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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Doesn’t have to be that brand obviously but highly recommend checking out the idea at large.
Neither helped.. the Kinesis is what I was using when things got so bad I had to go to the doctor.
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.
Dvorak can be a huge handicap too if you can't be 100% in control of every computer you touch.
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).
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.
I recently built a corne with chocs, and I like that it gives that laptop feel.
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.
I was completely brainwashed by the community that mechanical keyboards were the solution to RSI and had a major blind spot. I even learned dvorak and got up to near 100wpm at it with no success.
When I ditched the mechanical keyboards all the problems went away.
Something about the whole thing with the tactile bump in the middle doesn't work for me. When my typing ramps up to high speed I end up pushing the mechanical key all the way down to the stop anyway and blowing through the tactile bump. Once you're doing that you're moving your fingers further and doing more work, and the stops on these key switches are harder than a lot of non-mechanical keyboards.
No doubt they feel great and I do think I can type faster on them but unquestionably for me the Cherry MX type switches give me RSI symptoms and tendonitis in my arms.
I think it's all in the travel & how the "stop" at the end of the travel feels. I have a bunch of experience playing guitar and piano too.. piano has a long travel, if the stop at the end of the travel is hard it gives me RSI, but if it's not (and it's usually not on real acoustic piano keybeds) it's mostly OK. Guitar meanwhile has a rock hard stop but minimal travel, and a good guitar you also get some tactile feedback in that if you push the note down too far it goes sharp. Guitar basically gives me 0 RSI symptoms. A lot of these Cherry type mechanical keyswitches are the worst of both worlds.. long travel and a very hard/harsh stop at the bottom of the travel.
Both the modern MS and Apple keyboards are mostly fine and I've been feeling great for about 6 years now since ditching the mechanical key switches.
I think buckling spring might not cause me issues FWIW, but I tried a lot of mechanical KBs including TEK, Kinesis, different Das Keyboard models.. anything with a Cherry style switch (Actual Cherry MX or clones) gives me trouble.