Monterey SMK White Clicky switches?

[Wanzer_Mech]

I bought a cheap monterey k104 keyboard from amazon hoping to get lucky with a skcm blue. What I got was a clicky keyboard that looked like an smk white switch. I don't have a photo right now, but there is not much to see. It looks identical to a smk white switchhttps://deskthority.net/wiki/File:SMK_Alps_mount_tactile_--_recognition.jpg, but it was also definitely clicky. Any idea what in the world I actually got?

[Wolf123rt]

Montery SMK white switches

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I've been wondering about that. SMK second generation switch colours seem arbitrary, but there may be a reason for them, such as spring weight. Notice how the shape of the shell is different between clicky and tactile, and between keycap mounts. That must be done for a reason too.

Just to be certain, is the shell of your switches the same shape as the "Monterey" blue switches, rather than the shape of the tactile white switches found in Apple keyboards?

[Wanzer_Mech]

I've been wondering about that. SMK second generation switch colours seem arbitrary, but there may be a reason for them, such as spring weight. Notice how the shape of the shell is different between clicky and tactile, and between keycap mounts. That must be done for a reason too.

Just to be certain, is the shell of your switches the same shape as the "Monterey" blue switches, rather than the shape of the tactile white switches found in Apple keyboards?

I mean, they look quite identical looking at deskthority photos.

Is there some minuscule difference I should see? I honestly thought it was a color difference and that was it.

2nd Gen White SMK
https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:SMK_Alps_mount_tactile_--_recognition.jpg
2nd Gen Blue SMK
https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:SMK_Alps_mount_clicky_--_recognition.jpg

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Look at the picture of the white switch, and find the upside-down "G" at the front left. Just to its right, there is a break in the ridge that runs across the front of the switch.

You can then see that this break in the ridge is in the centre of the blue switch, instead of over to the left.

It can be hard to make out this characteristic in photos, but it seems to hold true. You might find the diagrams here easier to understand:

https://deskthority.net/wiki/SMK_second_generation#Mount

I notice that linear and clicky MX mount types appear to be the same shape. The inverse cross mount version, is different again (although I've never compared clicky vs tactile vs linear of those).

The different shell shapes is a real curiosity — maybe part of it was to help with automated assembly, to allow machines to detect if the wrong type of switch was fed into the machinery.