Pandas, Pandas, and more Pandas
Note - This document was originally contained as an Excel sheet, which obviously doesn’t quite as well translate to the layout of this website. In order to get the full experience, please check out the original document.
Note II - Due to the original formatting discussed in the first note, this article has since been updated in a post called ‘The Pandaverse’ on 9/29/2020. The link to this article may be found here: https://www.theremingoat.com/blog/the-pandaverse
In Order of Appearance:
Invyr Pandas V1
- Debuting in October of 2016, these are the original Panda linear switch to hit the market. These started as a collaboration between zisb and 27, also known as Invyr and Mech27, respectively. The original aim of this project, as per the original groupbuy thread on GeekHack was to "create the smoothest possible factory linear switch." However, these switches were nearly universally panned as not being nearly as good as they were advertised. Sometime later, though, these switches rose in popularity to near astronimcal levels with the creation of the 'Holy Panda', which is a frankenswitch that consists of taking the stem from either a Halo True or Halo Clear switch and placing it into the Invyr Panda housing. The Halo Clear stemmed version, pictured left, is often referred to as a 'Clear Minded' Panda while the Halo True stemmed version, pictured right, is referred to as a 'Holy Panda'.
Original Invyr Panda V1 Sales Page
Invyr Pandas V2
- Due to the realtive success of the Invyr Pandas out of the gate as well as the advent of the Holy Panda, there was a decently high demand for further Invyr Pandas in the future. Originally partnering with 1upkeyboards in order to do this sale, 27 and Invyr had samples sent to u/skiwithpete and 1up though they were rejected due to mold issues. In order to improve upon the Invyr V1 pieces, the tops were originally going to be opaque, BSUN brown tops with the bottoms retooled. This does explain why 1up has so many BSUN browns to the day. However, the mold was ultimately destroyed for some unknown reason during prototyping and the plan for these switches were scrapped. (This knowledge has been garnered through conversations with both u/skiwithpete as well as Invyr. )
** Only a handful of people have these so there is near certainty that if you are reading this, you do not have these.
Reddit Page Hinting at Invyr Panda V2
Invyr Pandas V3
- Contrary to what is led to be believed by the Invyr V2 paragraph, not all pieces of the molds for the original Invyr Pandas were supposedly destroyed. The newest iteration of the Invyr Pandas, Invyr Panda V3s are Drop's attempt to cash in on the molds they bought from Invyr and 27 and the fame of these switches. According to conversations with Invyr, these switches feature a retooling as compared to the Invyr Panda V1s, but do not feature different material. These went on sale roughly around the Christmas 2019 season and shipped around late January to early February 2020.
GSUS Pandas
- In all transparency, I truly need to conduct a write-up regarding the drama surrounding SuperVan and the GSUS Pandas as there is a very solid writeup worth of drama surrounding when these switches initially went on sale. With the initial GeekHack thread starting on December 1st of 2018, these "New Panda" Linear Switches were aimed at being the first reattempt to create Invyr Pandas since the failed Invyr Panda V2, though without the help of Invyr nor 27. That being said, this mixed with the initial cost of $1 a piece, which was eventually lowered to $0.60 a piece due to market pressure from Massdrop as well as the community, definitely stirred up a lot of interest and drama in the community. Considered wildly successful as emulating the Invyr Panda V1 switches, this kicked off the 'Modern Panda Rush'.
Original GSUS Panda Geekhack Groupbuy Thread
YOK Red Pandas
- Riding off of the wave of success (and hype from drama) surroudning the GSUS Panda groupbuy, Novelkeys definitely got the right idea in mind and kicked off the "Modern Panda Era" in which YOK would be used to manufacture all sorts of 'Invyr Panda/BSUN' clones in differing colors. Many people have since chosen these and the other YOK Pandas as bases for Holy Panda/Clear Minded Panda builds as they are more readily available, cheap, and asthetically matching to keycap sets than GSUS or Invyr Pandas are. These originally went on sale around January of 2019, though the exact date is hard to pin down as of the writing of this document. While they were restocked a few times over, as of the time of this document, they are no longer being stocked on Novelkeys' website.
Novelkeys’ YOK Red Pandas Sales Page
YOK Mint Pandas
- The second of the YOK/Modern Panda era, these mint green colored YOK Pandas made their debut shortly after the YOK Red Pandas made their debut. Currently being listed on the same page as the YOK Red Pandas, these are simply a recolor of the YOK Red Panda switches and are no longer currently being stocked at the time of this writeup. As an additional side note, u/Winthea may be recognized by many in the community for drawing very pretty 'switch representation' stickers, and the YOK Mint Pandas most certainly are among the funniest of her pieces. Her instagram is linked below:
Novelkeys’ YOK Mint Panda Sales Page
Winthea’s YOK Mint Panda Stickers
YOK Trash Pandas
- Making their debut in March of 2019, these were the third of the YOK/Modern Panda switch era. Featuring a dark grey housing in order to have a 'more neutral' base color, these switches were introduced and are currently still sold by Novelkeys. In complete subjectivity, these switches do not appear to have made as big of a splash in the market as the YOK Red Pandas and YOK Mint Pandas and is likely the rationale for them being still stocked by Novelkeys.
Novelkeys’ Reddit Announcement
Novelkeys’ YOK Trash Panda Sales Page
YOK Polar Pandas
- The fourth of the YOK/Modern Panda switch era made its debut, according to the Novelkeys Reddit announcement, around August of 2019. Worth noting and not mentioned in the previous paragraph about YOK Trash Pandas, these are the second YOK Panda to move away from being named solely based on color and instead being given a 'matching' theme or animal. ('Trash Pandas' being slang for Racoons and 'Polar' either referring to the Arctic and/or being short for Polar Bear.)
Novelkeys’ YOK Polar Panda Sales Page
Clear Pandas
- Honestly, I barely know a damn thing about these switches. What little I do know is that these 'Clear Pandas' are BSUN-like clones that appear to be exactly the same as the Novelkeys YOK Panda rainbow, though in a clear housing instead. These were run exclusively in a private Chinese groupbuy format, and thus I can't actually link any sourcing due to the fact that most Chinese groupbuys are run through private chat applications such as QQ. I was lucky to obtain these pieces as a result of several trades among fellow collectors and am currently receiving my third such that I can make a Clear Minded Clear Panda. While I have no force curve generator to prove such, I also do believe that the springs are 60g bottom out like the other YOK Pandas.
Massdrop x Invyr Holy Pandas
- Debuting on Massdrop around the time of the GSUS Panda groupbuy, these were not only the first factory assembled Holy Panda to be sold to consumers, but also represents the first community-made frankenswitch which eventually received a factory-made release. Not only did these switches boast "original Panda tooling", which we now know to be a slight exaggeration from Massdrop's marketing team, they also featured an initial price point that was lower than the cost of other YOK Pandas and Halo switches which were required to make Holy Pandas. However, in future iterations of the sales, the price jumped, leading to the suspicison at the time that these were aimed at combating the interest surrounding SuperVan's GSUS Panda groupbuy.
Massdrop Holy Panda Sales Page
YOK Purple Pandas
- I'll be among the first in line to sing praises about Novelkeys, as from the very beginning of my time in this hobby to even last week, I've spent hundreds of dollars on their website and have had literally not a single issue over the years. And while they, like every other vendor, have their occasional issue - this is truly one that pisses me off for lack of better phrasing. The latest of the YOK/Modern Panda Era, these "Panda" switches are not truly pandas at all - and feature purple, tactile stems in the same color and style housings as YOK Trash Pandas. So not only are these first colored "panda" switch to feature a housing of the color in their name, but it is also the first not to be a linear switch. While I am including these on this list due to the fact that they share the panda name and YOK manufacturer, I refuse to mentally lump these together with other panda switches.
Novelkeys’ Purple Trash Panda Sales Page
Invyr Unholy Pandas (Frankenswitch)
- While not a piece that is seen in commercial sales, 'Unholy Pandas' are adjacent to the most famous frankenswitches of all times - The Holy Pandas. Being that Holy Pandas are made by taking the Black POM stem out of an Invyr housing, and replacing it with a Halo True or Halo Clear stem, the Unholy Panda is the frankenswitch that can be made out of the of the remaining leftovers from a Holy Panda creation - a Halo housing and the Black POM Invyr stem. To put it frankly, these feel like utter trash and are rarely, if ever seen in usage. Most of the time that these are sold on mechmarket, they are sold extremely cheaply in an attempt to recoup some costs rather than make real money.
YOK Unholy Pandas (Frankenswitch)
- The reason that I draw a distinction between YOK Unholy Pandas and Invyr Unholy Pandas is because the YOK stems were made using different tooling and likely at a different manufacturing facility than the original Invyr Pandas. Thus, this means that the stems, while maybe not being functionally different, have some difference worth discriminating by. Funny enough, I was actually able to find a type test of someone who made a YOK Unholy Panda board and it is linked below. (Someone had to do it.)
Massdrop x Invyr Holy Panda Prototype
- While not functionally different in any noticeable way, I was lucky to receive this pre-production prototype of the Massdrop Holy Pandas from Jae of TopClack several months before the actual pieces were shipped out from their original groupbuy. This would have been among the original lot that Jae and Brian would have shown and talked about on TopClack and did their initial reviews on. Jae has been, and continues to be, a strong supporter of some of the more interesting pieces of my collection and for that I owe him sincere gratitude.
TopClack Massdrop Holy Panda Review
Invyr V1 Prototype
- Both this switch as well as my Invyr V2 Prototype directly came from Invyr/zisb after having tracked him down to where he was hiding out before the new UHMWPE stems came out that he released. During our conversation we discussed the history of the pandas a bit, which as led to a lot of the information surrouding the V2 Prototype piece that I had originally discussed wth u/skiwithpete of 1up before finding Invyr. Much like Jae in this instance, I owe him dearly for helping provide these interesting pieces to my collection as well as a few other interesting ones in time to come.
‘Invyr Panda’ Factory Samples
- I've mentioned prior in my Durock writeup about my buddy u/Christokal who has been instrumental in expanding my Chinese collection as well as tracking down super hard to find factory samples and interesting pieces even though he knows no Chinese, himself. (He knows Greek, however, which is equally as confusing to me nonetheless.) These are another pair of interesting pieces he has helped find through a factory sample set from a company known as 'Tecsee'. While not confirmed, it is believed that this is the factory that is producing 'Drop Pandas' for Massdrop. The black stemmed sample, pictured left, is a linear, panda-like switch while the light-brown stemmed piece on the right is a tactile alternate panda that has not been sold on the market. Both of these pieces appear to have the same weight and bare 'Tecsee' branding after the factory where they were manufactured.
UHMWPE Stems
- Introduced to market at the very beginning of 2020, these Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethlene Stems were designed and brought to the community by Invyr who is the creator of the original panda switch. (I have talked about these to some previous extent in my Laseron and UHMWPE Stems review in the same folder as this document.) While this is included in this list due to the association with Invyr, I have discovered through conversations with him that these were not aimed at being developed for a new panda switch design and were always aimed at being a standalone project. That being said, though, this project is still under development and Invyr has dropped hints at the possibility of a tactile version of the UHMWPE stems in future iterations, though they are not currently on the market at the time of this being written.
Invyr Panda 3D Print Attempt
- Alongside the UHMWPE stems and Invyr Panda V1 and V2 prototypes that I received from Invyr, this is the final interesting piece that was included in the package that I have not discussed in public all that much. This top and bottom housing was actually an attempt at 3D printing Invyr Panda housings for future iterations, but as it is likely able to be seen in the picture, the resolution of the attempt did not make these pieces or the use of 3D printing feasible for these pieces. Nonetheless, they stand as interesting pieces to stir up conversations about 'what-ifs'.
ThicThock Clear BSUN Switch
- Prior to the rise of ThicThock and their 'Marshmallow' switches, this company's first attempted switch sale was a Clear BSUN switch which would have been linear. While this sale ultimately never came to fruition, as I discussed in my Marshmallow swithc review, there were rumors on their original announcements that these were actually going to be another attempt at creating panda switches, given that they share BSUN branding like the failed Invyr V2 switches. Not much information remains of these due to their being cancelled long before ThicThock became so popular.