The clones’ war

Cherry MX switches are the most popular mechanical keyboard switches.  There’s very little doubt about that.  However, being popular does bring its own set of issues as I noted before: unwanted attention.  This time, from the cloners.  Indeed, an interesting thing that’s happening in the main stream and lower tier market segments is the move to Cherry MX clones and away from genuine Cherry switches.  The price range from $50 to$90 USD boards are now dominated by Cherry clone switches.

I have no doubt that Cherry MX clones are of decent quality.  It’s foolish to underestimate China’s manufacturing prowess and does it well cheaply.  So, a Kailh or a Gateron or other cloners’ switch might not have the coveted Cherry logo.  Never the less the quality doesn’t suffer much, at least from what I have been hearing.  I think any respectable cloner would like to put a little bit of their spin or perceived improvements into the product to differentiate themselves from the myriad of other cloners.  So, these clone switches aren’t exact copy just like the original Cherry.  Often many reviewers detect hints of differences perhaps due to slight design change here and there.  The only consistent issue that comes up is the consistency of the switch feel across the keyboard.  Now, there are several factors that could influence this.  However, the manufacturing tolerance of the switch is a major one.  Therefore, I think people tend to veer back to the Cherry MX switches based boards after a while because the price difference is just not wide enough yet to justify a perceived difference.  It also appears that Cherry is ramping up production to meet demand and is starting to take the cloners more seriously.  After all, Cherry can no longer use patent rights to deter copies from flooding the market.

In any case, I think this should be another interesting space to watch.  Often cloners tend to begin a war of attrition for race to the bottom because it doesn’t have a brand recognition.  Only the fittest survive as keyboard switches are treated as commodity item that are sold cents per unit.  Of course, the other way is to branch out and strike out a path on its own.  From the look of it, Gateron and Kailh are starting to look into beating Cherry at its own game: innovation.  Also, given the durability of these switches, I doubt there will be some sort of massive upgrade cycle coming soon unless there’s some major breakthrough.  So, there’s a huge incentive to move the ball forward in order to drive sales.  Man, things are just getting more interesting these days.