The mechanical keyboard community has a fetish for switches that have an absurdly strong bump. I don't understand it. I've tried a couple different ones that are supposed to be amazing feeling and both times it felt like way more effort than I should have to put in to pressing a key. And then once you've passed that point you smash into the bottom.

Personally I keep going back to MX browns because the slight tactile bump is easy to press past and gives enough feedback for me to be satisfied. I still bottom out but it isn't a sudden shock as I pass the bump. Though I actually have been thinking of switching to silent MX reds since they bottom out more softly. Or maybe I'll try O-rings again so I can get the softened landing and still keep the tactile bump.

When I built my first keyboard, I used MX Browns because I didn't know any better.

Then I read all the /r/MK threads and other forum posts where Browns are (almost) universally shit on. The conventional wisdom was that they were the worst switches out there.

So my next keyboard was some clicky green thing. Can't remember the brand.

They were very tactile and clicky, but I didn't like them. One problem was that the click was fake! It's a separate bar that snaps as the key travels down, but it's not associated with the electrical contacts at all. So depending on the key, it's possible to generate a keypress without hearing a click or (worse) get a click without closing the switch.

I'm back on Browns now. I think you're right about the fetish. The clicks sound really cool, but they're not as useful as people claim.

Or maybe I just have a "thunk" fetish, I don't know.

I was super bummed when I realized the blues I bought were similarly fake. I loved the old buckling springs, and wanted that certainty. But the click lies! If I trust the click a speed, I get mis-types.

For me the issue is typing is automatic.

If I am a "conscientious typist" and I am actively/awarely concentrating on my fingers with MX browns I move my fingers with smaller travel and just go a little past the tactile bump and I'm fine.

But as soon as I'm concentrating more on code, or trying to type fast, or under stress I start hitting the keys more quitckly and forcefully and I hit the bottom stop and that's when the keys start causing RSI type forces to build up.

I don't have to be conscientious with most other types of switches. Theres something different about the feedback cycle and for me almost anything provides better feedback than the mechanical switches.

I think it's a question of habit. I use both membrane and Gateron brown switches, one or the other for longer periods of time, and I find that I tend to get used to the lighter force needed for the mechanical, to the point that for a while, when getting back to membrane, I miss keys.

I think that's most of us. People who can stop after the bump certainly have trained in that way of typing, possibly even learned it that way from the start.

Interestingly I'm old enough that I learned to type on buckling spring type keyboards.

But back when I was learning no one ever even discussed any of this stuff. I didn't meet the first person I knew with RSI till I got out of college. My first manager out of college had a bad case of it and she had all kinds of keyboards she was always trying to alleviate pain.

I had a similar experience.

Cherry MX Blue switch keyboards all around the house for a few years, then I noticed my hands and arms ache like hell after extended coding sessions where I am typing more than copy/pasta. I attributed this to the amount of pressure I was exerting to get the keys to depress in an agreeable way.

Fast forward to now, I am using a Realforce R2 w/ Topre switches. The first few days I felt like I was typing on a cloud with zero feedback, but I got used to it really quickly. Can code for 12 hours straight now without any difficulties. Your fingers get desensitized to subtle forces when you are slamming those heavy keys around all the time.

I went back and tried the MX blue keyboard the other day and it felt like typing on a pile of marble.

The Topre is the only thing I didn't try. It's tempting, but it's an expensive keyboard and I have no problems just using cheap rubber dome/chiclet/butterfly keyboards.

Your experience is just like mine, but mine got so bad I ended up the doctor. The doctors & hand specialists & PTs are very clued in about wrist posture, desk setup, etc.. but there is literally no medical research on keyboard switch travel, force, work, bump stops, etc.. so they never said anything about what kind of keyboard I was using.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on the Topre switches. I am on MX Reds and I have been debating on switching over to Topre mainly because anyone that uses them likes them over everything else (price aside)

The travel and force required for the keys is something to get used to. I honestly don't know how to describe the sensation in a way that would properly inform a purchase.

I will say this though - As someone who plays the piano and understands good form, the Topre is much more rewarding to disciplined hands. Lazy hands that rely on the spring tension of MX Blue switches to keep from accidental activation will take some training to get back into proper form.

You have to be very intentional with this Realforce keyboard. Your fingers should not touch keys until you intend to fully depress them. It will punish you for being undisciplined and resting hands on keyboard with long sequences of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", et. al. as you contemplate various sections of code.

Bottoming out is a neglected problem. (The long soft stop is one of the reasons the IBM Selectric has the best key feel ever.)

The Apple Extended Keyboard II is probably the most common ‘mechanical’ keyboard that was made with rubber ~baby~ button bottom bumpers. Unfortunately, for Jobs, “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate.”

But in general, different people encounter different types of RSI. For me the problem is wrist motion or position, so a Kinesis contoured keyboard and Kensington Slimblade trackball were a solution.

What's weird is that a decade ago, bottoming out was a concern in the mechanical keyboard community. A selling point of mechanical keyboards was that you didn't have to bottom out; that's required on a membrane keyboard by their nature. O-rings were a very common way for people to fix bottoming out without having to learn to stop their fingers before reaching the end of the key travel (it was also a way to make the keyboards quieter by avoiding the clack).

Indeed, and the one change to keyboard design that would provide substantial ergonomic opportunities hasn't been seriously approached. The key switches are too large to provide layouts that fit hands that are narrower or shorter than somewhere larger than average.

Lillian Malt kicked things off in the 1970's with the Maltron, a (brilliant) workaround for key spacing being too large for her hands. We've been beating around the same oversized components ever since, trying to squeeze out a drip or two of better ergonomics.

Further useful pursuit of improved keyboard ergonomics requires keyswitches with a size and travel distance that isn't informed by the recent memory of typewriters and manufacturing limitations of the era of Cherry's original design, and produced in volume to at least Cherry MX standards. It's time to move away from typewriter-defined hardware.

You can add o-ring on the stem to soften the bottoming out (varying stiffness), or you can go for super-light springs so there is minimal strength required for pressing. Or I've seen people adding neoprene foam to the plate for a softer bottoming out.

I tried that, the o-rings made things worse. They soften the bottoming but they also increase the force required to actuate the key. They also make the feel of the keyboard horrible IMO.

There's something about the tactile nature of the keys which just doesn't work for me and/or some other people.. the tactile nature makes us use more force instead of less, and there is no getting around these keys require more force X a greater distance so they literally make your fingers do more physical work.

They certainly did feel nasty to me, but they shouldn't increase the force required. A narrow enough O-ring should provide cushioning just past the actuation point. What I would have to do when I used O-rings is press every key very hard after installing them to ensure that they were pushed as far up as possible.

I didn't go off on a wild goose chase trying different O-rings. I believe I did the experiment on a Das Keyboard Professional something and I used the O-rings that Das Keyboard recommended and sold.

It all got silly at some point. The Mantra is that mechanical keyboards are better. If you have trouble with RSI typing on them the community suggests a never ending series of high effort and/or high cost solutions. No one ever suggests the easy and cheap solution of just not using the mechanical keyboards.

When I finally figured it out it was like I'd escaped from a cult. Interestingly I used Mechanical Keyboards at the office from about 2009-2014. During that time period tons of developers I worked with were steadily buying up Mechanical Keyboards, it was basically a trend/fad at that time.

Fast forward to 2020 and I don't think there's a single developer left in my office who still uses them.

I'm 1 of 2 devs in my office that use mechanical keyboards, and the other one is only in the mechanical category because they have a Kinesis Advantage to eliminate the wrist pains they were having. It's all down to personal preference with input devices and there's no shame in using whatever suits you best.

Have you tried an ergonomic split keyboard? I got an Ergodox for my birthday and it feels great to type on and I have MUCH less strain.

Doesn’t have to be that brand obviously but highly recommend checking out the idea at large.

Yes I mentioned owning both a TEK (Truly Ergonomic Keyboard) which I believe had the Kalih brown-types and I also owned a Kinesis with Cherry MX Browns.

Neither helped.. the Kinesis is what I was using when things got so bad I had to go to the doctor.

I, too, found a Kinesis (bowl-shaped) keyboard to be worse than a typical non-ergonomic keyboard with membrane switches. In fact, my worst RSI was during the year or 2 I used a Kinesis.

When a person switches to a different kind of keyboard, particularly if many of the keys are in a different location, he or she must pay closer attention to the mechanics of typing until the keyboard becomes familiar. I have found that this paying of attention to the mechanics reduces RSI, whether I switch from a standard keyboard to a Kinesis or I switch back to a standard keyboard after a long period of using a Kinesis. So if you are sufficiently like I was, then you should wait a few months after switching to a Kinesis before concluding that it is actually better for you than a standard board.

I had RSI (tendonitis) for about 5 years. A large fraction of my keyboarding time during those 5 years consisted of my slowly pecking at a (standard) keyboard with the eraser end of a pencil. I consulted doctors and worried that I would never again be able to work as a programmer.

I cured my RSI and have been free of RSI for about 15 years. I have been using cheap non-ergonomic membrane keyboards (Amazon Basics, $13 each including shipping before the pandemic started causing shortages of computer equipment) for a few years although for much of the last 15 years I used expensive non-ergonomic membrane keyboards (Logitech K750s) out of an abundance of caution.

The "height" of the keyboard (distance between the part resting on the desk and the top of the keycaps) is much lower on the membrane keyboards I have been using over the last 15 years than it is on any keyboard I have ever seen with mechanical switches. The lowness of the height is desirable because I can spend less time monitoring for good wrist position (because if my wrists are resting on the desk every now and then, the position is not as harmful as it would be if my keyboard were taller) and I don't need to bother with wrist rests.

The problem with the Kinesis is you're never going to always have a Kinesis available if you have to use someone else's computer, so it's really hard to really get to the point you use it correctly without thinking about it.

Dvorak can be a huge handicap too if you can't be 100% in control of every computer you touch.

>you're never going to always have a Kinesis available

My lifestyle was stationary and uncomplicated enough that I used the Kinesis for 99.5% of my typing except for those times when my RSI was so bad that I abandoned 10-finger typing and switched to typing very slowly with the eraser end of a pencil (for which I usually switched to a standard keyboard).

I had the same experience. I bought cherry mx brown and on day 1, I thought I need to give it sometime to feel its superiority. I thought I am typing the wrong way and I need to relearn how much force I apply. There seems to be no consensus on how deep I should go. So I tried both bottoming out and till the bump. But I only feel the bump if I am focusing on it. If I go in work mode, I don't get any feedback and thus miss so many keys. I have been using it for 2 months and I feel it was waste of money.

Make sure you stop before it gets to the point of injury if you think you're getting progressively more and more sore.

Funny you mention the hard stop! I too play piano and guitar and have not had problems with them. However I joined a startup way back in 2005 and was working on a laptop for 12+ hours a day and started to get RSI and shooting pains in my left hand. I moved to a full-sized keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches and have not had a problem since. HOWEVER I ended up putting those little red rubber O-ring on the switches to soften the stop years ago. I wonder if softening the stop has spared me from any RSI. My keyboard is also quite thick and 100% requires a palm rest to get hands to the proper level of the keyboard.

Edit: I see further below you mentioning trying out the O-rings and it made things worse for you. I might have lucked out in the hand-biomechanics part of my DNA.

Sorry to hear about your RSI troubles! The comments in this subthread sure highlight how many different experiences people have with RSI. I had a years-long bout with bilateral tenosynovitis 25 years ago and have had issues that I manage ever since. For me, the mechanical keyswitches (no bump) clearly help, as does tenting, splitting the board, and angling each half. I can't type on laptop keyboards for long durations without forearm pain, but on a Kinesis Freestyle Edge with MX Reds, I'm good to go as long as I take breaks every hour or two. YMMV!

I tried a couple mechanical keyboards recently, but in both cases the left `control` key was further away from the center (I guess because the space key was significantly longer) than with a mac keyboard. It made it an uncomfortably long reach for my finger and that's a key I use very frequently; so I had to go back to the magic keyboard. If I had forced myself to adapt to that longer reach I have no doubt I would have ended up experience various issues.

Different people type differently, which is one reason why it's hard for the community to give good feedback about what sort of keyboard or keyswitches you should buy. Since you're a heavy type that goes to bottom, you should look at a board with Topre switches. The venerable Happy Hacking Keyboard (HHKB) is one such design that's specifically built for coding.

Habe you considered chocs or similar "short" switches?

I recently built a corne with chocs, and I like that it gives that laptop feel.

THIS! Mechanical keyboards are bad for RSI due to the increased finger travel, hard springs and bumpy bottoming out.

But Dvorak is the best layout to decrease finger travel.

Do NOT take advice on ergonomics from the mech keyboard community: they focus primarily on shiny stuff and blinky LEDs.

You should consider a keyboard with Cherry Clear switches or similar. Brown and blue have a relatively short travel distance, and it sounds like you are a heavy typer.

It's not the switch, it's your typing habits. Resting your wrists while typing is a recipe for RSI.