Keygeek Oat Switch Review

Remember to get your flu and/or COVID shots this year, friends.

Despite me not yet living up to my own advice on this front, having already fallen victim to my once yearly bout of ‘get sick enough to feel like dying’ I was reminded that I was behind on this chore. Unfortunately, though, it’s not as if these vaccines would have done anything for me this time as last week I was struck with a case of atypical bacterial “walking pneumonia” which has been going around this part of Ohio for the past handful of weeks. In addition to all the fun normal symptoms of any good pneumonia, what makes this “atypical” is that it rotates between “I’m getting better today” and “I might need to go to the ER” on a three or four day cycle for up to a month if left untreated. For me, that cycle rotated from feeling horrible enough to not do much over the course of Friday-Monday, to good enough to go to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then back around to feeling even worse Wednesday night through Friday and having to take those days off of work. While I’m still coughing up some stuff here or there, I’m thankfully largely over my case by now because of the medication I picked up from urgent care and I’m fully integrated back into normal, working society. Honestly, I forgot what it was like to take an entire week off of working on switch content and it felt… strange. Not doing any form of force curves, caliper measurements, or switch buying for 5 straight days just made those days bleed together in a mash of boring hell, even in spite of having the same TV shows on that I normally would have on for background noise while doing that switch work. It turns out that at least half of my enjoyment of watching Netflix or Amazon Prime in the background every weeknight is actually because of the switches and not what I’m paying attention to on my other computer monitor. In case you’re wondering what exactly it is that I do watch in the background when I’m working on stuff, this week’s review has been prepped alongside some original black and white episodes of the Twilight Zone from 1959. While the episodes are a bit short and simple compared to what we’re used to in 2024, the original Twilight Zone and it’s stories have such a perfect vintage sci-fi feel to them that you just can’t get really anywhere else.

Figure 1: They just don’t make episodes like 'Third from the Sun' (S1E14) anymore.

Switch Background

For the handful of you out there who have been patiently waiting for it, the wait is finally over – this is officially a full length review for a Keygeek-made switch. After having recently reviewed both HMX- and SWK-made switches in the past handful of months, this review will allow me to finally cover Keygeek more in depth and cross them off of my list of recently recognized relevant manufacturers. For those of you who are not quite sure what I am referring to when I mention this ‘list’, for the past two years I’ve provided short ‘Manufacturer Update’ articles wherein I formally announce the existence of up and coming manufacturers who I feel have produced enough switches and shown enough signs of life to be mentioned as actual distinctive manufacturing facilities. With every vendor, brand, and company out there trying to fool you into believing that they produce their own switches in house, extra stress has been put on me as a documenter of switches to hold out as long as I can and to make sure I’ve acquired enough proof about some of these names so that I don’t lead you into believing that some dude slapping his name on purchased switches from Gateron is actually the next brand new “Gateron killer” of switch manufacturers. While I’m far from the only person on the planet that gets to decide what manufacturers are and aren’t relevant enough to be discussed by name, this formal recognition process also allows me to key you all in to some new companies that I definitely want to discuss in the next handful of months if I haven’t been talking about them or reviewing their switches already. And so while the Raptor MX Extreme and SWK Ripple switches did well to take care of my recent recognition of HMX and SWK, I have yet to cover a Keygeek switch because they’ve certainly been the most difficult of these new brands to pin down. Whether it’s by Keygeek Avalons or Red Velvets, there’s a decent chance that you’ve heard of Keygeek before, but there’s an even larger chance that a good number of you have not. So before we get into the review of the Keygeek Oat switches, let me briefly run down why Keygeek has taken this long for me to recognize and why they’re definitely a bit different than some of the other manufacturers that I’ve covered in depth before…

Unlike most other switch manufacturers which slowly creep into my consciousness over time as I see more and more of their switches pop up on the market, Keygeek stuck out to me from a mile away the first day that they showed up on the switch scene. Popping into western keyboard relevancy back in July of 2022, Keygeek was not shy about establishing themselves and proceeded to set up a network of connections that most manufacturers have taken years to establish if they’ve even done that at all. As early as mid 2022, Keygeek set up an actively staffed, English speaking social media account on Instagram, deployed a present and pingable sales representative to the SwitchModders’ Discord server, and even set up a full blown website with documentation of their OEM and custom switch releases that puts really every other manufacturer to shame. Further strange for us collectors who’ve had to scrounge and dig for any information that we can get about newer manufacturers, Keygeek came right out of the gates stating that they (ZheJiang KeyGeek Electronic Technology Co. LTD) are producing switches as a subsidiary of long time microswitch manufacturer in Weipeng. For the vast majority of my time collecting switches, connecting subsidiaries and sub-brands of switches to major manufacturers (e.g. Longhua and Kailh) was something that took years and years to accomplish and so to be handed that information out the gate feels… odd. And yet despite this rapid burst onto the scene in the west, the number of custom switches that Keygeek touts as having made on their website is noticeably greater than that of the number of switches which have made noticeable waves of influence in western markets. HMX, by comparison as a similarly new switch manufacturer, seems to be taking everything by storm.

Figure 2: Current 'mass produced' switch offerings from Keygeeks' information page on their website.

Figure 3: A few of the 'custom' switch offerings Keygeek has produced as per their website.

Aside from the somewhat strange trajectory into the limelight as described in the paragraph above that has made me a bit leary of Keygeek, one of the other reasons that I’ve personally held out on reviewing them for so long is that I just simply don’t seem to be able to get ahold of their switches. Yes, even I sometimes struggle to acquire switches. While I can very clearly read off the list of switches that they have produced as per the documentation on their own website, these switches seem to be offered at vendors few and far in between and when they are offered somewhere accessible, they don’t seem to be in stock for long. Unlike HMX which just feels as if they are pouring switches through every western brand and vendor that they can find contact information for, Keygeek’s market still seems to be largely based in Taobao and their sales are primarily driven through the eastern keyboard community in China. Have you ever heard of the ‘H One’ line of switches? Keygeek FM? Keygeek Keylin? To be entirely honest with you, even these switches are ones that I didn’t know about until sitting down to prepare for this review and the reason that I’m behind on capturing them is because all three of these were sold out super quickly via limited groupbuy-style runs on Taobao that just simply don’t make themselves known to western audiences at all. In fact, the only reason I can post-sale tell you about these switches and will likely be able to pick some up for my collection at all is because of a single dedicated switch collector in the US who has been setting their alarms super early in the morning to try and fight their way through these Taobao releases to secure some switches. In a way it reminds me of how switch collecting used to be before everything blew up and the number of offerings became too hard to keep track of.

Figure 4: Haul of Keygeek H One, FM, and Keylin switch among many other Taobao switch sales from aforementioned sleep-deprived collector.

In spite of the general lack of awareness and availability of some of Keygeek’s more small custom switch offerings, I do feel that they are genuinely engaging in some behaviors and practices with their wider, more marketed releases that everyone should be a bit appreciative of. For both eastern- and western-facing releases, Keygeek seems uniquely keen on engaging in named collaborations and partnerships with different brands and switch designers. While I did mention Punkshoo and CBKBD as names that have collaborated with Keygeek in my 2024 Manufacturer Update Short, Keygeek has also recently had switches released with JKDX and XCJZ, continual switch releases for eastern switch brand MZ, and even some more recent offerings with the brand ‘Easy Lab’ in the form of their Easy Lab x Keygeek Azures. Not to just turn this paragraph into one big ‘pile on’ of every Keygeek collaboration, even the Keygeek Oats that I’m reviewing in full here are a collaboration with Neo Studio. Unlike some of those previously mentioned offerings, though, the Oats also demonstrate another uniquely forward-thinking behavior of Keygeek that I’m starting to see slowly catching on – they’re offered as a custom switch offering for specific prebuilt premium keyboard kits. While I can only name two specific instances in which this has happened with Keygeek, two points is still enough to draw a line and I’m going to willingly choose to optimistically extrapolate a trend from that for editorial flavor. The first collaboration as such is that of the nlandkeys Keygeek Kyubi Clacky linears, which were offered as a prebuilt option alongside the split Kyubi custom keyboard that they ran. The Keygeek Oats, as the second demonstration of this, are being offered as prebuilt options for the Evo80 keyboards – a collaborative TKL release between Qwertykeys and Neo Studio announced back in August of 2024.

Figure 5: Series of color options available for the Evo80 TKL keyboard kit.

While it would have been particularly fun to review the Keygeek Oat switches in the Evo80 boards as it is clear that this is where they will see the most use to western audiences, $170 for a kit is a bit of a steep budget for just a single switch review. (Although admittedly this does seem like a pretty decent deal for what is being offered in the design of the Evo80s…) Additionally ruining my justification of buying an entire keyboard kit for a single switch review is the fact that the Keygeek Oat switches are available for purchase entirely separate of the Evo80s by at least a handful of vendors at the time of writing this review in late 2024. Available via companies like Swagkeys, PantheonKeys, and Monacokeys, the Keygeek Oat linears are marketed as being 45gf bottom out linear switch with nylon housings, an “L4” material stem, and a hell of a budget friendly price of around $0.28-0.30 per switch depending on where they are purchased from. Given that the general availability of Keygeek switches is a bit suspect as described in the paragraphs above, it is uncertain how long these switches will be stocked for at these various locations or if Keygeek will continue to produce them moving forward.

Oat Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Keygeek Oat switches come in a milky-translucent housing scheme with off-white, creamy yellow stems that I imagine are supposed to engender the idea of oat milk when looking at them. While Keygeek switches are notoriously short on branding and cleanly decorated nameplates, I believe that a good number of their switches have color schemes that are surprisingly unique enough to help them stand out despite their commonplace names such as Azure, Raspberry, Avocado, etc. The Oat switches are, surprisingly, not excluded from that idea either. In the back of my head, the only switch that this even vaguely reminds me of are some prototype Durock/JWK silent linear switches that I received back when Durock/JWK was still a brand new, budding manufacturer, though even those I think are more clear and transparent in their housings than these. Irrespective of the fact that these Oat switches have a commonplace name and ostensibly a commonplace color scheme, there are some finer details – such as the style of unbranded nameplates that Keygeek has traditionally used – which help make these switches distinguishable from the rest of the crowd. All of these details worth noting about the design of the Keygeek Oat switches, as well as Keygeek switches in general, occur at the sub-part level and may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 6: Keygeek Oat switches and their components.

Starting off with the milky translucent nylon top housings of the Keygeek Oat switches, this part has perhaps the most identifiable feature which can readily be used to pin these switches as being made by Keygeek – the nameplate. While Keygeek has not used branding on the nameplates of any of the custom switches that I am aware of, all of these switches have a small, polished rectangular region of the nameplate that just barely covers the middle 50% of the nameplate region. Even though these rectangles cannot immediately be seen from a distance, bouncing light off of the top housings of Keygeek switches makes the difference in polishing between this small nameplate bar and the rest of the housings incredibly obvious. Beyond this feature, though, the rest of the top housings are fairly mundane. The Oats have a thin, unobstructed rectangular LED/diode slot with a small, shallow centered circular indentation for propping up certain styles of through-switch lights upright. The internal structures are also all present as expected for MX-style switches, though perhaps with the north side guider rail being noticeably more supported with a pair of thick arches that extend into the bottom of the nameplate region. While this is not the first time I’ve seen supports as such, they seem much more beefy here than in other switches. Another interesting thing which I noted when first opening the Keygeek Oats is that there is thin traces of factory lubing everywhere inside of these housings – even on the upper rim of the housings where it connects to the bottom housings. I’m not even entirely sure how top housings could get factory lube there in the first place?

Figure 7: Keygeek Oat top housing exterior showing mold marking on the inner edge of the circular indentation on the thin, rectangular LED/diode slot.

Figure 8: Alternative angle of Keygeek Oat top housing exterior emphasizing difference in polishing between small strip on the nameplate region and the rest of the housing.

Figure 9: Keygeek Oat top housing interior showing trace amounts of factory lubing everywhere and more reinforced north-side stem guider rail.

Moving next to the cream-colored “L4” material stems of the Keygeek Oat switches, these are surprisingly mundane for the small design quirks otherwise present in the design of the various components of these switches. The stems are fairly plain overall, with just barely tapered, full length slider rails, a tiered center pole, and even mold ejector circles just above the stem legs on the front plate of the switch. In terms of overall height, the stems are only barely longer than the average switch at 13.15 mm in total length, though not long enough to significantly decrease the overall travel distance of the switch. (While this is reported at 3.665 mm based on measurements below as compared to the conventional travel distance of 4.000 mm, I suspect that the bottom housings also play a role in this reduced overall travel distance.) Much like with the top housings of the Keygeek Oats, the stems also have an inordinate amount of thin, low viscosity factory lubing on all sides of the stem, including the front and back plates.

Figure 10: Front and back side of Keygeek Oat stems showing tiered center pole, marginally tapered slider rail, and mold ejector circles on front plate of the stem.

Finally arriving to the milky translucent nylon bottom housings of the Keygeek Oat switches, these too feature a few unique design quirks and a whole lot of thin factory lubing like that of the top housings. While it is hard to capture in the photos shown below, the factory lubing is absolutely everywhere in these bottom housings, and so consistently so that most bottom housings have a glob of lube in effectively the same spot after having opened them. Like the top housings, as well, there is lube present on the upper rim of the housing. Looking past the factory lube, the interior of the housings are interesting in that the supporting plastic pieces for the leaf, the center pole, and a faint south side spring collar are all connected by a vertical, thin strip of housing that runs north to south through the housing. While I swear I’ve seen this design before in some other switches that I’ve reviewed in full, I can’t find where this is in any of the reviews that I was looking through. Externally, the Keygeek Oat bottom housings come only in 5-pin/PCB mount variety and are fairly matte in texture at all points of the housing. There is also a very faint, single capital letter mold marking present on the housings, though strangely it is located up underneath the upper metal PCB pin. This is a location that I don’t think I’ve ever recalled seeing a mold marking in before for any manufacturer other than Keygeek.

Figure 11: Keygeek Oat bottom housing interior showing 'center lane' connecting piece running N-S across the bae of the housing as well as copious amounts of factory lubing.

Figure 12: Keygeek Oat bottom housing exterior showing 5-Pin/PCB mount housing configuration and single capital letter mold marking in the upper left-hand corner underneath the metal PCB pin.

Push Feel

For being extremely budget linear switches from a relatively new manufacturer in the grand scheme of modern mechanical keyboard switches, the Keygeek Oats are surprisingly well put together linear switches. Despite what the warning signs in the ‘Appearance’ section above point to with respect to potential factory overlubing, the batch of Oats that I received feel quite smooth and have no scratch to them anywhere throughout their strokes. While these switches definitely do feel more heavily lubed than most other recent factory lubed switch releases, it is a smoothness that is still far from feeling sluggish or cumbersome throughout the linear strokes of the switches. The housing collisions on the Keygeek Oats are also surprisingly firm and muted feeling, with a slightly flat popping feeling that can especially be felt at higher actuation speeds. Noticeably thicker than a good majority of other nylon-housing linear switches that I’ve tried in recent months, these switches have much more of a ‘heft’ or weight to their bottom outs that does make the switches feel a bit more premium and well-designed than not. Finally, as some combination of the heavy factory lubing and fairly firm bottoming out of the Keygeek Oats, I have to admit that these switches feel shockingly heavier than their marketed (and actually measured) bottom out weights of 45 gf. While I am a bit ambivalent as to whether or not these switches feel like they are pulling up short of a full 4.000 mm travel distance, you could have easily convinced me that these switches had bottom outs that were closer to 55-60 grams of force as opposed to their actual 45 gf mark. I can’t say that I’ve encountered many if any switches that so cleanly pull off feeling drastically heavier than they actually are.

Figure 13: Force curve diagram for the stock Keygeek Oat switch.

In spite of all the incredibly positive things there are to say about the push feeling of the Keygeek Oat switches, there are some small quips that I have with their performance that stop them from truly being astounding across the board. While perhaps a bit nitpicky on my part, the “biggest” issue that the Keygeek Oats suffer from is some inconsistency in housing collisions as a result of the factory lubing. The noted ‘popping’ feeling in the bottom out from the previous paragraph is where this is especially noted, with some more heavily lubed switches giving a slightly sticky feeling at bottom out that is noticeable at moderate typing speeds. When typing particularly quickly on the Keygeek Oats, though, this issue is largely hard to notice. As well, I did feel as if some Keygeek Oat switches had some slight inconsistencies with full stroke length smoothness and as if there were some small spots in the strokes that were more thinly lubed than others. While I’m certain that this will disappear with break in of the switches upon usage, as fairly heavy factory lubing does tend to migrate around as the switches are used, it is still something that I could pick out in the stock Oats. The final ball drop worth mentioning in this section of the review is not on the Keygeek Oats themselves, but rather on me for not coming up with single oat milk-based food analogy to compare these linear switches to. You really would have thought smoothness would be something that I could have described by way of a latte or fancy coffee drink somewhere in this section.

Sound

In keeping with the meme as old as time of mechanical keyboard switches being able to have their sound profiles described by the same set of characteristics as their push feeling notes, I want to circle back around to my previous descriptions of the Keygeek Oats as being hefty, firm feeling, and with a ‘premium’ feeling bottom out. As a result of the nylon housings in these switches, alongside their fairly generous factory lubing, the Keygeek Oats sound noticeably deeper and bass-centered in their sound profile than really any other light weight linear switches that I recall having tried in recent memory. While these switches are far from being muted or even silent linear-like, their medium-soft, bass heavy tones produce a balanced popping sound at topping and bottoming out that just sounds solid, substantial, and as if the switch was made with some serious care and intent. (Yes, I am perfectly aware that classifying things as ‘premium’ based on their weight or how ‘solid’ they sound is entirely intangible and lizard brain of me, but it is still something the average consumer considers when making purchases.) What also aids in the Keygeek Oats sounding this way, though, is that the liberal factory lubing effectively altogether eliminates scratch, ping, or really any of the other commonplace negative sound aspects that ruin a linear switch. While this same factory lubing does lead to noted inconsistencies with respect to bottom out in the form of the same stickiness that was noted in the paragraph above, ultimately these issues are minor both in the switches they show up in and across the batch of switches that I received.

Wobble

The Keygeek Oat switches have a surprisingly small amount of stem wobble to them, with only a minor, likely unproblematic amount of N/S and E/W direction stem wobble to them on average. Like with the other performance metrics noted above, however, there is a bit of variation in the Oats across the batch that I received. Notably, though, the majority of switches which do deviate on this point do so with less stem wobble than the average as opposed to a greater amount. I suppose that isn’t the worst kind of variation in the world to have…

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 15: Numerical details regarding the stock Keygeek Oat 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

- As expected, at 17,000 actuations the Keygeek Oat switches demonstrated some amount of factory lubing migration that did ultimately result in some of the inconsistencies in their push feel effectively disappearing as compared to their stock counterparts. This should be stated as being incredibly subtle, though, despite still being noticeable enough to mention.

- Like most other switches which I’ve subjected to break in testing, the Keygeek Oat switches increased in their N/S and E/W direction stem wobble a bit after having been broken in to this point.

34,000 Actuations

- Surprisingly, no noticeable changes were seen between the Keygeek Oat switches that were broken in to 34,000 actuations and those that were broken in to 17,000 actuations. Largely, these switches seem to benefit from their breaking in time, with the tiny bit of factory lube migration which is present smoothing out a good amount of the noted inconsistencies in their feeling.

51,000 Actuations

- There were no further changes in the push feeling nor stem wobble of the Keygeek Oat switches broken in to 51,000 actuations than what was noted in the previous two stages.

- While I suspect this is more a function of random batch sampling, I feel like the Keygeek Oat switches that were broken in to 51,000 actuations had some increased variability with respect to their overall sound profile. Most notably, it seemed as if the housing collisions became less balanced, with the topping outs sounding thinner and a bit more plasticky than their bottom outs. In spite of the fact that this could be explained by further factory lube migration than what was noted above, I still am willing to chalk this up to being a sampling error more than anything substantial.

Figure 17: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Keygeek Oat switches throughout the break in process.

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 switches to the Keygeek Oat switches side by side.

Figure 18: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: SWK Ripple, Gateron Pro Ultra Glory Yellow, Cherry MX Orange, Raptor MX Extreme, Ball Bearing Blue, and Novelkeys Cream)

SWK Ripple

- Despite these two switches having fairly similar force curves and stats as one another, the SWK Ripple switches have a much sharper, more forceful feeling bottom out that punches with a much more noticeable feeling than the comparably dull, rounded bottom outs of the Keygeek Oats.

- In terms of smoothness, these two switches are fairly comparable to each other, though the more generous factory lubing in the Keygeek Oats makes them feel a touch more heavily lubed than the Ripples.

- The overall sound profile of the SWK Ripple switches is noticeably louder and more driven by the sharp bottom out than the much more quiet, subdued, and well balanced housing collisions of the Keygeek Oats.

Gateron Pro Ultra Glory Yellow

- The Keygeek Oat switches have on average less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Gateron Pro Ultra Glory Yellow switches.

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Gateron Pro Ultra Glory Yellows are the only ones that feel like they have much thicker factory lube application to them than the Keygeek Oats. When compared side by side, it definitely makes the strokes of the Ultra Glory Yellows feel a bit more sluggish and delayed.

- In terms of their overall sound profiles, these switches are fairly similar to each other with respect to their overall volume and general deeper tone. In this comparison, the Keygeek Oats though have no sound from fine grain scratch to them and a bit more of a well rounded sound at their bottom out that is complex and multi-dimensional.

Cherry MX Orange

- As a result of their generous factory lubing, the Keygeek Oat switches feel drastically smoother than the Cherry MX Oranges. This is even in spite of the fact that the MX Orange switches were constructed on Cherry’s MX2A platform which was reported to have better factory lubing methods.

- While there is hardly much of a difference in the full stroke length of these two switches, the Cherry MX Orange switches feel as if they go much deeper into their housings than the Keygeek Oat switches do.

- As is expected for a comparison between any modern switches and ones made by Cherry, there is less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Keygeek Oat switches than the Cherry MX Oranges.

Raptor MX Extreme

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, SWK Ripples included, the Raptor MX Extremes are the most different from the Keygeek Oat switches when it comes to their bottom outs. Pulling up much shorter than the Oats at around 3.000 mm of travel distance, the Raptor MX Extremes bottom out fully onto their stem poles and are noticeably more pointed, sharp, and forceful in this feeling than the Keygeek Oats’ bottom outs.

- While in my full length review of the Raptor MX Extremes I did refer to their factory lubing as ‘substantial’, the Keygeek Oat switches feel as if their factory lubing is much more heavily applied.

- Geon’s Raptor MX Extreme switches have noticeably less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W direction than the Keygeek Oat switches.

Ball Bearing Blue

- Much like with the Raptor MX Extreme switch comparison above, the Ball Bearing Blue switches have quite a bit less stem wobble than the Keygeek Oat switches and there’s hardly any comparison to be made between these two switches on this front.

- The Keygeek Oat switches are quite a bit more smooth than the Ball Bearing Blue switches, though like with most other switches in this comparison list here, the Oats feel as if they are quite a bit more heavily lubed.

- Despite the fact that the comparative force curve between these two switches below suggests that the Ball Bearing Blues bottom out with a much heavier weight than the Keygeek Oats, in hand it feels like these switches are similar to each other in terms of their bottom out weight.

Novelkeys Cream

- As is to be expected for anyone who has tried Novelkeys Cream switches before, the stock Keygeek Oat switches are noticeably smoother throughout their stroke than the Cream switches.

- In terms of stem wobble, the stock Keygeek Oat switches have less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Novelkeys Cream switches.

- Similar to the Ball Bearing Blue switch comparison above, the Keygeek Oats feel as if they bottom out with a weight that is much closer to that of the Novelkeys Cream switches than what their comparative force curve below would suggest.

Linearity

Figure 25: Absolute and relative Linearity and Slope values for each switch in this comparison section.

Figure 26: Qualitative comparison of the normalized Slope and Linearity for each switch in this comparison section.

If you are just now seeing this section for the first time and are a bit confused as to what I am talking about when discussing ‘Slope’ and ‘Linearity’, I highly suggest checking out my article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’ where I explain what this section is for and how it came to be! For a bit of a shorter answer, know that this is part of my ongoing attempt to better quantify and articulate differences between linear switches which have historically not been captured in discussions about them.

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.