Key Mechanism

Svalboard keys are unique. They are perfectly light, perfectly tactile magneto-optical keys.

Unlike traditional keyboard key switches that rely on springs and lube, Svalboard keys use a small magnet (shown as a blue cylinders below). This allows each key to be dropped into a cluster base (shown in white) and be held in place by a matching magnet (shown as a red cylinder). During the 3D printing process the offset between these two magnets (and the magnets' strength) can be used to adjust the force required to activate a key. An activation is detected when your key press breaks the magnetic forces holding the key in place. This breakaway gives you very satisfying tactile feedback while a small flag on the key moves to activate an optical sensor inside the cluster base. When you release the key the magnetic forces snap the key back into position. Take a look inside a Svalboard key cluster to see how keys are dropped in and activated...

Each center key is surrounded by four vertical keys immediately next to your fingertips. This results in approximately a 90% reduction in movement versus traditional keyboards.

But there are two components of effort in typing. The first is the motion to get to the key, and the second is the effort required to actuate the key.

Key Force Profile

Svalboard keys offer a completely different force profile than traditional key switches, be they linear, tactile, or anything else.

What's less obvious is how the forces on Svalboard and the actual effort of pressing keys differs from traditional keyboards. Many people suffering from RSI today have moved towards ergonomic split keyboards with “light” keys.

Compared to the original ANSI spec of ~60 grams, the “light” ~40g switches available on kinesis advantage and other such devices are indeed light… historically speaking anyway. And if you have the right board, like a Glove80, you can even get 20-25g Choc switches.

But they’re still a lot of work, and they can still cause injury. We have customers who come from Ergodox keyboards with custom sprung and custom lubed 15 gram linear switches. These are people who have literally disassembled, changed springs, custom-lubed and reassembled every single switch on their own keyboards in search of comfort.

And it's hard to find switches this light with any kind of tactility because of the mechanical constraints of the switch design.

Enter the Svalboard key mechanism* — with magnets acting as the spring, the force profile is decidedly nonlinear, following an inverse-square function. And the total work is the area underneath that precipitously dropping curve.

Here’s a rough comparison of the well-known Cherry MX Red a typical 45g gaming key switch with the Svalboard key profile.

Remember that the actual effort required to press the switch is the integral of the force throughout the stroke, not just the force to actuate. It’s not just that typical switches are two or even three times heavier to actuate. It’s the area under the curve.

Linear switches have you pressing that 45g for the whole stroke until they bottom out, usually increasing slightly in force throughout. Tactile switches have some degrees of buildup and breakaway, but it’s very modest and the overall force remains quite high throughout the stroke.

Svalboard switches have no movement until the nominal 20g breakaway force, and then fall off with distance ~1/x^2. So the breakaway is precipitous and incredibly tactile.

100% tactility means no chasing to the bottom of the keystroke looking for certainty, and no pounding.

And the tactility means that instead of a mushy, uncertain key that is easily mis-triggered, you can actually rest against a 20g Svalboard key comfortably. Most people can’t even rest their fingers on a 25g Choc switch without getting accidental keypresses.

So the total work for a key activation is about 90% less than a typical key switch, and still significantly less than even a custom-lubed linear 15g key switch due to the breakaway force profile.

*The Svalboard key mechanism is an evolution of the mechanism used on the DataHand and Lalboard keyboards.