Tecsee Honey Peach Switch Review

Note: In order to save myself from catching the same sort of backlash that I received after publishing my Everglide V3 ‘Water King’ Switch Review, I suspect that my experience may be a bit tainted by good or bad luck when it comes to the quality of the switches that I received in this review. Please take this into consideration when reading.

While work does seem to eat up a lot of my free time anymore, and especially on really shitty weeks like how this last one was, I do actually manage to find time to get out and about and do other things with my life. Yes, there are “other things” that don’t explicitly involve keyboards, for what it’s worth. Whether or not you want to believe me, I do actually have a life outside of working, sleeping, eating, and switches, and it was in that 1% of remaining free time that I encountered something cool last weekend that I wanted to share with you all. See, while I’ve mentioned Magic The Gathering in passing as something that I’ve picked up to do over the course of the last few months, I don’t think that I’ve mentioned I’ve held a long fascination with vintage and antique stores that goes back long before I ever was into mechanical keyboards or collecting switches. Even though I’ve never personally collected antiques of any kind, I just really sort of enjoy the almost living museum-like quality these kinds of places have. It’s only in these slightly strange smelling, dust covered warehouses that you get to touch, encounter, and maybe even take home with you stuff you only really ever read about in late night Wikipedia dives otherwise. Having moved around between Ohio and Minnesota in my years, I had originally held Jeffrey’s Antique Gallery in Findlay, OH and Midtown Antique Mall in Stillwater, MN as two of my absolute favorites that I would absolutely visit every weekend if I could. However, after last weekend of driving around NE Ohio, I must toss up a third, very unique feeling antique shop onto that list – the Bomb Shelter in Akron, Ohio. Truly evoking a sense of shag carpet and bright upholstery-driven 1960’s-1980’s nostalgia, this half store, half museum of sorts really did make me feel as if I had stepped into an old Cold War-era bomb shelter at points. And while I won’t spoil many more things about this place in an encouragement for those of you reading this in NE Ohio to go explore it, this is something I absolutely couldn’t believe I got a chance to see in person:

**Figure 1:** Don't worry, I'll be sure to tie this back into the review somehow.

That’s right – it’s a full-fledged DMC DeLorean, one of less than 10,000 ever made, just chilling in a random warehouse store in Ohio. It’s not every day you get to encounter a sight like this, and I am honestly glad I stepped away from the computer screen for once to stumble across this. Oh wait, this is a mechanical keyboard switch review and not a travel blog. I should probably get back to that…

Switch Background

As I’m sure I’ve beaten to death in the backgrounds of numerous reviews that I’ve written over the span of the past few months, modern switches as a whole are certainly in some sort of odd transitionary renaissance period of sorts. While in 2024 they still appear to be being produced at the same explosive rate that they first picked up to back in 2018, there has been quite a bit more uniqueness to the development and design of it all in the latter half of those years. Historical firsts, vintage switch technology being revitalized, and a whole slew of manufacturers popping out of the woodwork have all crowded around to give their best attempts at standing out in a field of competition that used to be conquered by simply releasing a fancy new color that had never been seen in switches before. What once would have captured the entire community’s attention in something like Gateron Linjars is now divided among Cherry MX Purples, Zeal 3-in-1 Clickiez, and LICHICX Lucy switches which all separately hit each of those points mentioned above while standing out incredibly well on their own merits each. Please don’t think that I’m immune to this attention splitting, either. As the volume of new and intriguing switches being released balloons and continues to expand month over month, even I am losing the ability to speak about these switches on the specifics of days and weeks like I used to be able to back when this was all a bit slower. What was once in my head a detailed, month-by-month breakdown of when a switch was released, who picked it up, and how the community felt about it has kind of now blurred into a larger mosaic of releases and how certain trends emerge and disappear over time. For better or for worse, the Tecsee Honey Peaches are the first modern switches I’ve sat down to review where I’ve really deeply felt that sentiment come true.

**Figure 2:** I still remember this render absolutely blowing my mind as an early collector all those years ago…

See, while the Tecsee Honey Peach switches (or their similar counterpart in Wuque WS Jades) would have been absolute showstoppers had they been released before the explosion of switch offerings that started back in 2018, they more or less have flown under the radars of a decent portion of the community because they just aren’t as crazy as some other recent releases. Yes, we are at a point in time where a switch that has a stem augmented with metal in a way that has never been seen before can actually hardly be talked about by anyone at all. I know that this isn’t catching all that much notice from the community at large as I nearly missed these Honey Peaches altogether in my mad dash to get my hands on some much more attention-grabbing Cherry MX Purples and Gateron Melodics. However, that is not to say that the Tecsee Honey Peaches are forgettable on the grand scale, either, as they seem to be only the latest iteration in what I’m starting to see grow into a small sub-trend in switches – the push to include more and more metal or metallic elements in their designs. While I have yet to find a good name to really shorten that all down and drive it home to you all as something real rather than made up in my head, this ‘More Metal’ switch trend seems to be something I feel like I’m encountering more and more frequently. So far, this trend has been something in the past few years that has swung from…

Mild…

Quite a few of you probably looked at the switches included in that ‘Mild More Metal’ group above and thought that I’ve well and truly lost it. Double stage springs, click leaves, and some questionably metallic shiny housings are far from all that surprising for switches in 2024. However, consider these things relative to the larger timeline that MX-style switches have existed in. What has since become more commonplace and a lot less special since first introduced back around 2018 to 2020 simply didn’t exist for the vast majority of time from when MX switches were first invented in the 1980’s all the way up until a half decade after the patent on this design expired. While click leaves within the MX footprint of switches are still quite limited and only recently being expanded upon, and shiny metallic-like coatings on the outside of switches appearing to be limited to just a few decorative releases from back in 2021, Tecsee has certainly popularized and helped spread the idea of multi-stage and elongated springs to the point where they don’t even feel special enough to mention in passing anymore. Just a few short years ago in 2021, my Neapolitan Ice Cream Switch Review swerved outside of its normal pacing and structure just to stress how crazy their super long, golden-colored springs were. And while they’ve certainly brought their own host of design flaws and poor performances to switches throughout the years, longer, more complex metal springs is something that has been so seamlessly integrated into modern MX switches in just a few short years that it’s hard to even recognize when it started happening at all.

…to Wild

**Figure 4:** 'Wild' more metal switches with click-plate clicking mechanism (Novelkeys Cream Clickie), modular stems with metal inserts (Novelkeys Cream+), and multiple sets of internal leaves (Kailh x MK Dose).

On the flip side of the ‘More Metal’ switch trend, aesthetics and commonplace quality of life and changes and aesthetic niceties are thrown completely to the wayside in favor of unique, groundbreaking conceptual changes. The most wild iterations of switch designs in the past few years not only all feature more metal in their designs, but revolve around completely changing the MX-style switch with the inclusion of more functional metal than ever. Kailh’s collaborative Dose switches with MK.com feature two sets of leaves with special PCBs to allow for multi-modal switch actuation unlike anything seen before them. Novelkeys’ Cream+ switches use piecemeal stem construction to modify the bottom out feelings of simple linears to have titanium or copper-tinted undertones. Or there’s even switches like the Novelkeys Cream Clickies which use metallic clicking plates to produce a clicking sound and feeling in switches unlike literally anything before it. As a result of this more deliberate use of metal than the more mild inclusions above, each of these examples seem to fundamentally shift the idea of what an MX switch is. At this more wild end of the spectrum, what was once a simple circuit housed in some fancily decorated injection molded plastic has become a small machine or mechanism of its own in addition to actuating a keyswitch on a keyboard.

Where the Tecsee Honey Peach switches lie in this dichotomy-described-as-a-spectrum, though, is a bit uncertain to me. Without having worked through them in detail and tried all of their finer tuned points this far into the review, they really do little more than associate with this weird grouping of switches that I’ve highlighted in this background section. Perhaps there is more interesting metallically loaded switch offerings to come that strike a balance between those mild shiny aesthetics and that wild mechanical uniqueness. Or there’s a very real possibility that this ‘More Metal’ grouping of switches is just some arbitrary shape that I’ve drawn to include switches that have stuck out to me more and more over the last few months. Regardless of whether or not this is a drummed up figment of my imagination, the fact that these Tecsee Honey Peaches could even potentially belong to a group with switches as unique as those mentioned above makes them more than worthwhile to explore and breakdown.

First introduced via Tecsee’s western-facing website on December 23rd of 2023, the Tecsee Honey Peaches are a Tecsee-made linear that features a center pole made entirely out of metal – something which has previously never been seen before. While similar in essence to the Wuque WS Jade linear switches released at approximately the same time and featured metal-embedded stem center poles, the Honey Peaches are the first modern switch to feature a component of its design that is entirely metal. Priced around $0.65 – 0.70 per switch depending on where they are purchased from, these switches are currently only largely available from more eastern-facing markets such as AliExpress and Taobao as of the time of writing this review. Additionally confusing the hunt for any more details surrounding these switches, and potentially eating up search results sharing western facing vendors which are selling them, these switches also share a name with some peach colored Outemu linears which were released in 2022. As of the time of writing this review, no details regarding the longevity and supply of the Tecsee Honey Peaches, nor the expansion of their unique mechanical feature has been shared by Tecsee at large.

Honey Peach Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Tecsee Honey Peaches are remarkably mundane for a switch released in 2024 and come in entirely transparent housings with only a pink colored stem. In fact, the colorway for these are so simple that you could have shown me a picture of them sans any context and I very easily could have believed that these came from around the same time as some of Tecsee’s very first switch releases. According to the manufacturer’s website, the housing is entirely polycarbonate in design with the stem being made of POM and a metallic center pole made of silver-colored brass. While this metal center pole is noticeable in the switch when the stem is pressed in all the way and the switch is viewed upside down, there’s virtually nothing to help distinguish it from other switches on the market beyond close up inspection. An exploration of the finer mold details about these switches may be found in the paragraphs below.

**Figure 5:** Tecsee Honey Peach switches and their components.

Looking first to the transparent, polycarbonate top housings of the Tecsee Honey Peach switches, these feature absolutely zero unique features that have not already been previously covered in reviews of Tecsee switches on this website. Externally, these feature inverted, stylized ‘TECSEE’ nameplates that are identical to the logo that the company has been using to date. As well, these top housings feature a long and thin rectangular LED/diode slot with a small centered circular indentation to accommodate certain aftermarket LED shapes better. Internally, the only feature of note with these switches is their numerical mold marking located on the inner housing edge between the switch internals and the LED/diode slot. This location for a mold marking has been used by Tecsee for many years now and was first noted all the way back in early 2021 in the Naevy V1.5 Switch Review.

**Figure 6:** Tecsee Honey Peach top housing exterior showing inverted, stylized 'TECSEE' nameplate and long, thin rectangular LED/diode slot.

**Figure 7:** Tecsee Honey Peach top housing interior design showing lack of special details and single number mold marking on the inner lip between housing interior and LED/diode slot.

Moving next to the pink, POM and brass stems of the Tecsee Honey Peaches, these too are remarkably barren of interesting details in spite of their two part construction. First ignoring the metal portion of the stem, the design details of the remaining pink POM portions are quite in line with expectations from other Tecsee releases and feature tapered slider rails and small mold ejection circles on the front plate of the stem. As well, these switches feature a moderate amount of factory lube on all four faces of the stem, which is not only noticeable when inspected by hand, but also able to be seen when visually inspecting the stem upon opening the switch. The silver-colored brass center pole of the switch is fairly unadorned and looks, more or less, like any other center pole for a modern, MX-style switch, even including a slight taper towards the bottom as well. Peering up into the connection point between the metal and plastic, there appears to be a small, raised ring around the junction that is keeping the pole seemingly friction fit in place, though not nearly to the degree as what it initially appears. Upon pulling the metal center stem out of the pink plastic portion, something which required a pair of pliers to accomplish and almost certainly will not happen under any normal use cases, the metal stems actually have a thinner gauge top insert which is friction fit much more deeply into the pink portion of the stem than initially thought. Just roughly eyeballing the measurement because I’m too lazy to break out the calipers as I’m writing this sentence, approximately 1/4th of the entire length of the metal center pole appears to be embedded within the plastic portion of the stem in its stock configuration.

**Figure 8:** Tecsee Honey Peach stem front and back showing front plate mold ejection circles, tapered slider rails, and silver-colored brass center poles.

**Figure 9:** Tecsee Honey Peach stems with metal center pole removed showing friction fitting gap inside of the pink POM portion of the stem and slimmer portion of stem which was fit inside of it.

Arriving at the transparent polycarbonate bottom housings of the Tecsee Honey Peaches, these too feature absolutely zero unique features like the top housings described above. Internally, there is no dampening pads at the bottom of the slider rails, no massive amounts of factory lube present, and not any unique or new mold ejection/injection spots in the base of the housing to give it character. The only detail of note is that of a south side spring collar, and that is because I’m reaching to hit some arbitrarily large word count for this review. Externally, the Tecsee Honey Peach switches appear to only come in 5-Pin/PCB-mount configuration and feature a medium-large, upside-down numerical mold marking between the two metal PCB pins. Based on these details for the top and bottom housings, alone, I’m almost certain that these were some OEM housing molds that were used by Tecsee and that the only innovative portion of the design which required R&D was that of the stem molds and construction.

Push Feel

Looking at the force curve attached below this paragraph, I think anyone would be really hard pressed to claim that the Tecsee Honey Peaches don’t deliver on their most simplistic marketing points of being a linear switch with about a 52-gram bottoming out force. More flat than they are steep in their force progression, these switches only really increase about 10 grams of force across their entire 3.57 mm travel distance, which is only slightly shorter than the average among 956 switches I’ve measured to date at 3.66 mm. The factory lubing on the Honey Peaches is, at some points, decently good in that it prevents really any scratch throughout the stroke for almost all of the switches that I tried in the batch that I received. That being said, though, there is a pretty noticeable amount of variation in the factory lube between Honey Peaches. This variation causes some switches to feel a few grams heavier throughout their strokes than the rest, and in other places causes some switches to have an inconsistently gummy bottoming out feeling. This gumminess is especially distracting from what is assumed to be the star attraction of these switches in their metal-pole bottoming out, though that is discussed more in the next paragraph.

**Figure 10:** Force curve diagram for stock Tecsee Honey Peach switch.

In the most ideal switches, the Tecsee Honey Peach housing collisions are far from being technically poor even in spite of them being very much not something I’d personally enjoy. The bottoming out of the metallic stems is, as expected, quite a bit more firm than the POM-stem topping out on polycarbonate housing, though it is a bit less jarring of a difference than one would expect. Rather than feeling sharp, the metallic bottom outs feel heavy and only with slight metal undertones that compliments them rather than overriding any other feeling in the switch. However, all of that is in the ideal Honey Peach switches. The noted variation in factory lube in the previous paragraph is, surprisingly, among the least of the variation problems as these have pretty wildly different feelings across the batch that I received. Some of them have metallic ticking prior to bottom out that I assume is an interaction between the stem and the spring. Some have bottom outs that feel gummy and muted in one stroke and sharp and more metallic than ideal in the very next stroke. Some even have housing collisions that feel significantly more prominent and overbearing than others at both the top out and the bottom out. And all of these variations, for the record, are wide enough that cherry picking of ideal Honey Peach switches from a batch received will almost certainly be required if you would want your keyboard build with them to be coherent at all. Quite frankly, it’s a mess just how wide the variation is on these switches and for something which has so much potential to draw in attention based on novelty alone, these switches absolutely feel like they are phoned in on the quality when it comes to their push feeling. Now as for their sound…

Sound

Holy shit.

Remember that variation I mentioned about only a small handful of times in the previous section? Well, it’s somehow even worse in the sound of the Tecsee Honey Peaches than it was in their push feeling. In addition to having inconsistently loud and/or metallic housing collisions, these switches have ticks and spring ping that also vary quite a bit over the batch that I received. While they somehow manage to avoid having scratch sounds in them, or really any of the thinner, cheaper plasticky tones commonly associated with full polycarbonate housings, it’s a bit hard to appreciate these points when every third switch sounds drastically different from the previous ones and at least a fraction of those change sounds with every single stroke on them. Perhaps the single most egregious sin committed in the sound of these switches is that they don’t even manage to be consistent in their overall volume – arguably the easiest thing to keep consistent in bulk manufacturing. This variation in volume, mixed with variations in gumminess, pings, and ticks creates a range of switches so broad that if you were to blindfold someone and hand them two switches out of a batch at random, there’s a non-zero chance that they would think you had handed them two entirely different linear switches. Mind you, that critique is coming from someone who has tried that exact feat on camera, himself.

Wobble

In a comical paradox of sorts, while there is some variation in the stem wobble of the Tecsee Honey Peach switches, it is to a much lesser degree than either the push feeling or sound of the batch that I received. Just maybe hovering around the overall average among switches that I’ve tried to date, there is a bit of equal-magnitude N/S and E/W direction stem wobble that won’t bother most people but certainly could bother some that are more sensitive to it than others.

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 12:** Numerical details regarding the stock Tecsee Honey Peach switch force curve diagram.

The latest in the content-adjacent work that I’ve picked up, the new ‘Force Curve Repository’ is now hosted on GitHub alongside the Scorecard Repository and contains all force curves that I make both within and outside of 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 each switch to use as you please. 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 notable change in the push feeling of the Tecsee Honey Peaches is the notable lack of sporadic bottoming out gumminess. Whether it is a function of the factory lubrication migrating around or not is unknown, though it certainly appears that it largely has moved out of the bottoming out of the switches broken in thus far leaving all of them to feel a touch more similar than in their stock form.

- As is common for switches undergoing break in testing in these reviews, the Tecsee Honey Peaches had a minor increase in both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble after being broken in thus far.

34,000 Actuations

- Interestingly enough, at 34,000 actuations the Tecsee Honey Peaches do appear to have a bit more consistent sound profile than their stock form, and one which is much more in line with the ideal case described above in the review. While there is still some variation here and there, and especially so when it comes to differences in overall volume between various Honey Peaches broken out this far, a lot of the more sporadic noises, pings, and ticks have largely disappeared.

51,000 Actuations

- While I am willing to chalk this data point up to chance in much the same fashion that I’ve already considered all the bad luck I’ve had with these switches up to this point circumstantial, the sound consistency does seem to improve even more when the Honey Peaches are broken out to 51,000 actuations. Across the dozen or so switches which I broke in this far, there were little to no inconsistencies in the sound profiles between them, including all of them having effectively the same volume as one another.

**Figure 14:** Comparative force curve diagram showing no distinctive trend in change of Tecsee Honey Peach force curve diagrams throughout the break in process.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

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

Novelkeys Cream+ (Titanium Insert)

- Of these two switches, the Cream+ switches with the Titanium insert provide the more distinctively metallic finish at the point of bottom out, hitting with a flat, clap that is a bit more sharp and less forceful than that of the Tecsee Honey Peaches.

- In terms of factory smoothness, the best example of both of these switches are pretty comparably smooth. That being said, though, there is a lot less switch to switch variation in the batch of Cream+ switches I received than the Honey Peach switches.

- Whereas my batch of Tecsee Honey Peaches had quite a few extraneous sounds to them, the Titanium insert Cream+ switches had a singular sound profile to them which revolved entirely around the medium pitched, slightly metallic bottoming out sound. In terms of overall volume, these two switches are comparable, though the Cream+ switches are perhaps just a touch more subdued.

Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’

- For how different these two switches are in terms of their construction and marketing points, they have fairly similar overall sound profiles and feelings as each other. Whereas the Tecsee Honey Peaches have a bit more inconsistency and some more pointy metallic bottom outs and the Cherry MX ‘New Nixies’ have a bit more scratch to their stroke and depth to their housing collisions, these feel a lot closer to each other than one might expect upon initial guess.

- The Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’ switches have quite a bit less stem wobble than the Honey Peach switches in both the N/S and E/W directions. (Note that this is pretty unusual for a comparison between a switch made by Cherry and one made by another manufacturer.)

- In terms of their overall sound profiles, the ‘New Nixies’ are quite a bit more subdued, bass heavy, and have a larger amount of their sound profile eaten up by scratch than the comparatively higher pitched, sharper, and thinner sounding Honey Peaches.

Sarokeys BCP

- Of all of the linear switches on this comparison list, the Sarokeys BCPs are the ones that feel the most different from the Tecsee Honey Peaches. In stark contrast to the Honey Peach’s metal stem bottoming out and polycarbonate housings, the Sarokeys BCPs feel rather muted and compacted, with tough, firm housing collisions on either end of a decently scratchy stroke.

- In terms of stem wobble, the average Tecsee Honey Peach is pretty much in line with the average Sarokeys BCP switch. That being said, though, there is still a touch more variability in the batch of Hony Peaches that I received than the Sarokeys BCPs.

- Much like with the push feeling notes above, the sound profile of these switches is also pretty far apart. While the Tecsee Honey Peaches are only a slight bit louder than the Sarokeys BCPs, they have more clear, higher pitched, and metallic tones to their sound as opposed to the bass heavy, subtle, and muted tones of the BCPs.

Wuque Studio Morandi

- In a rather surprising fashion, even though the Wuque Studio Morandi and Tecsee Honey Peach switches are rated to have fairly similar bottom out weights at 55 grams and 52 grams, respectively, the Morandi bottom outs feel significantly heavier in hand. This very well could be a result of the more stunted travel distance of the Morandi switches making their housing collisions feel more abrupt and sudden, though I would have initially guessed that the opposite would have been true here.

- The Wuque Studio Morandi have less stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions than the Tecsee Honey Peach switches.

- In terms of their factory smoothness, there is hardly any competition to be had here as the Morandi switches are far and away the more smooth and more consistently smooth of these two switches.

Lubed Black Geon Switch

- While there is a bit more of a metallic ‘twang’ to the bottom out of the Honey Peach switches, the general firmness of the bottoming out of these two switches is rather comparable to each other.

- Considering just the average switch, the Lubed Black Geon switches and the Tecsee Honey Peaches are fairly similar in terms of their smoothness throughout the stroke. Though, it needs mentioning yet once again, that the Honey Peach switches in the batch that I received had quite a bit more variation on this point than the boxes of Lubed Black Geon switches that I have tried.

- Of all of the switches in this comparison list, the Lubed Black Geon switches might be the only ones that have marginally more stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions than the Tecsee Honey Peach switches.

Feker Emerald Cabbage

- Metallic stem poles be damned – the bottoming outs of the Feker Emerald Cabbage switches punch much harder and more firmly than the bottom outs of the Tecsee Honey Peach switches. This is even further surprising given that the bottom housings of the Emerald Cabbage switches are reported to be made of nylon whereas the Honey Peaches both have metal stem poles and bottom housings made out of traditionally thinner, sharper feeling polycarbonate.

- In terms of their stem wobble, the Feker Emerald Cabbages have a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. It’s not likely enough of a difference to matter to most, but it is something that I definitely recognized when testing them outside by side.

- Considering their factory smoothness, the Feker Emerald Cabbages stand out as noticeably more smooth than the Tecsee Honey Peaches. Surprisingly, even this up and coming budget brand managed to produce switches that were more consistently smooth than a well-established manufacturer like Tecsee.

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.