic. What we have pictured above, and also thankfully safely in my hands, is only the third documented set of Gateron KS-1 switches out of all documentation I’ve ever seen. These switches, being released around 2014 as best as I can tell, were quite literally the very first MX-style switches released by Gateron and predate even the classic all-black KS-3 switches that everyone knows and recognizes. While the Red, Brown, Blue, and Black KS-1s are all fairly standard in terms of normal expectations, the big, highlighted difference that distinguishes KS-1s from the other Gateron switches is the large, square, and welled stems. Given that there is so little documentation of these switches available, there isn’t much rationale stated as to why these were designed this way, though I’ve always personally speculated that these were done in this fashion to better support O-Rings under the keycaps, as this is a common ‘beginner’ modification that would have recently been discovered around that time. It’s also entirely possible that this design was done so that the keycaps could sit even deeper on the switches themselves. To be entirely honest, I’m not too certain.

Figure 3: Gateron KS-1 Black, Brown, Blue, and Red with all-black housings. — **Figure 3:** Gateron KS-1 Black, Brown, Blue, and Red with all-black housings.

Increasing the interesting factor just a bit more, let’s go ahead and talk about the blue-topped KS-1 style switches from above and why they are even more interesting than the last paragraph. Many of you may recognize the orange-stemmed one as a ‘Rantopad Orange’, which is a KS-1 style switch I’ve actually had and shown off on my Instagram for quite some time now. Surprisingly given how rare the KS-1 style of switches is in general, these OEM switches for ‘Rantopad’ by Gateron are actually still able to be found on Chinese reselling platforms for not all too crazy prices. As for the Rantopad Yellow switch that came alongside it, there is no documentation of these anywhere as far as I’m aware. Interestingly, though, one of the two prior sources detailing Gateron KS-1 style stuff talked about Yellows having extremely high-weight springs in them, above 100g. in bottoming out force. While I don’t have a force curve meter on hand to test, these almost certainly are way above a 100g. spring bottoming out weight as they make the KS-1 Black feel like nothing by comparison.

Figure 4: Rantopad Orange and undocumented Rantopad Yellow switches. — **Figure 4:** Rantopad Orange and undocumented Rantopad Yellow switches.

Finally, moving on to the final two unassuming switches in the bottom left-hand corner of the above photos that I’ve not yet discussed, I’m excited to inform you that they somehow top the interesting factor of both the Rantopads as well as the other KS-1s. The blue and black switches in the bottom left of the above photos are labeled as ‘KS-5’ and ‘KS-2’ by the Gateron representative that sent these over. To put it lightly, these switches don’t exist. There is no documentation anywhere, or from anybody that I can find, ever discussing these switches that were labeled as such by a Gateron employee. In fact, there are several gaps between Gateron part numbers, such as KS-4 and KS-8 which were simply assumed to just not exist, or at the least would never be released outside of internal testing lines. Thus, for the first time ever we have proof that these intermediate, missing Gateron part codes not only were actually made into physical test products, but that they also do exist somewhere still.

Figure 5: Gateron KS-5 (Left) and KS-2 (Right) switches with increased contrast to show unique LED slot designs. — **Figure 5:** Gateron KS-5 (Left) and KS-2 (Right) switches with increased contrast to show unique LED slot designs.

Looking first to the top side of these switches, the most interesting thing to note about them is not their lack of Gateron nameplates, but rather the intentionally squared-out LED regions. Since these came to me from Gateron via a vendor, I unfortunately don’t have much of an explanation as to why exactly these are shaped in such a fashion, nor why this style of LED slots on switches hasn’t been seen elsewhere since. Even more interestingly, though, is the underside of the KS-5 switch, which features a sunken recessed region that I immediately recognized upon testing the switch. Aside the fact that it’s missing a leaf, this is clearly Gateron’s prototype ‘hammer over membrane’ switch. In much the same fashion as the TTC MT switches I picked up at the very beginning of my collection, how these switches would work is that when the stem is depressed, the center pole sticks out of the base and depresses a rubber-dome membrane underneath the switch to complete the keystroke. In fact, this technology has been used commercially in some HP gaming keyboards, but is not something I’m ever aware of Gateron having used.

Figure 6: Gateron KS-5 ‘Hammer over Membrane’ underside design next to TTC MT switches with the same mechanism. — **Figure 6:** Gateron KS-5 ‘Hammer over Membrane’ underside design next to TTC MT switches with the same mechanism.

Figure 7: Gateron KS-5 hammer mechanism depressed to show stem pole pushing through bottom housing. — **Figure 7:** Gateron KS-5 hammer mechanism depressed to show stem pole pushing through bottom housing.

So, with all of that said, what a hell of a mail day. While having Gateron KS-1s finally in the collection and able to be documented is monumental with respect to older modern switches, having proof of existence of intermediate Gateron part codes as sent from the company is simply a once-in-collection type experience that I honestly cannot believe. I’ve actually been sitting with all of these on my desk for almost a week now still way too shocked that I can reach out and touch them to actually want to clear a spot for them on the tester. A thank you I can’t possibly write enough for goes out to JB of 1UPKeyboards who helped me connect with Gateron and facilitated me actually getting to own an incredible piece of switch history. However, given that the vast majority of you will likely never stumble across these in the wild, lets go ahead and pivot into the discussion of switches you get to try soon enough that are also quite interesting in their own right.

Switch Background

Figure 8: Kinetic Labs’ new Husky switch and components. — **Figure 8:** Kinetic Labs’ new Husky switch and components.

Continuing along with our working motif of this review of ‘not yet seen before’, I present Kinetic Labs’ newest animal themed switch: Huskies. That’s about it. While I have pointed to a lack of information prior in some reviews about switches That I get that aren’t exactly released to the public yet, these come with absolutely zero background to them. In fact, I don’t even remember talking to Kinetic Labs about these switches, nor getting an email from them. These just showed up at my door sans any notice whatsoever and I didn’t even know if it was supposed to be my packaged until I reach out to them to ask.

Interestingly, though, these Husky switches (which is being used as a proper noun and not an adjective, just to clear that air now) come as the fourth installment of Kinetic Labs switches with animal names, being followed previously by Penguins, Hippos, and Salmons. Assumedly marking this down as another ‘family’ of switches in the same vein as TKC’s fruit-themed switches, or Originative Co’s MOD family of switches, these are a tad bit unique given that these four switches were made by three different manufacturers. While likely simply an attempt at spreading their offerings a bit between Durock/JWK, Gateron, and now Tecsee, these will be the first true family of offerings from a vendor that span multiple different manufacturers. (No, don’t tell me about Giant switches because those are clearly just random people bastardizing the name and loosely cheating off of each other.)

Figure 9: Kinetic Labs family of switches including Hippos, Huskies, Penguins, and Salmons. (Clockwise) — **Figure 9:** Kinetic Labs family of switches including Hippos, Huskies, Penguins, and Salmons. (Clockwise)

From the details I was able to eek out of Christian in our brief conversation since I got these in hand, these switches are manufactured by Tecsee featuring the new ‘Kinetic Labs’ nameplate that was previously seen in Salmon switches which released a week or two ago. Coming in at 63.5g of bottoming out weight, they will also be priced at $0.50 per switch for a pack of 90 switches in identical fashion to the Gateron Hippos and Salmon switches. The one little extra piece of information that was even more interesting than just the sticker-details of these switches, and part of the justification as to why I called them a ‘family’ of switches, is that the Huskies and other Kinetic Lab animal switches will all have matching stickers to boot. While I have no idea when these will be coming out, nor the price of these, I will actually be getting some because they’re too damn cute to pass up on.

Figure 10: Soon to be released stickers for the Kinetic Labs family of switches. — **Figure 10:** Soon to be released stickers for the Kinetic Labs family of switches.

Husky Switch Performance

Appearance

The Kinetic Labs Husky switches from Tecsee, to push as many proper nouns into that subject as possible, come as a tri-colored linear switch featuring the Kinetic Labs’ K-logo along with the word ‘Kinetic’ stamped on the nameplate in similar fashion to the recent Salmon switch release. Featuring a 5-pin, or PCB style mount, these also come with the extra-long, 63.5g ‘symmetric double-staged springs’ that have been popping up more recently in Tecsee switches. Aside the appearance of this type of spring in Cannonkeys’ Neapolitan Ice Cream switches, which are also from Tecsee, these appear to be something that Kinetic Labs in particular is focusing on given that these are being sold in aftermarket packs in various weights by them.

Looking to the top housing in isolation since this is the ‘Appearance’ section, they come in a fairly light-grey color with a wide LED slot and nothing super noteworthy about the exteriors. On the interior we note fairly similar design points to other recent Tecsee releases including the pairs of mold circles on the underside of all four sides of the top housing. Additionally, we note that centered on the underside interior edge of the LED slot that the mold number is again stamped there like the Neapolitan Ice Cream and Naevy V1.5 switches. One interesting additional point worth nothing here that I’m unsure if I’ve not noticed until now or it actually is a newer feature is that the interiors of the switch fastening legs are ‘hollowed’, as can be seen from the side shot below. While I imagine this might make them slightly more pliable and easier to open, I would also think that this could cause them to more easily bend and break, without anything other than pure conjecture to throw at that one.

Figure 11: Underside of Husky switch housing emphasizing the ‘hollow’ clip legs and mold circles on the outer ridge. — **Figure 11:** Underside of Husky switch housing emphasizing the ‘hollow’ clip legs and mold circles on the outer ridge.

Moving next to the stems of these switches, they come in at a slightly lighter yet still light shade of grey. (?) Looking closer to white than grey in my eyes, this really just emphasizes to me how badly I need to buy a RAL book so my eyes can absorb more colors by osmosis, since I’m pretty sure that’s how these things work. Comedic interlude aside, there really isn’t anything noteworthy that really grabs the attention with these stems. They have tapered slider rails, frontside mid-set mold circles, and a step-like taper to the bottom of the slider rails. Additionally, these are quite long at 13.40 mm in overall top to bottom stem height, though not nearly as tall as something like the Neapolitan Ice Cream or Purple Panda switches which are in the realm of around 13.80 mm in total height.

Figure 12: Husky switch stem shot showing mold circle placement, tapered slider rail, and hard tapered center pole. — **Figure 12:** Husky switch stem shot showing mold circle placement, tapered slider rail, and hard tapered center pole.

The bottom housings of the Husky switches come in with a much darker, closer to ash-colored gray bottom housing which is fairly unexceptional with respect to macro scale details. There is a ring of 8 mold circles around the upper lip-edge as well a number placed on the bottom side of the housing indicating the mold in much the same fashion as other Tecsee switches. Moving on to more subtle details, though, the interior of the bottom housing has an LED-side ‘spring collar’ as well as four mold circles deep in the corners of the switch, which I don’t quite recall seeing previously in other reviews. As well, in specific lighting there appears to be a sort of ridged texture from east to west across the bottom housing, though again its very subtle. As well, I did note that the number on the bottom of the bottom housing indicating the mold used felt a bit center-shifted, residing closer to the central pole than in other previous Tecsee switches. While none of these points are necessarily the most conclusive as to justify these as ‘new molds’, they certainly do draw the eye to some interesting points.

Figure 13: Interior bottom of Husky bottom housing showing ridged texture. — **Figure 13:** Interior bottom of Husky bottom housing showing ridged texture.

Push Feel

The push feel of the Husky switches, even for being a linear, are probably one of the biggest things that I want to stress and really discuss on in this review. In short, they feel quite thin on both ends of the stroke. In the topping out of the switch, especially, these housings feel quite thin but with still a relatively even and not sharp feeling to them. On the opposite side, much as to be expected with nearly any switch, the bottoming out is much more solid and firm feeling, yet still quite thin relative to other switches. In between these two ends, coming un-lubed from the factory, they are fairly smooth with maybe a touch of scratch in them that is consistent throughout the entirety of the stroke. Overall, they aren’t quite what many people would sit back and think of as a ‘good’ linear, but they’re not designed poorly nor do I think with traditional expectations in mind.

Many people have asked me over the course of doing reviews as to how exactly I score or review specific sections, or more specifically about what I think about when I’m reviewing them. Linears, and especially those as of late, really are being judged based around what the community wants: solid, firm, thick, and evenly balanced topping and bottoming outs in a smooth switch are what makes everyone happy. Just consider how many new people are out there rolling through YouTube videos commenting about the ‘t h o c c’ on every switch they can find – it’s fairly evident that this is the linear zeitgeist. However, in many releases from Durock/JWK and some older releases from Tecsee, the community wasn’t getting that from these nylon bottom, polycarbonate top housing releases. While the nylon bottoming outs were hit or miss, the polycarbonate topping outs were almost always harsh, sharp, and very disjointed feeling from the rest of a switch. Having two disparate housing collision feelings honestly brings out the worst in the topping out experience of something like polycarbonate as its compared against that meme feeling everyone is chasing in firm, thicc bottoming outs on nylon. These switches don’t do that, though.

Instead of attempting the classic polycarbonate over nylon, or even UHMWPE over nylon design in the housings, the Huskies are uniformly made of a “custom Polycarbonate blend”, lending credence to the similarly thin feeling between bottoming and topping out. Sure, the bottoming out experience is a bit more firm than the topping out given what I’d assume is the increased thickness of the material at the point of bottoming out. But, what this similarity in material does is lend a bit of a complementary factor to the topping out feeling that I quite frankly feel was being missed or butchered in these multiple-material housings as of late. Instead of trying to have two different feelings at either end of the stroke, they took one consistent feeling and leaned into it. However, rather than choosing the more solid, muted traditional bottom housing materials such as nylon, they leaned into the thinness of polycarbonate which is not something that has been done, or at least done this well, in recent memory. Personally, I don’t really like it in hand to be 100% honest with you, but this design choice is executed in such a fashion that I am convinced that I want to try these in a full build at some point.

Sound

In much the same fashion as to the push feel of these switches, the sounds of the Husky switches are very polycarbonate heavy in style. The bottoming out is fairly solid and firm sounding, but you still get a bit of a hammer-like, higher pitched collision that you wouldn’t normally get with something as firm as nylon. The topping out, as to be expected, is quite thin and high pitched as well, but its not abrasively sharp. In fact, while I really try hard to move away from the usage of onomatopoeias in reviews as these are horrendously defined, I would venture to guess that this is on the opposite end of what people think of when they think of ‘thocc’, though I wouldn’t really know since I hate that scale.

If you like sharp sounding switches, with thin and really punchy collisions with the housing, then the Huskies are definitely something you should pick up. However, if these aren’t your forte already, the sound of these switches, at least in stock form, will be the most polarizing aspect of these and I could imagine they receive fair amounts of both praise and hate centered on this metric, alone.

Wobble

Overall, the stem wobble on the Husky switches is prevalent but not drastically so at any amount that would likely matter to the vast majority of users. If you’re hypersensitive to stem wobble, or using very tall caps such as SA profile with these then you may notice some of the equally N/S and E/W in magnitude wobble, but not by much. As for top housing wobble, none had any budge to them and even after having opened a couple of them a handful of times over I wasn’t able to induce any sort of wobble in the top housing. Given that most people aren’t reopening switches dozens of times, I didn’t think it would be necessary to check past a handful of tests.

Measurements

Other

While nothing but purely cosmetic in concern, one of the things I did note about these switches as I was trying them out is that the top housings appear to have not de-molded well on roughly 10-20% of the switches I looked at. Looking to the four holes on the sides of the top housings above the clips, some switches appear to have what looks like extra flakes of plastic that weren’t quite well removed, as can be seen below. Again, this is purely cosmetic in nature, but still a point I felt was worth mentioning, nonetheless.

Figure 15: Husky switches featuring subtle extra-mold pieces in the holes in the top housings in the center of this image. — **Figure 15:** Husky switches featuring subtle extra-mold pieces in the holes in the top housings in the center of this image.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear 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 Huskies 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!

Raed

- While certainly a hard note to put to words, the topping out of the Raeds feels like its making more of a wider contact with the top housing than the Huskies do at top out. The difference between hitting something with the tip of a pencil versus a fat marker would be a good analogy to use here to describe that difference well.

- Both in terms of sound and push feel, the Raeds are just a hair bit more rough and textured in the push stroke. Both of these, though, respond quite well to aftermarket lubing in terms of smoothness increase.

- Regardless of pitch, the Huskies are noticeably louder on an absolute scale than the Raeds.

Gateron Hippo

- In stock form, the Gateron Hippos are noticeably more scratchy than the Husky switches throughout the entirety of the stroke.

- Surprisingly, even given the difference in pitch between the two switches, they are both roughly equally as loud as each other at topping out.

- While not by any real discernable margin, I feel like the stem wobble on the Huskies is a minor bit greater in both the N/S and E/W directions than the Gateron Hippos.

Novelkeys Silk Yellow V2

- Even though the NK Silk Yellow V2 is more smooth than the Husky switches by push feel, surprisingly they both have the same sort of scratch-type sound to them.

- The N/S stem wobble in both of these switches is nearly identical, with the Husky having just minor amounts less than the Silk Yellows in the E/W direction.

- Unsurprisingly, the Huskies are significantly louder than these switches on an absolute scale, as well as a bit more higher pitched.

KTT Grapefruit

- Next to the Huskies, the KTT Grapefruits are notably more smooth and muted in terms of sound and feeling, which is a bit ironic given that that is not how one would normally describe a grapefruit. Nor a husky, for that matter.

- While there is a bit less stem wobble in both directions in the KTT Grapefruits than there is in the Husky switches, the few Grapefruits I do have to test have a bit of a slight give in the top housing in the N/S direction which is a bit strange considering their clamshell style top housings.

- While I’ve never quite been one to harp on differences in springs in switches, you can definitely feel the increased force in the return of the Huskies in the upstroke relative to its own downstroke, whereas the Grapefruits are the same up as they are down.

Opblack

- While the Opblacks are comparable in terms of overall magnitude of sound as the Huskies, the Opblacks take a bit of a negative edge with respect to sound given that they have audible spring ping that’s harsh even at arm’s length.

- The Huskies are just the slightest bit less scratchy throughout the stroke in stock form than the Opblacks, though both respond fairly well to aftermarket lubing.

- The topping out feeling (as well as sound for that matter) in the Opblacks is noticeably more harsh and pointy feeling than the Huskies, which plays a bit to the ‘negative’ aspects of lighter material topping outs that I described above in the push feel section.

Novelkeys Box Cream

- All assumed memes aside, the Novelkeys Box Creams are in fact noticeably more scratchy than the Husky switches.

- The Box Creams are surprisingly louder than the Husky switches in overall volume, but part of what makes it so noticeable is how quite harsh and discordant the top out sound of the Creams is relative to the fairly uniform and consistent top out sound of the Huskies.

- While the Huskies were described above as being a bit thin in the bottoming out experience relative to a lot of other switches, it is surprisingly just a hair bit more firm and solid feeling than the Novelkeys Box Cream by comparison.

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.