Leviton Decora Edge White Switch Review

You know what? I think that the cat is officially out of the bag on this all and there’s no getting it back in. After having reviewed properly mechanical keyboard switches and solely mechanical keyboard switches for a bit longer than five consecutive years now, I finally broke my own rule set and reviewed something not even mechanical. You know, those Topre clones that AEBoards put out called the “Naevy EC” switches, or whatever. Looking back at the introduction to that review I can see in my wording how torn I was about even reviewing them. And yet, despite how turned off I was by the idea I chose to sit down and review them because of all of the pressure looming on me from the community at large to do a deep dive on those switches. Some bright idea that was. Rather than retracting it permanently and having to listen you all complain and cry about how “Topre is actually a switch” or “I’m just biased and making all of this up anyways”, I figured I’ll have to just double down on my coverage of truly mechanical switches in repentance for this. If I go twice as hard in reviewing switches that have metal leaves, actuating stems, and two part plastic housing constructions, then and only then will I be able to make up for the sin of falling for that sheet rubber horridness. And so that brings us here today. Despite all of the guilt ridden darkness that has consume me, consider this the new posting time for the advanced mechanical switch reviews that come out every other week on an alternating schedule opposite of that of the normal switch reviews.

Switch Background

Despite having written about switches at length for over five years now, there’s still a not too small list of big topics, switches, and manufacturers that I have yet to cover in the form of full length articles on this website. Outemu’s old OEM switch rainbow that they subsisted on for years, GSUS Pandas and their drama related to upending the Holy Panda aftermarket, and the entirety of vintage switches as a category would likely all come readily to mind when trying to think on this list of holes present in my documentation. However, I’d argue that there’s even bigger, more ubiquitous manufacturers that I have yet to cover – ones with switches that are so pervasive that they are quite literally touched by millions upon millions of people every single day. A number of users, in fact, that would practically dwarf the entirety of the mechanical keyboard hobby. The biggest of these manufacturers that sits atop this most secretive and least obvious list of mine is that of Leviton. And while I’m sure everyone already recognizes Leviton in name and in practice, would it really be a review of mine if I didn’t illuminate way more about the context and offerings of a switch manufacturer than would be necessary? Sometimes even the most obvious of things needs to be written down. Don’t worry though, I’m not going all the way back to 1906 with Isidor Leviton brought his tinsmithing skills over from Russia to the US in order to lay the foundation of this company, nor will I torture you with winding discussions of every business unit they’ve ever engaged in such as bead chains for WWII dog tags, fluorescent lighting from the 1950’s, or even outlets and light sockets from the industrialization of New York City. I’ll bring us all right on up to the modern day and discuss their more recent, notable offerings and switches that have flooded the market over the last half decade and turned it into what we see on the shelves today. (Trust me, I know the reviews have been getting a bit long winded in the background sections…)

Figure 1: The subtle highlighting of 'On' here honestly just sells the entire thing. Other brands should take note.

Before getting too far into the weeds on the newly improved, ultra easy to install modern rocker switches which I’ve chosen to shine a light on here, I do want to briefly remind you all of the fact that the complete catalogue of Leviton’s switches from over the years is absolutely massive and borderline unending. While I did phrase the end of that last paragraph as a bit of a tongue in cheek reprieve to you all as my readers, my editorial decision to not go through the winding history of Leviton’s catalogue was mostly self preservatory in nature as I could not possibly go through it all in one article and with any depth. Just covering the variety that exists in the two decades from from 1960-1980 where they were cranking out endless variations of 15 amp single pole switch units alone would be worth of a massive article on its own. Having produced switches since the early 1920s up to the modern day, Leviton has sustained over 100 years of switch manufacturing prowess with a decade over decade design turnover and aesthetic overhaul that truly is unlike any other company. By my estimates based on the research that I’ve done, this would total well into the thousands of different switches from just Leviton, alone, though I’m sure lack of documentation prior to the 1950’s has left me a bit in the dark on the full scope of stuff. Of course, though, this is entirely dependent on where you draw the line on differentiation as some people would consider outwardly identical designs with different amperages the same as just identical looking MX keyboard switches with different springs weights. If you ask me, though, I’d argue that the different gauge wire and assembly procedure required to build a 20 amp versus 15 amp switch would be amply sufficient for considering them to be different switches. What is even more surprising about this massive catalogue is that they’ve not just cranked out SKUs over the years but done so while maintaining the top of the line status in both commercial and industrial spaces over the years. In the event that you don’t believe me either, see my personal view of the Home Depot aisles in the image below when I went to go pick up my personal set of Decora Edge White switches for this review. Every single ones of those bays is top to bottom filled with Leviton branded products. This market supremacy is even more impressive when we step back to consider that the switch market has been seemingly pushing in the direction of ‘smart’ and ‘integrated’ technologies through releases by brands like Lutron, Kasa, and Commercial Electric.

Figure 2: A stunning picture of NIB vintage blue box 1451 15A Single Pole Brown switches from someone's personal collection online.

Figure 3: A personal grail of mine because of the mixed raised and sunken embossed text. A vintage Levtion 1790-I Interchangeable Silent Despard Tumbler in ivory.

Figure 4: I'm not kidding when I say every single one of these products were Leviton switch offerings.

Of the shelves and shelves of switch offerings that Leviton does have at every hardware store (at least) throughout the US, the Decora Edge White switches fall into the broader category of ‘rockers’ as we’ve all come to experience in our day to day lives over the years. Whether it be the lighted rocker, dimmer attached rocker, or plain old up and down on-off switches, the rocker design has been a staple of sleek, flipped home style modern renovations since the early 2010’s when they were first introduced. Ostensibly designed with a brilliant reconstructed simplicity in mind, the actual shape of the rocker switch stem was actually uncovered with a bit of serendipity on behalf of the R&D team at Leviton. After having observed countless swathes of middle managers enter and exit conference rooms dozens of times per day at their international headquarters, engineers on the R&D team noticed that rather rthan grabbing the single pole switch stems at the tip to turn on and off the lights in the rooms at the time, these managers would often place their hands flat against the wall and switch plate and flick the entirety of the single pole lever down by applying force across the entirety of the pole, or upwards for turning them on. Given that this thus rendered the protruding single pole stem design mechanically irrelevant from a torque perspective, the development team sought to meet the use case of the managers at their natural inclination and developed the rocker stem as we know it today. Sitting more flush to the wall, these stems more cleanly and ergonomically met the switch flipping habits of some of their most ardent users while also radiating the more sleek, modern, and barren modern décor trends present at the time. Ballooning to six different variations since this mechanism was first introduced all of those years ago, as of the time of writing this review Leviton has continue producing the rocker style stems in switches in 15 amp options with a normal rocker stem, and LED lighted rocker stem, a heavy duty stem, and ones that have 3-way and 4-way actuation mechanisms. The sixth and final variant is that of a 20 amp heavy duty model for those high traffic industrial work areas. As is expected with all Leviton offerings as well, these classic models are all available in a range of four common colors with matching colored indestructible wall plates including grey, black, white, and Leviton’s classic ‘light almond’ colorway. (The dark brown colorway not being present here in modern offerings as it was discontinued from general commercial production lines at Leviton in the early 1980’s. It can still be ordered in custom switch designs from them if a large enough MOQ is met.)

Figure 5: Home Depot pricing for all six Leviton Decora Plus rocker switch variants in light almond as of the time of publishing this review.

Figure 6: Color comparisons of traditional Leviton rocker switches from my personal collection in Black, White, Grey, and Light Almond in their boxes.

Figure 7: Color comparisons of traditional Leviton rocker switches from my personal collection in Black, White, Grey, and Light Almond.

Unlike conventional rocker switches, however, the Decora Edge White switches employ new bottom housing technology which further divides the category of rockers into ‘traditional’ and now ‘lever edge’ designs. First introduced (and winning the Home Depot Innovation Award) in 2023, ‘Lever Edge’ technology completely reimagines the bottom housings of switches as being largely closed off but with single open hole slots for the feeding in and securing of stripped wire for the upper, lower, and ground wire connections. Rather than relying the conventional tightened screw and wound wire approach of the bottom housings in traditional rockers, the new Decora Edge variants (also referred to interchangeably as ‘Lever Edge’) use a series of color coded locking levers which are opened to accept a stripped wire end and then levered flush with the housing to crimp the stripped wire into the appropriate leaf contact without any need for additional tolls, wire stripping, or effort on the part of the installer. In fact this model was so successful that it has been shown in demonstration videos from Leviton to save up to five minutes of installation time as compared to the conventional screw and wound wire approach that the traditional rocker stems employ. This has even further been distilled into a marketing pitch that I have to admit is a bit catchy – ‘as easy as push, click, done’. And while it very much does seem as if this bottom housing technology will be the future of all rocker switches, stand alone dimmers, and even GFCI outlet bottom housings for Leviton products, the rollout to all variants of traditional rocker stem designs as mentioned above has yet to be carried out in the past few years. Documentation on Leviton’s website shows that the lever edge and traditional designs only have overlap in the 15 amp single action and 3-way action rockers (E5601-W and E6053-W, respectively). However, these two branches of rockers switches also do differ a bit with the newer lever edge technology having a rocker stem design with added right hand slide dimmer (ESL01-1LW) that is not present in the traditional group.

Figure 8: 'Push, Click, Done' lever edge installation marketing photos and slogan.

First introduced in early 2023, the Leviton Decora Edge White switches (E5601-MW) are 15 amp, 120/277 volt compatible electrical switches which utilize Leviton’s latest ‘lever edge’ easy installation technology. Available at all places where Leviton switches are traditionally able to be purchased, I’ve found the most success in locating them online and in person at my local Home Depot store in either single switch or ten switch packs. Priced at $3.28 for 1 or $25.98 for 10, the Decora Edge White switches are similar in price to most other conventional switch design MSRP values and enjoy similar bulk pricing as most other conventional switches, admittedly the price breaks are not nearly as steep for bulk purchases as some other bands like Lutron. (This is, of course, because Lutron already marks up their single switches to such an insanely high margin to encourage bulk purchases that they can really razor off the prices without losing out on profits.) It should be noted, though, that unlike traditional rocker stems as covered above, I have yet to see the new Decora Edge line of switches in grey, black, or light almond colorways yet and are instead only available for purchase in white. I assume that this lack of presently available variety is a desire to work through the first mass production batches in order to see the multi-year roll out and projected returns prior to sinking capital into the more niche colorway offerings. With the full brunt of Leviton’s marketing behind these switches with the new catchy slogan, packaging, and marketing renders – as well as awards from both electrician groups and one of their main vendors in Home Depot – I sincerely doubt that these switches will be going anywhere any time soon and will most certainly be available for purchase many years into the future. (And hopefully some day soon in that sweet, sweet light almond coloring…)

Decora Edge White Performance

Note: As part of Leviton’s late 2024 rebranding efforts to try and maximize returns on their high investment technology, ‘Decora Edge’ switches have been sometimes called ‘Lever Edge’ switches in marketing after 2024. For the purposes of this review I will be referring to them as the ‘Decora Edge’ switches as that is what is on the packaging of the switches that I bought.

Appearance

At the highest level, the Decora Edge White switches come in a bright white over medium grey colorway with matching silver finishes that is simple, elegant, and doesn’t try too hard to be anything all that complex. While they easily could have gone over the top in the design elements of these switches to match the more nuanced, complex engineering that went into the development of the bottom housing and color matched wire holding levers, I respect their desire to keep things simple and grounded in the design language clearly set out by earlier rocker switches they released. From the front these may easily be confused with other brands like Lutron or Consumer Electronic from across the room, however approaching this switch to any degree will unveil the classic, bottom left-hand corner ‘Leviton’ logo engraving which clearly marks these as being from Leviton even if everything else is hidden behind the matching indestructible wall plate. Loose from a wall or packaging, however, there’s no mistaking the design of these switches and the engineering that went into some of the finer details that really sets them apart from their competition. All of these details that can be found at the sub-part level are discussed and photographed in the following sections.

Figure 9: Leviton Decora Edge White switches and a few of their components.

Looking first to the stark white top housing exterior of the Decora Edge White switches, we’re first greeted with quite a bit of branding and plastic embossed useful information that is honestly simple but extremely genius in its execution. Clearly marked information such as ‘AC Only’, ‘Top Side’, and compatible voltage/amperage numbers cleanly ensure that these switches will never be improperly used if found in drawers years after they were first purchased and/or the packaging was lost. Honestly, I kind of wish keyboard switches branded this well as more identifying information or spring weighting carved directly into their housings would make identification a breeze at first sight. Skipping over the obvious Leviton branding on the embedded rocker stem which will be discussed in the next paragraph, we come to sets of attachment clips that are different on both side of the housings. Surprisingly the Decora Edge Whites employ a mixture of traditional pin and winglatch style housing attachment clips with the left-hand side having a winglatch clip directly below the ground lever and then a normal attachment pin below that. The right-hand side, by comparison, implements three normal attachment pins more or less equally spaced with the positive and negative wire levers centered in between them. Finally flipping the housings over to inspect the inside, we see a lot of complex stations for the alignment and separation of the various different leaves and metal parts present in the bottom housings of these switches. (Please ignore my chipped edges on the attachment pins and top wall mount bracket in the photos below from opening this switch as I am, canonically at least, a bit of an animal.) Interestingly, towards the bottom of the top housing interior we see a metal outcropping that attaches to the bottom wall mount and seems to be shaped like that of the grounding pin which is obviously located on the other end of the switch in the bottom housing. This does not function as a grounding pin, however, as it makes no contact with any other metal parts internally and only appears as such as it copies the shape and execution of the metal grounding pin so that Leviton can reduce their parts to be machined and manufacturing complexity.

Figure 10: Leviton Decora Edge White top housing (and stem) exterior showing mixed attachment pins on left side and raised/sunken information embossed in all parts of the housing.

Figure 11: Both sides of the complete Leviton Decora Edge White switches showing the differences in attachment pins from live and ground sides.

Moving next to the matching stark white stems of the Decora Edge switches, we find them designed almost exactly as expected and in line with the conventional rocker stem that Leviton has been pushing for the past several decades. Measuring in with similar lengths, width, and an on-to-off edge angle of separation that is identical as conventional rockers, this looks and feels exactly like what you would expect from switches that look like this from the wall – even down to the smooth, uniformly glossy finish on the surface of the stems. While I would love to inspect the stems more closely for the purposes of this review, it does seem as if they are incredibly firmly integrated into the top housing design and so I’m almost certain I would break the housing and stem more than I already did the top housing attachment pins if I were to open and try and remove the stem. Turning the full stem and top housing unit over, we can see the actual actuation mechanism of the rocker centered in the design in the form of a pair of twin metal peaks that articulate via a rocking motion from ‘up’ to ‘down’. Able to be articulated only to these two settings as this is not the 3-way rocker offering, these peaks are used to hold the large central metal leaf in the bottom housing that swings up or down to complete or disconnect the ‘on’ circuit physically located in the upper portion of the switch housing. The smooth sweep of this mechanism from playing with it in hand clearly shows that the tactility famously noted in these switches is not a function of the stem itself, but rather comes directly from the result of the large leaf swing and subsequent bump into the ‘on’ metal leaf that can be seen in the following images of the bottom housings below.

Figure 12: Leviton Decora Edge White top housing (and stem) interior showing the centered metal rocker from the underside of the stem that actuates the leaves in the bottom housings.

Finally arriving at the medium grey bottom housings of the Decora Edge White switches, I feel supremely confident in saying that these are among the most unique pieces of switch technology that I’ve covered to date on this website and there’s really no question as to why I feel this design is so illuminating. As for their more defining functionality, I think the location and implementation of the wire installing lever arms is fantastic. Flush with the bottom housing edges when not in use and yet easily accessible for wire installation, the green ground lever in the upper left-hand corner and the black live wires present on the right hand side of the housing are incredibly well implemented easy install support. When opened, these levers push the metal leaves present internally just out far enough that it opens a hole between the movable leaf and a stationary metal plate inside of the housing to allow a stripped wire to be threaded in through the backside of the housings. Then cranking these levers closed, the wire becomes firmly sandwiched between these two metal points of contact and is secured infinitely more quickly and securely than the traditional screw and wound wire point of contact mechanisms seen in older Leviton rocker switches. The large metal cross leaf as seen in the center of the bottom housings of this switch is a ‘swinging leaf’ type mechanism that slots in between the metal peaks on the underside of the stem as described above. When toggled on – that is the bottom portion of the rocker is pushed all the way in – the side of the leaf touching the rocker will swing down, swinging its opposite end upwards to connect its metal button with that of the metal button on the positive ‘on’ leaf present in the top side of this housing. This not only produces a tactile bump but is responsible for completing the circuit and registering the switch as ‘on’. With the upper leaves removed for inspection, it’s also pretty incredibly just how much design effort went into their folds and construction. Finally turning the bottom housings over, I could go on to pontificate quite a bit more about the bottom housing exterior topography and negative stamped information that even further reinforces which wires should be threaded in where, I really only want to point to one of the most subtle ‘lightbulb moments’ of design genius in these switches – the ‘strip wire gauge’ rounded corner present on the bottom right-hand edge of the housings. This feature, alone, more than sells the fact that the Decora Edge White switches were designed from the absolute ground up with ease of use and ease of customer side installation in mind.

Figure 13: Leviton Decora Edge White switch bottom housing interior showing live pins (front) and ground pins (back) as well as large metal swinging leaf in the center of the housing.

Figure 14: Leviton Decora Edge White switch bottom housing interior alternate angle with 'on' leaf removed showing button contacts on 'on' leaf and large metal swinging central leaf.

Figure 15: Leviton Decora Edge White switch bottom housing exterior showing wire threading holes for the lever edge technology installation, embossed text, and stripped wire gauge guide in the bottom left hand corner.

Push Feel

Even though the Decora Edge White switches boast an entirely new bottom housing design and fundamentally different technology that alters how they’re used and installed, they have push feelings that are largely on par with existing rocker switch technology. (That is, of course, save for a few small details.) For one, these switches have extremely short throws and travel only about 1.2 mm in when pressed on the top edge of the stem in order to switch ‘on’. The Decora Edge Whites bottom out quite a bit earlier than other non-rocker switches which typically reach 1.4 mm in travel distance, though this shortened travel is also easily noticeable by the fact that the top edge of the stems do not sit flush with the top housing when pressed all the way in to bottom out. The tactility of these switches is subtle and snappy, starting right at the downstroke part of the stem and punching with a firm, solid, and widely rounded bump that feels as if it dumps you right off at the bottom out with virtually no post-bump linear region. The upstroke of these switches, or when they’re pressed towards ‘off’ on the bottom edge of the switch, has all of these same characteristics though is just ever so slightly softer in the presence of the tactile bump and sheer force required to return. This type of tactility is the part that is fairly common across all rocker stemmed switches like these and especially all of Leviton’s offerings. However, the subtle differences that were hinted at above are definitely not to be ignored. As a result of the thicker leaves used in the bottom housings of the lever edge technology being more robust than those used in the traditional screw and wound wire switch designs, both topping and bottoming outs of the stems feel way heavier, thicker, more substantial, and almost muted in a way. Whereas traditional rockers without the lever edge technology have a bit of a hollow, petered off feeling at the end of their strokes, the Decora Edge Whites punch home with a bit of extra force that really makes them feel more premium than what you might initially assume.

Figure 16: Force curve diagram for the stock Leviton Decora Edge White switch.

For all of the positive tactile and end-of-stroke features that really sell the Decora Edge Whites as subtly better than that of traditional rocker switches from Leviton, it is not as if they’ve completely escaped the same issues previously noted in older models since they were introduced. Namely, these issues being that of scratch and the obviously well known ‘jittery’ nature of rapid on and off actuations. Despite being better incorporated into the into the housings and enclosed in an area where factory lubing could easily be applied to the stems, Leviton just hasn’t yet discovered that a little simple effort in such can really increase the effortlessness of the actuation of their switches – even ones that rely on their heavily tactile presence. That being said, though, the scratch is subtle and more like one of a material mismatch than anything like the sandpapery feeling that I often talk about in other switches I review at length here. As well, despite the rocker mechanism appearing fluid and perfectly arcing in nature during inspection in the steps above, it really performs anything like it when pressing these switches on and off with any frequency. Rather than smoothly sweeping arc lengths when the top or bottom levers go up or down, these switches punch almost a bit abrupt and angular in a way. (?) I know that this isn’t something that shows up well on the force curve for the Decora Edge Whites above as the curves do truly appear well rounded, but it almost feels like these are trying to simultaneously be 3-way or 4-way actuating switches rather than just the simple ‘on-to-off’ style of switches that they are.

Sound

Like all rocker stemmed switches in general – and not just specifically those from Leviton – the Decora Edge Whites have an asymmetry in their noise baked into the fact that ‘on’ and ‘off’ actuating leaves are fundamentally structured differently. (As noted above, the ‘on’ leaves have extra thick contact buttons whereas the ‘off’ ones do not.) In the downstroke towards the ‘on’ setting of this switch, these are quick, snappy, and abrupt sounding with a flat, medium pitched and even keel tone that comes across like a blip of noise more than anything deliberate or resounding. Even though the bottom housings of these switches are much more cavernous than traditional mechanisms used in these switches, the collision of the metal buttons between the large swinging centered leaf and the ‘on’ leaf really is one that is hit squarely across all the switches I tried in my batch and doesn’t leave any ringing or hollowness to the tones at all. On the upstroke towards the ‘off’ setting of this switch, the Decora Edge Whites are surprisingly a bit more deep, well rounded, and sonorous in tone their opposite direction counterparts. While this is clearly just directly a function of the laves not having as solid of a connection point in the off state as the on state, I think this asymmetry really provides some functional value to these switches when used in normal settings. As these are turned off and activities in whatever room you were in are ceased, the increased body of the tone that these switches give provides a more resounding note of finality to whatever was carried out. It’s almost a bit like a judge’s gavel, in a way. As for the jitteriness or scratchiness noted above in the push feeling of these switches, it really isn’t as much of a concern here at all and these don’t seem to show up significantly in the sound of any of the switches that I tried.

Wobble

In both the ‘on’ and ‘off’ states, these rocker style stems of the Decora Edge White switches exhibit ever so slight amounts of N/S wobble in the opposite direction of where they are actually positioned. While still able to be noticed, its not likely to bother most users and is still a fair bit less wobbly than rocker stems as designed by other manufacturers in the space.

Measurements

Figure 18: Leviton Decora Edge White switch top housing and stem measurement guides.

Figure 19: Leviton Decora Edge White switch bottom housing measurement guides.

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 Leviton Decora Edge White 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

Note: So while I normally break switches into 17,000, 34,000, and 51,000 actuations here in reviews, the Decora Edge White switches did not fit into my actuation machine. As a result, I had to sit there and do the actuating of the switches by hand – something which has caused my girlfriend to become very annoyed with my existence during the testing. As a result, I’m working on reduced actuations here. It should also be noted that these actuation counts are one way and not full on-off cycles.

Break In Notes

1,700 Actuations

- Despite the Decora Edge White switches really not having any scratch initially present in their sound profile in stock form, actuating these switches out 1,7000 times really shows how lacking Leviton is in their factory lube application on the stems here. The switches broken out this far have a bit more of that subtle, material on material scratchiness that was originally only felt in the push feeling of the switches.

- Like all good switches subjected to break in testing, the Decora Edge Whites increased in stem wobble in the N/S direction ever so slightly after being broken in to 1,700 half cycles.

3,400 Actuations

- At 3,400 actuations, the Decora Edge Whites taking a turn and rapidly seem to improve across the board. Both the push feeling and sound profile smoothness of the rocker stems appear to beat out their stock counterparts and sound better than the switches straight out of the box. I’m not entirely how this is possible or why these switches seemed to at first get worse in their overall sound profile, but I’ll take the improvement no less.

- For all of the maturing and fine wine-like ageing that the Decora Edge White switches did do in their sound profiles and push feeling, they did also again slightly increase in their N/S direction stem wobble.

5,100 Actuations

- At 5,100 actuations (and hopefully a bit beyond) the Decora Edge White switches are absolutely improved over their stock forms. These sound and feel less scratchy, have ever so slightly deeper and more consistent sounding tones, and just come across a lot more premium than the out of the box Decora Edge White switches. The fact that these switches improve this much really does hammer home the reason that Leviton’s switches have sustained as the industrial and commercial standard for as long as they have.

Figure 22: Comparative force curve diagram showing no trend in change in the force curves of the Leviton Decora Edge White switches during break in. It's almost as if there's just four identical curves perfectly overlapping one another...

Other

Having picked up a 10 count pack of the Decora Edge White switches for this review, I was initially drawn to these amidst the rows and rows of Leviton products because of the practically glowing red marketing stripe and clear see-through window that allowed me to both see the rocker stem design and new lever edge technology. Believing this to be an excellent demonstration as to how to package product for a ‘stand off the shelf’ purpose, I wanted to include photos of it for you all to appreciate as well.

Figure 23: Front facing portion of the Leviton Decora Edge White 10 count box.

Figure 24: Backside of the Leviton Decora Edge White 10 count box with easy installation guide.

Figure 25: Alternative angle of the Leviton Decora Edge White box front side emphasizing the see-through edge window.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile Switches

Note - These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Leviton Decora Edge White switches side by side.

Figure 26: Switches for comparison. (L-R,Top-Bot: Hojicha Reserve, Everfree Grayish Tactile, Cherry MX Purple, Drop Holy Panda X, Gateron Kangaroo Ink, and Tecsee Middle Switch Tactile)

Hojicha Reserve

- As can be seen through the comparative force curve between these two switches below, the Decora Edge Whites both physically measure up to and feel as if they are shorter, more abrupt, and more strongly tactile than the Hojicha Reserve switches.

- While the Decora Edge White switches are fairly silent overall and really only have sound from their topping and bottoming out, they’re still quite a bit louder than the otherwise near silent Hojicha Reserve switches.

- There is a touch less stem wobble in the N/S direction of the Hojicha Reserve switches than there is in the Leviton Decora Edge switches.

EverFree Grayish Tactile

- While the new lever edge technology introduced with the Leviton Decora Edge White switches certainly makes them good for their value, they don’t quite have the same price to performance ratio as Gateron’s budget line Everfree does. The EverFree Grayish Tactiles are much more of a ‘bang for the buck’ than the Decora Edge Whites.

- There is a bit more N/S wobble in the Gateron-made EverFree Grayish Tactile switches than the Leviton-made Decora Edge White switches.

- In terms of their overall volume, these switches are the most comparable to one another out of any of the combinations on this list – and especially so with their firm, muted, but still impactful bottoming outs.

Cherry MX Purple

- Yes, even in spite of the fact that I’m comparing these Cherry MX Purples to an actual light switch, the Cherry MX Purples have more stem wobble than the Leviton Decora Edge switches.

- The Leviton Decora Edge switches are quite a bit smoother than that of the Cherry MX Purple switches, even in spite of the fact that the MX Purples use Cherry’s MX2A technology platform. Being fair, though, these switches are definitely on the opposite end of the lube spectrum with the Decora Edges having significantly less lube, if any compared to the more heavily lubed Cherry MX Purples.

- The bottoming out of the Cherry MX Purple is significantly deeper and more bass focused than those of the Leviton Decora Edge White switches.

Drop Holy Panda X

- Being a bit honest with you all, I am not entirely sure how to describe the relationship between these two switches. It almost feels like the Leviton Decora Edge switches are just condensed, slightly punchier versions of the HPX switches but I just can’t really put my finger on why. Even their comparative force curves don’t seem that similar, so maybe it’s just me…

- Despite the HPX switches coming about in an era that prided itself on having the most punchy, beat-you-up style of tactility, they are no match for the sheer peak force of the Leviton Decora Edge White switches – which is almost twice as much at peak as the bottom out force of the HPX switches.

- These two switches are also the most comparable to one another in terms of their N/S direction stem wobble.

Gateron Kangaroo Ink

- Despite the obvious similarity I feel like I feel in the comparison between the Leviton Decora Edge Whites and the Drop Holy Panda X switches, the comparative force curve between the Decora Edge Whites and Kangaroo Inks below is the most similar out of any of the switches on this list.

- The Gateron Kangaroo Ink switches are significantly louder and higher pitched than the Leviton Decora Edge White switches, and almost certainly due to differences in the materials used to make the top and bottom housings of both switches.

- The Leviton Decora Edge White switches have quite a bit less N/S direction stem wobble than the Gateron Kangaroo Ink switches.

Tecsee Middle Switch Tactile

- Even though the Tecsee Middle Switch Tactiles have a shortened total stem travel distance that makes them feel significantly shorter to bottom out than any other switch on this list, they don’t stand a chance in comparison to incredibly short arc length traveled by the rocker stems of the Decora Edge White switches.

- While these switches are similar to each other in terms of their N/S direction stem wobble, Leviton proves themselves to be just a touch bit better than Tecsee in this department.

- Of all of the switches on the comparison list, though, these two are the most similar to one another in terms of their overall volume, tone, and sound profile – something which is a bit surprising considering the sheer difference in open space within the enclosed housings of both of these switches.

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.