I hope this doesn't invalidate my entry, but I have no clue where the Mech Keys market is heading because I just started taking an active notice of it this year. Maybe I'm part of the trend of new adopters that signifies the market is growing? The other posts in here suggesting more modular options are where I would *like* it to be heading.
Hmm surprisingly there are a really low number of entries. Did I post this in the wrong section o.O?
Reddit is larger and Geekhackers lazier.
Reddit is larger and Geekhackers lazier.
Hmm thats disappointing, we were hoping to get atleast more than 20 entries :/
Judging by the current trends, keyboards with Gaterons (possibly Kailh too) switches will become more popular as longevity claims become reality
Judging by the current trends, keyboards with Gaterons (possibly Kailh too) switches will become more popular as longevity claims become reality
Not that ultra tolerances really matter much on a keyboard switch.
Seriously, how's some company going to get mega-rich in the mechanical keyboard market? Convince corporate offices to buy them again instead of rubber domes. Make plain-looking 104-key mechanical boards with a bulk price around $60, and make sure corporate purchasers know they will last at least 3x as long as a $20 board. You might have to warranty them for 3 years, or at least sell that warranty for a low price. Find or commission a study about how equipment quality affects productivity--or even one that says the sound of keyboards in an office stimulates productivity.
It seems to me like the mechanical keyboard community is steering away from full keyboards and more towards TKL's and 60%'s.
I know that personally once I got myself a 60% I never wanted to go back, in hindsight I wish I would have bitten the bullet for a TKL instead of getting a full-size originally. Especially with keysets, if you want a numpad cluster you have to fork out extra, which is a huge down point for me.It seems to me like the mechanical keyboard community is steering away from full keyboards and more towards TKL's and 60%'s.
I think this has been the trend for a while now. I think full-sized boards are always a bit harder to find if you're shopping for modern keyboards.
I think the market will be head to flashy gaming keyboards. I hope it will be more barebone keyboards and topre will get cheaper, also unicomp will bring back the ssk.
Winners will be announced November 12 on this thread and contacted via e-mail.
Winners will be announced November 12 on this thread and contacted via e-mail.
Who won ??
alternate materials is where i believe the market will get to next, it may not be the best place for it to go but it will be interesting.
Posting this without reading any of the others so maybe I'll be treading oft-repeated comments.For an enthusiast's market it's better to have a standard layout than it is to be all over the place. I understand wanting it but keysets are already scattered to the wind with extra spacebars and ISO sets, mixing that even more (like logitech did with their weirdly shaped space bar) just ends up leaving some people behind. Maybe as it becomes larger it can take off but keysets would have to be super specific then and group buys would be nigh-on impossible if everyone has a non-standard bottom row wanting their own expansion set.
"where the market is headed" seems to be 'mainstream' as not just mass-drop, but ICW (I think that's the company? Where my work buys all their vaguely technical odds & ends) and other normal-people-see-them outlets list mechanical keyboards (with kailh or gateron brows but still). Even the oddity of the 87-key is not considered so odd by my coworkers (of course, I talked the boss into buying my desk a QFR)
With the M-D run of hall-effect in three different sizes, and Ellipse' run of model-F keyboards, in addition to the many Cherry clones I think that the 'enthusiast' market has grown enough to throw the kind of money needed at all the known ways of registering a key-click.
What I don't see, much to my chagrin, is much at all outside the serious enthusiasts corner of layouts that aren't ANSI-125. I want to see more vertical stagger, more two handed keyboards. Or at least ANSI-150, or better yet 3x spacebars but no,, that's still too weird for everyone. Which I guess I can understand, but maybe as keyboards like in this giveaway gain traction, those control freaks out there will begin to realize they aren't tied to "what the store sells them."
A coworker likes to point out a discussion once held in a programming class, about GUIs and other interface choices. How many of the programming students drove a stick shift car? (8/10 IIRC) What do the students think is generally more popular "out there" (close to a 50/50 split). The truth of the sales records is that automatics are, and have always been more popular.
The lesson, then, is "know your audience. ... And your audience is not [like] you."
So, where the market is going, is wherever resides the most efficacy with the least amount of thought. Given the proliferation of tablets, and people who think a laptop, or a tablet, or their wii, is a suitable replacement for playing the upgrade game (IE they don't have a computer just a phone) Bluetooth adapters are probably the next big thing.