SWK Ripple Switch Review

Well, the weekend that this is first being published on is that of Labor Day weekend here in the US, which means that a good number of us, myself included, have Monday off in addition to the normal weekend. Most normal people usually take this as an opportunity to have a light day trip, or possibly have some friends and family over for a cookout before the seasons start to change and we head into fall. I, however, am not most people and thus have absolutely not the slightest bit of anything planned for my extra 24 hours of freedom. Maybe I’ll finally get around to adding more switches to my collection from the ever growing pile of recent acquisitions I haven’t had the time yet to go through. Or perhaps I’ll finally get around to starting out on that ‘switch packaging’ catalogue idea that I’ve had stuck in the back of my head for a while. It’s a brief idea I’ve been toying with in which I would break down all of my fancy switch boxes into their two-dimensional nets in order to scan and upload their designs to some Google Drive folder for posterity and/or inspection by anyone who would want to see this. Not only do I think this would be neat because nobody else is really doing it, quite a few of these fancy boxes from China have manufacturer details, switch stats, and more on them that could possibly be something that some people want to know about and simply don’t have access to. I imagine that that might be something you all here would like. Really though, I have nothing else to start out this review with so I might as well just get right on into it…

Figure 1: And the box pile is, well, starting to pile up...

Switch Background

All right, it’s finally time for me to come clean about a small little something that I’ve been holding back on ever since I started going into extreme depth on the background of switches in these reviews. As much as it pains me to say – I have not been as honest, transparent, nor as upfront about the existence of some switch manufacturers as I could or should have been over the years. If it helps soften that blow a little bit, know that this is more of a ‘necessary lie by omission for my sanity’ situation than it is one of ‘I can trick them and they’ll never know’. While I would love to have every single potential manufacturer mapped out by now with all of their complex backstories, drama, and switches released like I’ve been lucky to be able to do with large, popular western facing companies like Gateron and Kailh over the years, the reality is that the scene at large is just too damn complicated and confusing anymore. Hell, even the ‘newer school’ days of brands like Durock/JWK, Tecsee, and KTT being easy to track and follow in time have come to an end. As the number of switches being released year over year has increased, and our general western awareness of all these switches released in China continues to grow alongside it, collectors have been introduced to an increasingly complex network of mold and switch manufacturers vying for relevancy in the space. Being that I am not Chinese nor am I embedded in the small QQ groups where a lot of this history is being formed, it’s simply not realistic that I can discuss the ins, outs, and existence of every single small time manufacturer that pops up and then quickly fades from existences. As a result, I sort of have a ‘threshold for relevancy’ that exists in my head that must be passed by certain manufacturers before I really choose to come out and start discussing them as serious, long term entities. It’s exactly why I’ve only “formally” recognized brands like HMX, Grain Gold,
LICHICX, Jerrzi, and SOAI within the last year in spite of them having been around for quite awhile longer.

Figure 2: Here's what happen when you don't practice this kind of discretion - A web of manufacturers and brands from SwitchOddities as of a few months ago.

Amidst all of the chaos and swirling confusion about the existence of and links between different manufacturers that SwitchOddities’ chart above seems to imply, one of the brands that has been sitting on my relevancy radar for the past few years has been that of ‘Swikeys’, otherwise known as “SWK”. First introduced to us in the west by way of the Owlabs Neon switches released in October of 2022, SWK immediately stood out as something odd as they both claimed to be a distinct manufacturer and had a switch which had unique, never before seen mold details. (In fact its pretty rare that new manufacturers do both of these things at the same time.) Chief among these unique features was that of the ‘dustproof top housing corners’ seen in the Owlabs Neons, which reach up and block the corners of the stem for an almost certainly aesthetics-based reason. However, beyond the abbreviated manufacturing name in ‘SWK’ and a strange looking top housing, there was virtually nothing known about this supposed manufacturer otherwise. To make matters even worse, that situation largely hasn’t changed either in the roughly dozen or so SWK-branded switch releases to have came out over the last few years either. On absolutely none of the sales pages for the GoPolar Yin, GoPolar Yang, SWK Jieum V2, SWK Mocha, SWK Catmint, SWK Dragon Ghost, SWK Toucan, nor Ripple switches that I’ve bought was I able to find anything out about this company at all. In fact, as I was looking deeper into the shallow background of this company for this review, I came across a series of ZFrontier posts that effectively constitute the only information that I and all of the other switch collectors in the west are aware of when it comes to SWK. You’ve been warned here, though, as even this single, complex, drama filled situation tied in with another vaguely existing switch manufacturer in Duhuk is still short on clarifying details. It is, however, incredibly packed with drama and worth the summary here.

Figure 3: Some SWK-made switches with their iconic top housing design including Ripple (White/Blue), Catmint (Purple), Dragon Ghost (Teal/Red), and Toucan (Orange).

Note: Do keep in mind in the following paragraphs that ZFrontier is a Chinese technology forum and thus all details, stories, and information discussed here comes by way of Google Translate. There’s a good chance I’ve screwed something up here.

On May 1st of 2022, a post translated as ‘Statement on Daige Lumia’s Plagiarism in Producing our Products’ was posted on ZFrontier by and account named ‘SWIKEY’. At the start of this post, we are introduced to the switch manufacturer SWK, which also has a formal name of Siweqi and a super formal name of “Shenzhen Siweiqi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.” Shortly after the introduction, the SWK account details the history of the then still new manufacturer, stating that they released their very first switches – translated here as ‘S3.0 Mechanical Axis’ all the way back in 2021, which is almost a full year prior to the debut of the Owlabs Neon switches in the west. Weaving backwards and forwards through time thanks to Google Translate, we then learn that the S3.0 switches not only took seven months of manufacturing time leading up to their debut, but were also released only a couple of months prior to a utility patent for their design being applied for in China in December. While it is not explicit what all that this patent covered, it is suggested that it surrounded a full set of top housing, stem, and bottom housing molds, which were stated as totaling in excess of 700,000 RMB (or $100,000 USD) in R&D and materials in order to develop. However, in spite of this patent in December, SWK had come to learn through some of their sales representatives several months into 2022 that someone was allegedly copying and counterfeiting their switch products. These claims of counterfeiting were not just based on rumor, though, as they had at least enough implied evidence to lead to a police report on April 25th of 2022. Since police reports obviously require some degree of specificity, SWK then chose to provide that all to us, claiming specifically and directly that the counterfeiting of SWK switches was being carried out by Mr. Tang Chenyang, known online as Lumia, who is in charge of and/or somehow connected to Duhuge Electronic Technology (Dongguan) Co., Ltd., otherwise known as ‘Duhuk.’ Though to say that the accusations stopped at this point in the initial post would be… far from accurate.

Figure 4: Photo from another source documenting at least a single Duhuk-branded switch that seems quite similar to that of SWK switches shown above.

Digging this hole as deeply as possible, SWK then went on through the following paragraphs to insinuate that Lumia was not alone in this process either and had actually involved other less than savory individuals in the switch manufacturing world in this process. While its not explicitly stated amidst these accusations, there is a general subtext that is soaked into these claims by SWK, in which Lumia is painted as being incapable of doing the counterfeiting himself as Duhuk is a ‘sham’ company and/or a company in name only. Whether this is true or not, SWK names the alleged accomplices to this counterfeiting operation as that of Dongguan Hongchuang Keli Industrial Co., Ltd./Dongguan Linneng Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., otherwise known moving forward as Keli and Lin Neng. (Do note that Lin Neng is a name which will come up again at some point in a future review…) The connection between SWK, Duhuk, Keli, and Lin Neng which would support such a complex situation is actually quite simple though, as SWK goes on to share that all of these companies share the same mold manufacturer, though SWK at lest supposedly having a confidentiality agreement. How this agreement was broken is uncertain, though SWK again digs even further in providing a reason as to why this would have been exploited, effectively claiming that Mr. Hu Fengping and Ms. Tu Shuzhen – the husband and wife team that head up Lin Neng – are industry dirtbags. Going all the way back to the days when Mr. Fengping was a salesman for a mold manufacturer, SWK claims that Hu stole customers away from his original company, left to form his own company using poor quality equipment, and over that span of time has racked up several million RMB worth of debt to suppliers and his own companies. I suspect that SWK would have also gone on to bring up drama from Hu’s childhood if they could have, though the first post was more or less rounded out after all of these accusations.

Figure 5: Remember this chart from the Red Velvet Switch Review? We're basically in a sort of situation like this now.

Figure 6: Recently debuted 'Qwertykeys OG' switches rumored to have been manufactured by Lin Neng.

Clearly not content to just let all of those harsh claims sit, Lumia responded to the accusations by SWK in a post only a few days later titled ‘Abel Lumia Melon’ – speaking through legal representation only known as ‘Adai’ about the ongoing drama. (Note that Chinese slang for drama here being ‘melon’, for those of you unaware.) According to Adai, the switches that SWK claimed were infringed upon were actually stared by Lumia all the way back in December of 2021, with a Taobao pre-sale of them taking place in January of 2022. Completely failing to address that these dates are in fact later than when SWK first claimed to debut and release their S3.0 Mechanical Axis switches in the original posting, Adai then immediately pivoted to some real world drama, claiming that on April 25th, 2022, that 5-6 men stormed into the Duhuk factory on behalf of SWK to attempt to confront them and steal company secrets. Of course it wouldn’t be juicy enough melon to bring up if they had carried out this infiltration secretly, so Adai further elaborates that this raise also had with it physical violence, spitting, and quite a few harsh words being exchanged prior to the police having to break it up. Adai then stated, without hesitation, that the leader of this group of ‘thugs’ was that of Sun Bowen, who is otherwise known as “Beard” in the online switch community. With less receipts than the original SWK post, Adai then rounds out the first response by asserting Duhuk definitely has their patents in line and thus SWK should leave them alone. Not satisfied by the lack of quick response either, Lumia then doubled down with a second post titled ‘False Allegations’ in which he spoke instead of Adai. In this post, Lumia goes on to detail personal harassment and stalking of both his family and coworkers, and then effectively spends several paragraphs calling out SWK for not providing proof for any of the claims and mocking him along the way. As well, it should be noted purely for entertainment that there is some unclear subtext present in these responses that seems to suggest SWK mocked Lumia at some point for not having enough money to afford a car and instead having to ride a bike to work? Honestly, its all a bit hard to keep track of.

The final leg of this story which rounds out the little brief but intense information that forms really all we know about SWK came by way of a response to Lumia’s pair of comments by SWK only a handful of days later. Unlike the initial posting, this last response includes several hard copies of letters from SWK’s legal representatives in Guangdong Huashang Law Firm. In this ultimate response, SWK clearly was coached by their legal representation and stuck to the facts of the business claims, rather than responding to or further doubling down on any of the personal attacks or retorts made by either side. Both with copies of them present and in written word, SWK effectively just demonstrates that they do, in fact, own the patents for the technology that they claim and that the legal representatives for Lumia and SWK would be the ones settling these claims. Unfortunately for all of us here who were sucked up into that drama writing, my lack of credentials as a Chinese lawyer has lead me to a dead end as to if and/or how this dispute was resolved and how these two manufacturers moved on from it. The only thing that I can say for certainty, though, is that they both very much did move on from these claims and insults hurled in either direction, as both Duhuk and SWK have released switches since this short window of drama in May of 2022. The most recent of these switch releases for Duhuk, that I am aware of, being that of the Lumia Duhuk Bitter Tea tactiles from 2024.

Figure 7: Marketing photo of Duhuk Bitter Tea V2 switches from Unikeys.

As for the most recent of SWK’s releases, the SWK Ripple switches first debuted in the west in late March of 2024 as a full nylon linear collaboration with designer J-Lab. These lighter weight linear switches were available at the outset in both factory lubed and dry variants, coming with a milky-white top housing and aqua-blue bottom housing themed to “evoke a sense of flowing water”. As of the time of writing this review, the Ripple switches are available via numerous different vendors around the world including Clickclack.io, LoobedSwitches, and Swagkeys in both lubed and dry options. Irrespective of whether they came factory lubed or dry, the Ripple switches hover in price around the $0.42 per switch mark depending on where they are purchased from. In the months since their release, the Ripple switches have been reviewed by quite a few switch-focused community YouTubers, though it doesn’t appear that the switches at large have caught on to wider western audiences yet despite their praises. As a result of this, it is uncertain for how long these switches will continue to remain in stock and/or manufactured by SWK.

Ripple Performance

Note: According to the original sales page for these switches, factory lubed and non-lubed versions of the Ripple switches were available for purchase. This review covers the factory lubed versions.

Appearance

At the highest level, the SWK Ripple switches come in a three part colorway with milky, translucent white top housings, an off-white colored dustproof stem, and light blue colored bottom housings. Stated as being themed after ‘flowing water’ in their initial Geekhack post, these switches very much do have the colors that one would associate with water, clouds, and some rain. In spite of the fact that there are a few other switches which share similar color pallets to this, such as the Haimu Whisper switches, the tones of the blues and whites in these switches paired up with some of the more standout design features of SWK’s switches make these fairly easy to identify. That is even assuming you miss the obvious ‘SWK’ nameplate. Beyond these initial colors and obvious identifying features, all other details worth noting about the SWK Ripple switches occurs at the sub-part level and maybe found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 8: SWK Ripple switches and their components.

Looking first to the milky white, translucent nylon top housings of the SWK Ripple switches, we are greeted with a whole slew of features which are unique to SWK and interesting in and of themselves. The most immediately striking feature of SWK top housings which not only stood out to me on the Owlabs Neon switches but are present here as well is that of the walled corners of the stem hole on the top of the housing. Providing a unique aesthetic appearance over anything functional, the four corners of the stem in the SWK Ripple switches are emphasized by short walls built into the top housing and raising up approximately one millimeter in height. Additionally, SWK has branded almost all of their switches with the stylized ‘SWK’ nameplate that can be seen in Figures 10 and 12 below for the Ripple switches, with the only exceptions being that of the GoPolar Yin and Yang switches. As an additional note of interest, even the LED/diode slot of the SWK Ripple switches is uniquely shaped, with the long, thin rectangular slot having a square cutout centered inside of a circular guiding hole. Internally the top housings are also unique in their general shape and overall structure, with the region under the nameplate of the housing being noticeably thinner walled and the south side guider rail next to the LED/diode slot being significantly more reinforced. As well, the mold markings for SWK switches are uniquely located, with a capital letter and double digit mold marking located on the outer lip of the top housing on the left- and right- hand sides of the circular LED hole, respectively.

Figure 9: SWK Ripple top housing external design showing raised corners around the stem hole, stylized 'SWK' nameplate, and oddly shaped LED/diode slot.

Figure 10: SWK Ripple top housing internal design showing location of mold markings on outer rim adjacent to LED/diode slot.

Figure 11: Top down view of SWK Ripple switch better showing the 'SWK' nameplate and top housing corner walls.

Moving next to the off-white, POM dustproof stems of the SWK Ripple switches, these contian a few features of note though not nearly as much as that of the top and bottom housings. Perhaps the strangest feature on the Ripple stems is that of their slider rails, which feature a strong taper on the bottom side and a thin ‘c’ shaped arm cut into the top end of this rail. Seemingly trying to invoke the dampening mechanism first seen in Haimu’s Heartbeat silent linears, this cutout is supposed to deflect slightly at the point of topping out to dampen the feeling and/or sound of the Ripple switches. Beyond these features, though, the stem presents as just a fairly normal dustproof stem otherwise. The center pole of the Ripple switch stems is tiered, though still extends to a ‘long’ 13.79 mm, which is a bit longer than the average stem length that I’ve measured to date. As will be better discussed in the ‘Push Feel’ section below, its clear that this extra stem length is present to intentionally bottom out the switch on its stem pole.

Figure 12: Front and back side of SWK Ripple stems showing tiered center pole, tapered slider rail bottoms, and cuts in top of slider rails for topping out sound/feeling dampening.

Finally arriving to the light-blue nylon bottom housings of the SWK Ripple switches, we are again greeted with a slew of features which are quite interesting to see. Internally, the housings have a slight south side spring collar, slider rails with some raised edges to reduce the area of contact with the stems, and even most strangely some small “air holes” drilled through the base of the bottom housing. Much like with the stems, all of these features too are present in Haimu silent switch bottom housings, not only leading me to believe that Haimu’s switches played a direct inspiration in the design of the SWK Ripple switches, but also the wider speculation that SWK and Haimu are in some way, shape, or form, connected. Unfortunately, the conspiracy does not deepen on the outside of the bottom housings, as the SWK Ripple switches feature mold markings located just between the center post and the LED/diode slot that are similar in size and form to that as what is seen in the top housing internals. As well, it’s worth noting that the SWK Ripple switches only come in the 5-Pin/PCB-mount variety.

Figure 13: SWK Ripple bottom housing interior design showing small south side spring collar, dampening pads at the base of the slider rails, and small through-housing holes similar to those previously seen in Haimu silent switches.

Figure 14: SWK Ripple bottom housing exterior design showing two part mold markings, through-housing holes, and PCB mounting pins.

Push Feel

To go ahead and get a bit ‘Avant Garde’ with this push feeling section and structure it a bit uniquely, I’m going to go ahead and directly include quotes about the SWK Ripple switches from their initial Geekhack marketing pitch by ClickClack.io. While I normally only refer to the marketing pitches about switches in passing in this section rather than directly quoting them, I think that this pair of statements form great singular, cohesive thoughts for me to address on their own rather than attempting to shove both of these thoughts into some paragraph of unquantifiable length. The first note worth looking at is that discussing the general push feeling of the switch:

“We have conducted numerous sample tests and material adjustments with SWK, trying almost all available material combinations to select the best one. This switch meets excellent standards in various aspects: smooth feel, moderate pressure, noticeable bottom-out feedback without being too hard. We must mention SWK's deep understanding of materials, which has greatly benefited us.”

Put simply, I think that the underlined portion of the above quote does well to accurately summarize the feeling of an individual SWK Ripple switch as well as a batch of them overall. These lighter weight linear switches are all consistently smooth throughout their stroke from the factory lubing and bottom out at a modest 3.540 mm of travel distance and a force of 55.8 grams. Leading to this point of bottoming out, the stroke of the Ripple switches is smooth and very soft, leading to more of a light and airy feeling than something like a stickier hand-lubed switch would have with its more sluggish push. This fact about the factory lubing being light and not overly present is also stressed in another marketing quote, though with more of an emphasis on sound rather than the actual feeling in hand. The most notable feature of the switch’s entire feeling is that of its bottom out which has enough feedback to warrant being mentioned on the marketing notes as a key characteristic, hitting with a flat, round feeling that grows a bit sharper and more forceful at faster actuation speeds. While I personally feel that this is closer to a ‘harder’ bottoming out than not given how cleanly and clearly the stem is contacting the bottom housings of these switches, the lack of fatigue that I experience when typing on them a bit does lead me to concede that these may not be as hard as I would have initially guessed.

Figure 15: Force curve for stock SWK Ripple switch.

“The semi-silent design (hollowing out the upper part of the guide rail where it contacts the upper housing) reduces contact area, effectively solving the problem of stem rebound noise against the upper housing.”

This is perhaps the single marketing and design point of the SWK Ripple switches which was an absolute miss in my books. Despite the fact that this marketing quote stresses the impact of the stem’s design on the sound of the Ripple switch more so than its push feeling, I honestly do not get any feeling in the upstroke of this switch that would leave to believe that it was intentionally designed to be semi-silent and have a dampened topping out. While not nearly as aggressive and occasionally sharp as the bottoming out, the topping out of the SWK Ripple switches is very much noticeable in feeling with a similarly shaped feeling though much lighter in magnitude. In fact, I think the impact of this “dampening” mechanism is so poorly executed in the push feeling and sound of these switches that I initially categorized these as just pure linear switches as opposed to partially silent linear switches prior to opening them. Even after opening them, I don’t intend to change this classification either based on how they perform.

Sound

Unlike the push feeling notes above, I take quite a few more issues with some of the marketing points when it comes to the sound of the SWK Ripple switches. Namely, the underlined portions of the following two quotes irk me a bit:

“The semi-silent design (hollowing out the upper part of the guide rail where it contacts the upper housing) reduces contact area, effectively solving the problem of stem rebound noise against the upper housing.”

“The factory lubrication of this switch can meet the needs of most players (including those accustomed to hand lubrication). During the sampling period, we continuously adjusted and tested, lubricating only a small amount of the stems and guide rails. This ensured that the final result has almost no extraneous noise when pressed and installed, ensuring a smooth and quiet experience.”

As you could probably infer from the previous section, I take issue with the first quote purely on the fact that the topping out of the SWK Ripple switches does very clearly and distinctly produce a sound. Closer to medium in volume than the much louder and cleaner sounding bottom outs, the SWK Ripple switches don’t actually sound all that unbalanced and if they were marketed more so around being louder, medium-high pitched linear switches with clean and crisp housing collisions, I think people would have their expectations much more readily set. The lack of clarity surrounding the volume of these switches in the marketing is actually what landed the second quote up here as well. While the vast majority of it is correct insofar that the factory lubing does prevent all scratch noise and makes for a silent transit between housing collisions, the bottoming and topping out do not make for a quiet experience. These are not quiet switches. These are loud, crisp linear switches that are perfect for people who like higher pitched, thinner, and borderline sharp sounding switches.

Wobble

Of all of the modern manufacturers that definitely do or maybe do exist out there today, SWK’s switches tend to be ones with some of the least amount of wobble. While at least one of you is adamant that the raised corners on the top housings are present to help reduce this metric, I will put that to rest in saying that there is at least some stem wobble still present. More present in the E/W direction than the N/S one, there is a very tiny, almost certainly not problematic amount of stem wobble in the SWK Ripple switches. If you pick these up and have to put them down because of the stem wobble in them, I suspect that you’re having one hell of a time finding anything that could meet your high standards.

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 17: Numerical details regarding the stock SWK Ripple switch force curve diagram.

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

- After 17,000 actuations, the biggest change in the SWK Ripple switches came in that of their overall consistency around their bottoming out. As a result of what I can only guess to be factory lube migration, some switches felt noticeably more soft and gummy at bottoming out and had an equally dampened sound to match that as well.

- There is the slightest amount more N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the switches broken out to 17,000 actuations than there is in the stock SWK Ripple switches.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, there is effectively no change in the SWK Ripple switches that wasn’t already noted at 17,000 actuations. The disparity in bottoming out feeling and/or sound between some switches did not drastically increase in presence or severity in those switches which had the changes.

51,000 Actuations

- Much to my surprise, there were no changes in the feeling nor sound of the SWK Ripple switches broken out to 51,000 actuations that wasn’t already noted at 17,000 actuations. While I’ve had some switches break in quickly and then more or less remain the same after that, I can’t recall having tested any switches that so completely broke in so early on and refused to change afterwards.

Figure 19: Comparative force curve diagram showing no distinctive trend in change of the SWK Ripple switch force curve diagrams throughout the process.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

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

Figure 20: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Wuque WS POM+, Huano Caramel Latte, Cherry MX Orange, Tecsee Honey Peach, Husky, and Moyu Studio x XCJZ Snow Grape)

Wuque WS POM+

- The most immediate noticeable difference between these two switches comes at their bottom out, where the SWK Ripple switches hit so much more harder and forcefully than the Wuque WS POM+ switches. As well, they also sound much louder than the POM+ switches as a result.

- In terms of stem (and top housing) wobble, there’s hardly a competition here as the SWK Ripple switches are pretty clearly better than the Wuque WS POM+ switches.

- With respect to their sound, the POM+ switches are much more quiet and subtle than the louder, sharper, and slightly more punchy sounding SWK Ripple switches.

Huano Caramel Latte

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Huano Caramel Lattes are perhaps the most different from the SWK Ripple switches in terms of their overall sound profile, largely due to them not bottoming out onto their stem pole as well as being much more heavily lubed.

- While both of these switches are fairly comparably smooth to each other, the heavier lube in the Caramel Latte switches makes itself feel a lot more noticeable in the downstroke of the switch than the lighter, more airy feeling stroke of the SWK Ripple switches.

- Like every other switch on this list, the Caramel Latte switches have just a bit more stem wobble to them than the SWK Ripple switches.

Cherry MX Orange

- As a result of the more consistent and evenly distributed factory lubing, the SWK Ripple switches are clearly smoother and more uniform feeling across a batch of switches than the Cherry MX Orange switches.

- In spite of the fact that the bottoming out weight of the Cherry MX Oranges is greater than that of the SWK Ripple switches, the Ripples feel as if they have a slightly heavier, solid feeling bottom out as a result of their bottoming out onto their stem pole.

- These two switches are on complete opposite ends of the sound spectrum, with the MX Oranges being noticeably quieter, scratchier, and more bass heavy than the cleaner, crisper, and louder Ripples.

Tecsee Honey Peach

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Honey Peaches are the only ones that not only feel like but also sound like they have harsher, more aggressive bottom outs to them than the Ripple switches. This is not all that surprising, though, when you remember that the Honey Peach switches have embedded metal center poles in their stems.

- As is expected, the SWK Ripple switches have a lot less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Honey Peach switches.

- Despite the surprising overlap in the force curves for these two switches as can be seen in the comparative force curve below, the Honey Peach switches feel as if they have a slightly longer total stem travel to them before they bottom out.

Husky

- While these two switches are pretty close to each other in terms of their overall volume and tone, the SWK Ripple switches have a noticeably more clear, singular sound to them than the Husky switches. It’s almost as if they are more “pure” sounding, if I can get that abstract with the descriptions.

- In similar fashion to the Tecsee Honey Peach switches above, the Husky switches also feel as if their total stem travel distance is a bit longer than the SWK Ripple switches and I’m not entirely sure why.

- In terms of their out of the box smoothness, the SWK Ripple switches are both more smooth and more consistently smooth across a batch of switches than the Huskies.

Moyu Studio x XCJZ Snow Grape

- While a bit of a weird comparison note to have, the Moyu Studio x XCJZ Snow Grape and SWK Ripple switches have the most similar topping out feeling and sound out of any of the switches on this comparison list.

- While the Snow Grape switches have a fairly minor amount of stem wobble on their own, even they still can’t beat out the SWK Ripple switches in either the N/S or E/W directions.

- In terms of their overall sound profiles, the Snow Grape switches are distinctly more quiet, subtle, and ever so slightly bass-y with their housing collisions than that of the high pitched, thinner sounding SWK Ripple switches.

Linearity

Figure 27: Absolute and relative Linearity and Slope values for each switch in this comparison section.

Figure 28: Qualitative comparison of the normalized Slope and Linearity for each switch in this comparison section.

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

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.