Kinetic Labs Turtle Switch Review

Note: In order to keep everything as fully transparent as possible, I feel inclined to inform all readers that I am currently sponsored by Kinetic Labs as of the time of writing this review and also do written work for them on their website. With that in mind, though, this review was conducted entirely of my own will and volition without any notice to Kinetic Labs. They also did not receive an advanced copy of this review, editorial notes, nor in any way, shape, or form affected this review. All opinions here, as long winded as they may be, are expressly mine and mine alone.

What do you really know about “birding”?

I, for one, admittedly know next to nothing about birding – a hobby which I have at least learned is technically different than “birdwatching” for some ultra specific reasons that still seem trivial to me. Aside from this very uninteresting bit of trivia, as a significant other to someone who is rapidly descending deeply into the wide world of birding, oh boy am I sure learning a lot about all of this. However, I have also been generating a significantly growing list of questions in parallel the more and more I learn about birding. Why did she have to wait until the absolute peak of winter here in northeastern Ohio to get into this hobby? Why am I being asked to go out to the edge of a park in the middle of nowhere at dawn on a Sunday morning? Why do you think I can tell if that bird is “medium” or “medium large” in size from a tenth of a mile away with a pair of binoculars? While I have admittedly participated in quite a few hobbies in parallel to me writing switch reviews, and have subsequently shared my times with things like arthouse movies, Magic the Gathering, and bowling with you all here at the start of reviews, I have to admit that this hobby is certainly a new one for me to have been forced into. The sheer number of resources that are active, live, and constantly being updated for tracking and following birds in real time is honestly quite astounding and it does make me a little bit envious to see live, seemingly mile by mile updates on some random owl or duck when I can’t even find switches named the same things from vendor to vendor most days. So while I am going to try my absolute hardest to weasel myself out of having to wake up way earlier than normal on Sunday and lose some of the last weekends I have before we spring forward because of daylight savings changes here in the US, please understand that this review may have been a few hours earlier (or later) than normal as a result of me being out somewhere staring at birds. If I don’t post a mailday here in a couple of days, start reaching out to other Ohio mechanical keyboard enthusiasts to start scouring local parks and trails to try and find me hopefully not frozen to death in the process of being forced to hunt down some rare, special variant of bird.

Figure 1: I'm much more suited for snapping the occasional lucky picture of a bird that visits the window at work. My girlfriend hates me for my luck in getting this photo more than you could imagine.

Switch Background

Switching up my train of thought from birds to reptiles, I have to admit that I’m quiet excited that my batch of Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles have finally shown up. Ever since I saw that they were first announced a bit over a month ago on January 15th, I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that they’ll end up being switches that I personally enjoy irrespective of how they numerically turn out for any full length review – something which seems to have both my own personal experience and that of quite a few others when it comes to the themed switch releases from Kinetic Labs in the past. Despite the Penguins, Hippos, Salmons, Huskies, and Geckos all having their own flaws and areas that they could be improved upon as I’ve detailed previously, I find all of these switches being ones that I fondly look back during their testing and review processes and I also seem to encounter them at meetups more frequently than I would have expected. Even after years and hundreds of other switch releases since their debut, I specifically recall having seen at least two, if not three of these aforementioned switches in full builds at meetups and the owners of those boards always seem to speak pretty positively about daily driving them in the boards that they are showcasing. In a way it almost feels like this specific grouping of switches has garnered a bit of a ‘cult classic’ status like some movies that still have dedicated followings long after they’re through the theatres. In addition to personally enjoying how these switches have felt to type on, the entirety of the Kinetic Labs ‘Animal Family’ of switches has also been great for reviewing purposes as their releases are spaced out well enough that I can let them go for several months at a time and develop some contextual nuance that helps build out a cohesive story for these switches. Rather than being shotgun blasted out there with a half dozen releases all in one month, these feel like regular and steady updates to a story that – wait, what? Kinetic Labs announced another switch literally just as I was in the process of writing this outline for this review?? Son of a bitch, the Capybara linear switches look even cuter than the Turtles do… Thanks for messing this one up Christian and crew – I had a great structure planned and flow going for this background section and now everything else is going to be messed up as I spend the rest of my normal preparation time poring over the details of these new switches rather than focusing on the Turtles I’m here reviewing now.

Figure 2: Now this meme is attacking my brain from both the switch and the bird sides at the same time.

Before my attention was quite literally split down the middle during the preparation portion of this review, my planned segue into explaining the further depth of my interest in covering the Turtle silent tactiles is largely because of the fact that they are ironically attention splitting as well. Contextually, these switches sit at the intersection of three vastly different winding chapters of modern switch history that are not only complex in their paths that have led up to today, but are still very active in the process of developing and changing. Or maybe not quite all of them are. The Turtles, by virtue of how they are designed and when and where they are released are not just another entry into Kinetic Labs’ ‘Animal Family’ of switches, but are among the dying breed of switches in silent tactiles, and employ a relatively new dampening mechanism that has waxed and waned in its appeal since it was released only a handful of years ago. And so while these switches were initially appealing for my own personally held sentiments and experiences with their siblings over the years, it was after having thought of all these different lenses through which these switches could be viewed that I knew I had to sit down and write about them. But rather than crazily jumping from idea to idea in this background section, as I’m completely above wanting to employ a kind of frenetic fourth wall breaking style of writing in my own serious switch reviews, I figured it would be worthwhile to work through each of these three ideas on their own to see how the Turtles have ended up in these stories. Going in reverse order, here’s why the Kinetic Labs Turtles have ended up at the crossroads of a storied switch family, increasingly rare silent tactile switches, and recently developed switch silencing mechanisms.

Manufactured by Haimu, the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches rely on what I’ve previously referred to as an “S-Style” dampening mechanism to invoke the ‘silent’ part of their silent tactile design. Also more commonly referred to as the “Haimu mechanism” as it was developed and for the longest time only used by Haimu, this mechanism uses specially molded stem parts protruding from the main body of the stem just above and below below the slider rails to dampen the switches at either end of the stroke as opposed to the conventional embedded silicone dampening pad design. More specifically, this feature is seen in the form of a small clip of plastic that is only attached to the body on one side of the stem and unattached on the other side, freely flexing and bending under the weight of a full stem press to bottom out or release to topping out. (When stacked on both ends of the slider rail this can kind of make them look like the shape of the letter ‘S’.) Despite this mechanism being debuted all the way back in April of 2022 with the Epomaker/Skyloong Silent Iceberg switches and then popularized with Cannonkeys’ releases of the Haimu Whisper and Heartbeat silent switches which relied on this mechanism, all of these releases were largely drowned out by the arrival of one tiny manufacturer by the name of LICHICX. Wasting absolutely no time claiming their territory in the silent switch market, LICHICX hit the ground running in 2023 and seemingly completely obliterated all traction that had been gained by Haimu and this new silencing mechanism with the debut of LICHICX’s new dampening mechanism that embedded thick solid rubber in the lateral middle of the stems rather than being affixed to the slider rails at all. The result, as covered in my LICHICX Lucy Switch Review, was something equally as unseen as the “S-Style” mechanism before them but somehow significantly more attention grabbing. Toss in stiff competition at the same time from Kailh with their Midnight series of switches that had dampening pads built into the base of their housings, Durock/JWK’s ‘half silent’ switches with dampening pads on one sides, and even KTT who tossed out more shapely and modernized looking silicone dampening pads in their Dangkeebs collaboration the Red Velvets, and suddenly the “S-Style” mechanism that once made Haimu stood out hardly made recognizable at all in the backdrop of a flourishing silent switch meta.

Figure 3: "S-Style" dampening mechanism as seen on the side of the Turtle silent tactiles. The top bar and bottom bar deflect and compress upon hitting either top or bottom housings.

However, like all well loved and popular trends in switches – aggressive tactiles right at the start of downstroke, long stem pole linears, everything having to be either a “Panda” or “Holy Panda” in name, etc. – even the silent switches which flooded the market a handful of years ago are starting to wane in their community adoration. While KTT and Kailh are certainly culpable in this lack of sustained interest from the community as they’ve virtually all but abandoned these new silencing mechanisms after they were first debuted, the biggest inflection in the rate of silent switch releases has come fairly recently as a result of news attached to LICHICX. Despite LICHICX having never quite been particularly friendly towards collaborations with western switch designers and vendors, save for rare examples such as the Alas x Invokeys Daydreamer and Nightshade silent duo, their steady stream of releases pouring into the west by long winding proxy routes was more than enough to establish their proof of life over the course of their first few years. That is until their flow of switches started pretty noticeably drying up towards the tail end of 2024. What was initially a flood of silent switches in the Mustards, Lucy V1s, Chosfox Summer Limes, and LICHICX Raw switches in less than a year and a half’s time slowly turned into a trickle towards winter of 2024, with only a couple of rehashed silent linears in the form of Yalasuos and Yogurts making their way sparsely to western store fronts. While I’m not entirely sure as to what explicitly led to this slowing of production, all that I have been able to piece together is that sometime following their collaborative design releases with Varmilo, LICHICX began experiencing financial difficulties and “operating at reduced capacity” as a result of such. (I’ve also heard the words “bankruptcy auction” thrown around as well, for what it’s worth, but haven’t been able to confirm much if anything myself.) Fears spreading among western collectors at the start of this year that this could spell the end of LICHICX as a manufacturer were only extremely recently confirmed by the way of Bilibili videos out of China, which have shared that a new brand in the name of “WEKT” has been erected in the ashes of LICHICX and formed of a conglomeration of several eastern facing switch brands (e.g. IKEYX) and vendors who have pooled together money to buy the silent linear molds of LICHICX to ensure their future production. And no, you didn’t read that wrong – I said just their silent linear molds.

Figure 4: Who even needs a translation with videos as crystal clear as this.

Figure 5: Well, maybe a little bit of a translation helps.

On top of the abrupt end and potential Full Metal Alchemist style rebirth of LICHICX leading to a significant slowing of seemingly the vast majority of silent MX style switches being produced, it’s kind of hard to ignore the absence of silent tactiles among the paltry releases of silent switches out there. Even without designers choosing to select and buy out only the silent linear molds from LICHICX, just looking back to the previously flourishing silent switch scene from 2022-2024 that I mentioned only a paragraph and a half above sees silent linears out numbering silent tactiles by quite a large margin. Honestly, I don’t really have any good understanding as to why this is the case. I’m especially perplexed at the lack of manufacturer support for silent tactiles especially in light of the fact that regular tactile switches in and of themselves have had quite a few meta-breaking and unique designs released in recent months such as the Glorious Mako Ultralights, Sillyworks x Gateron Type Rs, the Invokeys Hojicha Reserves, and more. You would think that as tactiles continue to expand and become increasingly more varied in their mechanisms and tactile bumps that silent tactile switches would as well – especially given that not a single one of the unique dampening mechanisms that were flooding the market only a year or two ago would interfere with the special designs or bumps present on these newer switches. It really does just feel like the entirety of silent tactiles in this day and age is more less only the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches – switches which are utilizing one of the earliest designs that was flooded out of the spotlight for so long due to other manufacturers. There’s not been new Durock/JWK semi-silent tactiles, no new Kailh silent tactiles with dampening pads in their bases, and from what I can tell so far, almost no likelihood that we’ll see any new LICHICX/WEKT silent switches that do anything other than glide straight up and down in the coming months. The designs of the Kinetic Labs Turtles have slowly but steadily rode out the wave of silent switches and special silencing mechanisms to come back right to where they were all those years ago. Maybe there’s a good adage about slow turtles or something that could be referenced here…

As the endangering (if not outright extinction) of so many different silent switches and silent tactiles have put the Kinetic Labs Turtles in a truly unique time and place in silent switch history, their third road that they intersect this crossing at is one that has been paved by Kinetic Labs’ ‘Animal Family’ of switches. Being the second to last release in this family of switches as of the time of preparing this review, the Turtles follow in the footsteps of the Penguins, Huskies, Hippos, Salmons, and Geckos in tying together a zoo of cutely themed, named, and packaged switches that otherwise transcend types, manufacturers, or any other conventional grouping. Clearly packaged, designed, and sold to be eye catching and welcoming to those overwhelmed by the onslaught of switch options available, these switches operate like all other switch families do and aim to offer a branded suite of cohesive and varied options for beginners who end up buying from Kinetic Labs. This is far from the first time I’ve covered the idea. However, doubling down on the tales of demise and disappearances, I have to sadly say that seeing the Turtles continue to add on to a long and storied switch family is also a practice that is becoming increasingly uncommon to see. While not quite as rare presently as silent tactile switches with relatively new or experimental dampening mechanisms, the closure of The Key Company (TKC) and movement of Invokeys away from their original trio of switches in favor of their ‘Reserve’ line of offerings has seen the disappearance of the incredibly popular TKC Fruit and Invokeys Food families of switches in just sixth short months of time. Novelkeys is still supporting their Cream family of switches and Cannonkeys is still replenishing their Haimu Pastel family of offerings, though even these too seem to have decreased in their overall community presence and aren’t quite being pushed as where beginners should start by these companies in recent months. Viewed with this perspective in mind, the Kinetic Labs Turtles also feel like they’re becoming some of the latest representatives of one of the longer running and consistent branded families of keyboard switches – something which feels almost equally as stand out as their defiantly silent tactile design. Joining all of these three points together, it’s uncertain which, if any of these paths of switch history could or will have inflection point about these surprisingly unassuming silent tactiles.

Figure 6: That moment when you want to call yourself a completionist switch collector but you can't find your Penguin bags and don't have the Capybara switches announced 10 seconds ago yet either...

Trying hard to not think about the potential contextual ramifications and historical underpinnings that could be applied to these switches depending on how the switch market continues to evolve and expand in the coming months, we can at least celebrate the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches for being here to experience now. (They’re just cute turtles and not at all potential harbingers of any long reaching market changes for switches after all…) First debuted by way of Kinetic Labs’ social media pages on January 15th of 2025, the full nylon housings and POK stems of these medium weight silent tactiles were appended with marketing notes that pointed to the material choices of their components as being intentional and a large degree of focus in their year-long development cycle. Utilizing some degree of factory lubing from Haimu to “give it smoothness”, the majority of the development of these switches was clearly based on their sound profile if the marketing of the switches is directly indicative of anything. Priced at $0.60 per switch and available with the same packaging, stickers, and adorably themed design elements as other members of the Kinetic Labs Animal family of switches, it’s almost certain that these switches will remain available, accessible, and restocked for many years to come by Kinetic Labs. It can safely be assumed that these will remain among their flagship switch offerings during that time filling a niche that is otherwise not catered to in Kinetic Labs offerings by being silent tactiles.

Figure 7: Front and back sides of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactile switch packaging.

Turtle Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches come in a fully opaque, three part color scheme that isn’t quite perfectly reminiscent of a turtle, though I’m not entirely sure what pattern of colors would suit this idea otherwise. The housings themselves are fully POM and come in a very light tan over dark camo green coloring that looks more white over grey in darker lighting and doesn’t immediately register as their respective colors unless in direct lighting. Equally as hard to read outside of bright lighting is that of their dark grey dustproof stems, which almost look slightly blueish in darker tones but also make the green bottom housings more distinctly green by comparison in darker lighting. In addition to their unique dustproof stem shape, these switches are immediately recognizable from a distance as coming from Haimu as a result of the large LED/diode light diffusers with hexagon like patterns, as well as some sub part-features on the bottom housings which will be discussed below. If the combination of tone shifting colors and Haimu-based design aesthetics don’t immediately make the Turtle switches recognizable, then as an extreme last resort the small, ‘Kinetic’ nameplate with matching Kinetic Labs logo on the top of the top housings will certainly do the trick. There are several other design features of these switches that occur at the individual component level for the Turtles that are worth mentioning and give these switches a somewhat interesting overall design. All of these details, as well as a few others that occur at the sub-part level may be found in the paragraphs below.

Figure 8: Kinetic Labs Turtle switches and their components.

Looking first at the tan, nylon top housings of the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches, we’re greeted with quite a few design features that are fairly indicative of these switches having been produced by Haimu. First and foremost is that of the super large, rectangular LED/diode slot that is normally occupied by a massive through switch LED light diffuser. Inserted through the hole in the top housing of the closed switch, these LED diffusers feature a finely patterned honeycomb shape on their user-facing surface that has been seen numerous times over in other Haimu switches over the years such as the Haimu Kyubi Tactiles, Haimu x Swagkeys Deep Ruby, Wuque Studio Morandi, and others. Internally as well, the housings look distinctively ‘Haimu’ in shape, though not for any explicit measurements or structures that I can necessarily point out. The only things that make me say this are that the internal structures of the top housings feel very ‘cramped’ and squared off, with the exception of the regions where the stem slider rails reside in the untouched complete switches. It feels like in some Haimu-made switches that these regions are more open and accessible than in top housings produced by other manufacturers. Internally, these switches also feature a super tiny, single capital letter mold marking that can only barely be seen on the outer lip of the housing centered over the LED diffuser slot zone. Of all the mold markings I have ever documented on this site, these ones from Haimu are far and away the hardest to read due to their sheer size alone. Returning again to the exterior of the top housings of the Turtle switches, the last feature unique to them is that of their nameplate which features tiny writing that spells ‘Kinetic’ following the stylized ‘K’ of the Kinetic Labs logo.

Figure 9: Kinetic Labs Turtle top housing exterior showing faint small 'Kinetic' nameplate and large open slot for holding the LED light diffuser.

Figure 10: Close up zoom of the nameplates of the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches.

Figure 11: Close up of the ‘honeycomb’ pattern on the Kinetic Labs Turtle’s LED diffuser.

Figure 12: Kinetic Labs Turtle top housing interior showing lack of any specific performance enhancing features and extremely small mold marking centered on the outer lip of the LED diffuser slot.

Figure 13: Close up zoom of the single capital letter mold marking present on the Kinetic Labs turtle switches.

Moving next to the dark grey POK stems of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles, we’re immediately hit with a bevy of features that denote these as being unmistakably Haimu in origin. While the aforementioned “S-Style” dampening mechanism on the sides of the slider rails is more than enough to make a positive identification already, the vertical grooves in the side of the dustproof slider rail walls, the diagonally cornered dustproof walls on the keycap mounting portion of the stem, and the barely tapered slider rail are all features virtually exclusively seen in Haimu switches. In addition to these readily recognizable features, the stems also appear to have very faint vertical ridges that run the entire height of the backplates of the stem and can be seen from the subtly sloped capes near the dampening mechanisms at the base all the way up to the top edges of the dustproof housings. While I can’t recall having seen this feature in a switch stem before, the sheer fineness of the detail and its lack of protrusion leads me to believe that this must be a feature left behind from the injection molding process rather than a distinctively impactful design. Another interesting feature I noticed in passing as well is that the directionality of the bent dampening parts of the “S-Style” mechanism are not symmetrical on both sides of the stems. As can be seen in the photos below, on one side of the stem the upper and lower arms face in opposite directions to form an ‘S’ like shape whereas on the other side they are facing the same direction and thus form more of a ‘C’ like shape.

Figure 14: Kinetic Labs Turtle stem front and back showing tactile bump, trace amounts of factory lubing, Haimu "S-Style" dampening mechanism and faint mold marking lines in the vertical direction on the backplate as seen on the left.

Figure 15: Side profile of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactile stems.

Finally arriving to the dark camouflage green POM bottom housings of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles, these too feature quite a few details that are almost impossible to confuse for any manufacturer other than Haimu. Internally these features aren’t quite present, with the most notable details being a lack of a spring collar in the housings and only tiny puncture holes through the base of the bottom housing. Flipping over the housings, these holes become instantly recognizable as having been present on other Haimu made silent switches of the past such as Cannonkeys’ Haimu Whisper and Heartbeat collaborations. While it was once believed that these holes aided in the sound dampening of the switches in addition to their dampening mechanisms on their stems, or at least I personally believed this to be the case, this has since been debunked via modification work carried out by members of the SwitchModders Discord server. Also present on the exterior of the Turtle bottom housings are pronounced rings around the PCB mounting pins of the switch as well as two large numbers mold markings beneath these PCB mounting pins. While these are not quite nearly as large as previous Haimu mold markings, nor are they bubble lettered like those seen on the Whisper and Heartbeat switches, these markings on the Turtles are still effectively in the same positions as those other, older markings.

Figure 16: Kinetic Labs Turtle bottom housing interior showing through-switch holes in the base of the housing and lack of noticeable south side spring collar.

Figure 17: Kinetic Labs bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins with raised rings around their base and a pair of thin numerical mold markings in locations commonly expected of Haimu-made switches.

Push Feel

Able to be most succinctly described as “smooth, medium weight silent tactiles”, the Kinetic Labs Turtles are certainly all of those descriptions, just perhaps not quiet in the way that you might initially interpret that phrase upon first reading it. First of all, these switches are actually surprisingly light and long tactile switches. With a tactile bump that starts right at the onset of the downstroke and stretches what feels like 80 to 90% of the overall stroke length before a brief linear region and a capping bottom out, the vast majority of the strokes of these switches feel tactile and equally measure up as much in their force curves. As for the strength of the Turtle’s tactile bumps, looking at the force curve diagram below shows that the switches start at about 60 gf and only peaks a mere 10 grams higher at about 70gf at peak, which is a noteworthily small differential in starting and peak force for any tactile switch. However, because of the fact that the majority of the force of these switches is isolated between 60 and 70gf of weight, they can resultingly be called “medium weight” even if that would initially lead someone to think that they had stronger tactility than they actually do. Slightly further misleading are the marketing points centered around calling these switches “smooth”. While smoothness in mechanical keyboard switches is certainly a much more nuanced conversation than it once was a handful of years ago when I first started reviewing switches, these switches really do push the limitations of that definition a bit. The Turtles are certainly smooth in a grand sense as they are free from large grain, sandapapery texture that gives a variation in stroke feeling, however they hardly feel as if they are lubed at all. What smoothness does exist in these switches feels as if it exists almost entirely because of differences of coefficient of friction between the POK stems and nylon housing slider rails rather than any sort of oil or grease based lubricant. As a result of this, these switches feel as if they are just on the very teetering edge of being scratchy, with production variation leading to a small scattering of switches across the batch that I received having just a tiny touch of scratch because of this.

Figure 18: Force curve diagram for the stock Kinetic Labs Turtle switch.

As for the silent portion of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles, this is where these switches truly shine in their push feeling. Whereas the conventionally used embedded silicone dampening pads for silent switches lend their switches a gumminess or squishiness at either end of the stroke, the “S-Style” mechanism that was developed by Haimu and is used here in these switches provides solid, firm, and well balanced dampening to both upstroke and downstroke feelings while skirting past any soft or unpleasant feelings. While this dampening is ever so slightly harder than these conventional mechanisms at higher typing speeds because of the fact that the dampeners are made out of the same hard plastic that the rest of the stem is, these provide the Turtles with housing collisions that are decently consistent in feeling across most typing speeds and surprisingly consistent across the batch of switches that I received. This firmness in bottoming and topping out is much more consistent than the ‘smoothness’ described above. As well, it’s worth mentioning in passing for technical rigor that the deflection of the portions of the stem in the “S-Style” dampening mechanisms are what cause the initial and bottom out spikes in force of the force curve above to be more angled and progressive in their force increase as opposed to the much more vertical, immediate increase in force as seen in conventional, non-silent stem designs. (For conventional silencing mechanisms, bottom outs tend to be more parabolic in shape as opposed to angular due to the slow progressive increase of force as they squish.)

Sound

While the silencing mechanisms of the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches do an excellent job of delivering a bottom out and overall push feeling that is solid, firm, and well-constructed relative to more conventional silent switch designs, they are unfortunately just a touch lacking in the sound department. Likely due in large part to the fact that the mechanism for dampening in the Turtles is made out of the same POK material as the rest of the stem rather than some softer, squishier plastic, aggressive typing on the Turtles produces a soft, flat ‘puff’ sound at bottom out that does get louder the more harshly you type on them. Now while this isn’t so much a problem at slower or even moderate typing speeds, it is still a noticeable enough shortcoming of the sound of these switches that some of the other silent switches discussed at the top end of this review wouldn’t have. Much more noticeable than this modulating bottom out sound, though, is the trace amounts of both scratch and ping that can be heard in the stock form of the Kinetic Labs Turtles. The tactile bumps themselves don’t appear to be causing either of these phenomena, and it’s the combination of a lack of gracious factory lubing and what is assumed to be the “bouncy, extended 63.5g springs” that deliver this subtle but still noticeable punch of ping. Considering that the mention of all of these features simultaneously together paints a picture that is a bit bleak for a switch that is supposed to be “silent”, in practice they’re still quite subdued, quiet, and fairly deserving of the name as they are much more quiet than their non-silenced counterparts. In a full keyboard build and especially with some touch of aftermarket care, the Turtles will definitely be more silent than the vast majority of other switches, even if they are a bit flawed in the sound that they still produce.

Wobble

For having been developed over the course of a year and manufactured in 2025, there is a surprising amount of stem wobble in the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles. Present equally in both the N/S and E/W directions, the stem wobble is large enough to bother some users that are more sensitive to wobble in their keyboard switches though ultimately unlikely to be problematic to most keyboard users. This is especially true if these are used in a build with short or even average height keycap profiles, or really anything that isn’t SA or MT3 levels of height.

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 20: Numerical details regarding the stock Kinetic Labs Turtle 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 most apparent change in the performance of the Kinetic Labs Turtle silent tactiles comes in the form of an increased volume of spring ping across all switches. While it is still a subtle detail in an overall sense and I did nothing to attempt to mitigate this issue prior to break in testing the switches, it is definitely more noticeable in the Turtle switches broken in to 17,000 actuations than those that remained in their stock form.

- Like most switches that are subjected to break in testing on this website, the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches also had a slight increase in both their N/S and E/W direction stem wobbles as a result of being broken in to 17,000 actuations.

34,000 Actuations

- Surprisingly, the presence of spring ping in the sound profile of the Turtle silent tactiles only continues to grow in the switches that were broken in to 34,000 actuations. While I’m not normally one to explicitly advocate for having to modify any switches after purchasing them, users who want to avoid the ping of the springs in these switches will likely need to lubricate them.

- While the stock Kinetic Labs Turtle switches were smooth enough to be called smooth, it was largely due to the interaction between the POK stems of the switches and the nylon housings than any actual factory lube that was applied. After having been broken in to 34,000 actuations, the friction between these parts has only smoothened their interface and has resultingly made these switches feel more smooth than their stock counterparts.

51,000 Actuations

- The majority of the notes discussed above in the 34,000 actuations category also apply directly here to the switches that were broken in to 51,000 actuations. The only noticeable change in the Turtles broken in to this extent as compared to their previous stage of testing was that there was a further slight increase in the stem wobble of the switches in both N/S and E/W directions. This is not all that unexpected, however.

Figure 22: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches throughout the break in process.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Silent 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 Kinetic Labs Turtle switches side by side.

Figure 23: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Red Velvet, Invokeys x Alas Daydreamer, MODE Anthracite, Haimu Whisper, TTC Peanut Latte, and Glorious Silent Panda)

Red Velvet

- While the Red Velvet switches are overall more quiet and subtle in their sound profile than the Turtle silent tactiles, they also have a much smaller tactile ‘bite’. As can be seen in the comparative force curve below between these two switches, the Red Velvet switches have a smaller and more centralized bump compared to the longer, winding, and surprisingly more ‘strong’ tactile bump of the Turtles.

- The Dangkeebs Red Velvet switches and the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches are comparable to each other in terms of their N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in their stock form.

- In their stock form, the Red Velvet switches are just a touch smoother than the Turtles, with KTT having ever so slightly better factory lubing application than Haimu in this comparison.

Invokeys x Alas Daydreamer

- While the tactile bumps of the Invokeys x Alas Daydreamer and Kinetic Labs Turtle switches both start out in similar fashion right at the onset of their downstroke, the Daydreamers have a much shorter and less sustained bump than the Turtles. As a result, the Turtles overall feel as if their tactile bump is larger in this head to head comparison despite these two having almost identical peak tactile forces.

- The Invokeys x Alas Daydreamer switches have a bit less stem wobble than the Turtle switches in both the N/S and E/W direction.

- Comparing the overall sound profiles of these switches, they are similar insofar that they both are quiet and subdued relative to non-silenced switches and yet still produce a greater than expected amount of noise for a “silent” switch. That being said, though, the Daydreamers sound much more deep and bass heavy in their bottoming out tones than the more rounded and snappy bottom out tones of the Turtles that are accented by spring ping.

MODE Anthracite

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the MODE Anthracites are the ones that most surprisingly hardly feel tactile at all. When compared next to the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches which have both a significantly stronger and more sustained tactile bump, the Anthracites practically feel linear.

- Perhaps as a result of their less aggressive and much more soft nature, though, the MODE Anthracite switches are significantly quieter than the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches and do not produce nearly as much sound as the Turtles.

- The MODE Anthracite switches have quite a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches.

Haimu Whisper

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Haimu Whispers and the Kinetic Labs Turtles are the most similar in terms of their push feeling and it’s not all that surprising when looking at the comparative force curve between the two switches below. Tack on the fact that they were both produced by Haimu and use identical silencing mechanisms, and the only real claim to be had here is that the Turtles are just slightly more harsh, slightly punchier versions of the Whispers.

- Despite their similarity of origin, the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches have a bit less N/S and E/W direction than the Haimu Whisper switches which indicates that Haimu is at least subtly improving their mold tolerances over time.

- Both switches have the similar “smooth but not quite smooth” phenomenon that I described above as being due more to the combinations of their stem and housing materials than any minor factory lubing that may be present.

TTC Peanut Latte

- The TTC Peanut Latte switches have noticeably less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W directions than the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches.

- Despite the fact that these two switches have similar looking tactile bumps that appear to really only be shifted by the general weight range over which they occur, the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches feel much snappier and more pronounced in their tactility than the TTC Peanut Lattes.

- In terms of their overall volume, the TTC Peanut Latte switches are ever so slightly louder than the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches because of a weird squeakiness that is present in their stock form. That being said, though, this is slightly more acceptable in stock form than spring ping being present in switches made in 2025…

Glorious Panda Silent

- Much like the MODE Anthracites described above, the Glorious Panda Silent switches hardly feel tactile at all in a head to head comparison with the Kinetic Labs Turtle switches and it’s really making me rethink the claim that the Turtles are medium-light in their tactility. Perhaps the Turtles are a bit stronger than I initially gave them credit for above.

- In terms of head to head stem wobble, the Glorious Panda Silent switches absolutely blow the Kinetic Lab Turtle switches out of the water.

- Also similar to the Anthracite comparison made above, resulting from what is assumed to be their softer and less aggressive nature, the Panda Silent switches are overall much quieter and produce less noise than the Kinetic Labs Turtles.

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.