2024 Manufacturer Update
The documentation train is best described as one of those that is never ending. Never ending not in a ‘there’s always more to come’ dreamy kind of way, but rather never ending in an existential ‘I’m now physically sweating from how badly I have to go to the bathroom and this train that’s stopping me from crossing the tracks to my house just doesn’t seem to have an end to it ever’ kind of way. I think that analogy is supposed to end up engendering some sort of anxiety about documentation interrupting your workflow and how it just never seems to be something you ever really feel ready to deal with. I’m not entirely sure it hit that point but you kind of get it – who is ever excited to be stopped by a train? One piece of documentation I did last year that really sat on the backburner until it started to produce panicky levels of “Oh shit I need actually do this now” is that of my ‘2023 Manufacturer Update’ short article. In that article, I formally addressed the existence of Grain Gold, LICHICX, Jerrzi, and SOAI – four burgeoning switch manufacturers at the time who were beginning to not only make waves within the community at large, but also my content in all its forms as well. While I might have waited a bit too long to add these manufacturers to the ever expanding list that I keep track of, I really wanted to make sure I firmly knew that they existed before committing it to writing. And while I thought that that update would last me several years into the future without needing added on to, it turns out that I was wrong about that one. If the recent reviews of the Raptor MX Extreme or SWK Ripple switches were not evident enough of this fact, I am again late to formally address manufacturers that everyone across the community is already aware of. Fear not, though, as this is my 2024 Manufacturer Update to address these topics finally.
To start out on the same foot that I did in last year’s update (for those of you who weren’t around reading it originally), the increasing number of switches available on today’s market makes for a daunting and confusing sight for people looking deeply into switches for the first time. The sheer number of manufacturers, vendors, and brands all vying for attention with their various sales pages and descriptions of any given switch often times makes for an incomplete, if not altogether inconsistent set of facts about any given switch. Often times, one of the most obscured of these details is that of the origin of the switches or who specifically manufactured them. While this may seem a bit of a pedantic point to consider on the same list of important details such as switch type, bottom out force, and if they are factory lubed or not, the origin of creation for most switches can speak volumes to their quality, consistency, and the expected general bang for your buck in buying them. For those of us a little more invested in tracking switches, knowing where any given switch comes from allows us to note production process improvements, marketing direction changes, or entire new designs that are being released by a company without any need to rely on spotty, inconsistent, or poorly translated marketing to keep us informed. And while a lot of companies claim to physically make their own switches, the reality is often much more complicated than that. I, specifically, have a pretty high standard of evidence that I require of companies to formally recognize them as independent switch manufacturing entities, and that is in large part due to not wanting to flip flop information on all of you every few weeks in full length reviews. Over the course of the past year or so, a few manufacturers in particular have really established themselves quite thoroughly in my books and I feel confident in stating that they are definitely real, separate factories producing unique switches. These factories include SWK, HMX, and Keygeek. To help familiarize you with where these brands have popped up in my documentation previously, as well as to some of the switches you can expect to see from them moving forward, I’ve gone ahead and provided some short sections below for each of these brands.
SWK
Figure 1: SWK Ripple switches with their iconic top housing corners including Ripple (White/Blue), Catmint (Purple), Dragon Ghost (Teal/Red), and Toucan (Orange).
Formally known as ‘Shenzhen Siweiqi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.’, it’s very likely that a few of you will recognize this brand, which is otherwise known in short as ‘SWK’, from my recent SWK Ripple Switch Review where I thoroughly detailed their shallow history as we are presently aware of it. As discussed in the background of that review, SWK first popped up on the western scene by way of their collaborative switch release with Owlabs in the form of the Owlabs Neons in October of 2022. SWK immediately stood out as something odd upon this singular release, alone, as a result of the unique nameplates and “dustproof corner” walls on the top housings of the Neons which hug the stems of their switches. In fact it was this unique feature that would go on to be present on all of their switches that made subsequent switch releases over the past few years in the GoPolar Yin, GoPolar Yang, SWK Jieum V2, SWK Mocha, SWK Catmint, SWK Dragon Ghost, and SWK Toucans immediately recognizable as being made by SWK. In spite of still not truly knowing much, if anything at all, about SWK at large outside of these releases, their protracted engagement in beef with other lesser established manufacturers on my personal periphery such as that Lin Neng and Duhuk/Lumia has helped cement SWK as real, present, and certainly not willing to back down from a fight. While it is uncertain how the future switch releases of SWK will develop beyond my formal recognition of them here today, information passed along to me by SwitchOddities seems to suggest that they are starting to produce more OEM-style switch offerings to be included as stock offerings in some Leobog/Aula branded prebuilt keyboards.
HMX
Figure 2: Only 8 of the 37 total HMX switch offerings provided by Unikeys as of the time of publishing.
Of the three manufacturers in this brief update, there’s no doubt in my mind that HMX is the most recognizable of these names to the wider keyboard community. (Otherwise more formally known as (Dongguan Huimuxin) (东莞汇木鑫) Electronics Co Ltd.) Popularized in large part by the couple of dozen switch releases facilitated by vendor Unikeys over the past couple of years, HMX has grown its audience all the way across the content creator spectrum and even up the vendor food chain to vendors as large as that of Novelkeys and Geonworks in only a few short years. To say that HMX is still stuck in the shadow of KTT where they were once firmly planted would be beyond apparently false. For those of you unaware of this shadow that I’m referring to, my Raptor MX Extreme Switch Review details this convoluted origin story of HMX in pretty rigorous detail, including a handful of conspiratorial linkages to KTT that stretch back to when HMX as a name first popped up in November of 2022. While I would love to say that I’ve sorted out the full backdrop of the tenuous connection between KTT and HMX and can now decide on a singular, consistent backstory for them, I can only really say with confidence that I do now know HMX to be separate and distinct from that of KTT. The number of sheer switch releases attributed to HMX in the past year, alone, would likely suffice as support of this fact for most people here, though it was actually the recent trip by Unikeys’ owner DY to the HMX manufacturing facility that firmly convinced me of their independence. In order to not dilute it or misrepresent DY’s information he learned about HMX from this trip, the rest of this section is a direct copy of his notes from his trip report as well as photos of the HMX production line that he shared with the Unikeys Discord at large:
Story about HMX:
Long story short, I went to HMX today and met Mr. Wu and Mr. Lan: the founders of HMX. I confirmed the following things with them:
-1. Some of HMX's engineers were not from KTT but Kailh. I spreaded misinformation about this and I apologize for it.
-2. KTT and HMX have nothing to do with each other. Some of their switch parts might look similar but are different. Easiest way to test is to use them. You will notice that they sound and feel quite different. HMX owns all of their molds and have the ability to develop new mold sets. They don't share mold sets or production line with any other companies.
-3. The location I went to today had lubing machines, assembling machines, quality test machines etc. I didn't get a chance to look at their injection machines since they are at a different location. HMX is moving to a larger place later this month so they could have everything together and more production lines. I will check that place out next time I come back to China.
- 4. If you check HMX in the Chinese Business Registration system, you will see that they are an independent registered legal entity. They are not a "recolor" of an existing brand.
Figure 3: What appears to be a force curve generating setup from HMX's production floor as captured by Unikeys’ owner DY.
Figure 4: What appears to be a part or finished switch sorting setup from HMX's production floor as captured by Unikeys' owner DY.
Figure 5: What appears to be a switch break in tester from HMX's production floor as captured by Unikeys' owner DY.
Keygeek
Figure 6: Photos of various parts of the Keygeek production warehouse as shown on their website.
Formally known as ‘ZheJiang KeyGeek Electronic Techonlogy Co. LTD’, Keygeek is a switch manufacturer which I’ve probably delayed the longest in formally announcing as they simply popped up in the oddest way I recall having ever seen a manufacturer come on to the scene. Rather than building a reputation with eastern audiences and slowly pushing out switches until western keyboard enthusiasts began to notice and try and get ahold of some switches, Keygeek popped up seemingly out of nowhere in the west in July of 2022 with English speaking, actively staffed social media accounts. Present on Instagram and with the “owner” active and present on the SwitchModders Discord server, Keygeek as a subsidiary of the longtime microswitch manufacturer in Weipeng has cranked out a number of switches over the past few years including notable switches in the Keygeek Avalons, Raspberries, Begonias, and Avocados, as well as collaborations with known names like Punkshoo, CBKBD, XCJZ, and a few others. While that list is far from inclusive of all switches which have been attributed to Keygeek thus far, do note that this list does not include the diamond shaped or ball bearing switches which have occasionally been erroneously attributed to this newer manufacturer. Of the three new names I’ve discussed here, Keygeek is the only one which I’ve not thoroughly documented thus far, though I do hope to change that in the coming year or so.
Figure 7: Current "mass produced" switch offerings from Keygeeks' information page of their website.
Figure 8: A few of the "custom" switch offerings that Keygeek has made as per their website.
There you have it – another trio of new switch manufacturers that I’m glad to include on the ever growing list of names to keep track of and I look forward to writing more about them in the coming months and years. Please note that while I have done some previous reviews and documentation on switches made by SWK, HMX, and Keygeek that are still attributed to an ‘Unknown’ manufacturer as of the day of releasing this update, I will be changing this documentation in the coming few weeks. Much like with how I rounded out this last update, in time should a new manufacturer demonstrate sufficient proof of life to me to be deemed recognizable, expect that I will do something similar to this update again