Since their resurgance in the gaming market almost a decade ago, mechanical switch keyboards have become and have remained a popular item within the gaming market as well as the market for high-end keyobards in general. And it’s easy to see why, as mechanical switches have many advantages compared to keyboards with rubber dome or membrane switches; however they have one major disadvantage, their high cost. Cherry, the company that commands a sizable share of the switches market, introduced its low-cost Viola switches at CES 2020 that promise to enable keyboards makers to build cbeaper mechanical keyboards.
The Cherry Viola is a brand-new switch with a spring and V-shape bronze contact system. The switch uses an industry standard cross-stem that is compatible with a wide array of keycaps, and is contained in a precisely-engineered housing made of a plastic polymer featuring eight pillars. The engineering tolerance for the new switch is less than 0.01 mm, which helps to ensure wobble free keystrokes, a solid feel, and better typing accuracy. The switch uses a POM-socket, so it is frame mounted and does not require soldering.
Cherry’s Viola switch resembles Cherry’s MX Red when it comes to a 2 mm actuation point, a 4 mm total travel distance, and a 45 cN actuation force. Cherry promisees that the switch will be ‘mechanical’ and ‘tactile’, but the company does not want to draw direct parallels with its MX-series due to obvious reasons.
| Comparison of Mechanical Keyboard Switches | ||||||
| Cherry Viola |
Cherry MX Blue |
Cherry MX Brown |
Cherry MX Red |
Cherry Silver |
Razer Green | |
| Actuation Point | 2 mm | 2.2 mm | 2 mm | 2 mm | 1.2 mm | 1.9 mm ± 0.4 mm |
| Actuation vs Reset Point | no data | no data | no data | no data | no data | 0.4 mm |
| Total Travel | 4 mm | 4 mm | 4 mm | 4 mm | 3.4 mm | 4 mm |
| Actuation Force | 45 cN | 60 cN | 55 cN | 45 cN | 45 cN | 50 g |
| Actuation Feel | cross/linear | linear/tactile | linear/tactile | linear | linear | soft tactile |
| Switch Lifecycle | ? million | 50 million | 50 million | 50 million | 50 million | 60 million |
| Switch Color | white transparent |
blue | brown | red | silver | green |
The architecture of the Viola switch was engineered not only to reduce its costs, but also to decrease production costs for makers of keyboards. Furthermore, since Viola uses transparent plastic, the switch is fully compatible with SMD LEDs enabling manufacturers to build low-cost gaming keyboards with RGB backlighting.
At this time Cherry is not disclosing the cost of its Viola switch, but the company says that it expects the Viola to be a killer of rubber dome switches, which implies that it is rather cheap to make. Though ultimately the final price of keyboards are up to the manufacturers, so we’ll find out the answer to the cost question in the coming quarters when the first products based on the Viola switch emerge on the market.
Source: Cherry