Analyzing and musings about Tesoro's Excalibur SE Spectrum- an optical sensor based keyboard

Anandtech has a really good review of Tesoro's latest keyboard.  Excalibur SE Spectrum uses optical key sensor design rather than the conventional mechanical contact sensor.  Since the review does an excellent job, I would concentrate on the more interesting aspect of the article, which is optical side of things.

As previously mentioned, optical sensor based key switches are the current frontiers in this business.  There are active work on advancing the technology rather in simple iteration approach that Cherry has been going through for sometimes.  It appears that Gateron is the supplier for the mechanical portions of the key switch.  Since it is designed to mimic the key action, the key switch itself is pretty much a standard mechanical switch, minus the electrical leaf contact (the moving piece that makes the electrical connection.)  What surprising that the optical device is mounted on the keyboard PCB rather integrated with the switch so that existing layout can be recycled.  Now, perhaps Gateron gave some steep discounts to drop the metal leaf part, moving the IR emitter/sensor to the circuit board does add some flexibility.  However, nothing is free; so, the added flexibility likely come at the cost.  The saving Gateron gave to Tesoro will now be spent on IR sensor and mounting it to the PCB.  So far, Tesoro is using this design to facilitate switch swap.  However, the same thing can be achieved using conventional Cherry MX type as well.

At this time, I don't see any distinct advantage of the optical sensor versus a mechanical sensor for an "on/off" device such as a simple keyboard switch.  Sure, I am sure in certain applications or use case, it is meaningful.  However, ordinary users like me, there's no compelling reasons yet.  To duplicate that mechanical feeling, the key switch design still has to rely on some simple mechanical machine.  Now, not having to worry about making the electrical connection part certainly does free the designers to make something more interesting.  I don't know if we are there yet.  So, the optical system's focus ought to be in the analog function and finding novel ways to use that.

What Tesoro did was cool, but we haven't move up sort of speak.  It's just making player substitutions at this point.  However, I am sure the Tesoro has something interesting up in its sleeves.  Can't wait to see what the next version of this keyboard is going to be.

Yeah, Topre wins this round…. for now....

As much as I hate to admit it, I have come to love Topre switch based keyboard.  That means a lot of money sunk into a keyboard that’s close to a rubber dome, rather than a true mechanical switch keyboard such as the Cherry MX.  I really enjoy using Cherry MX based keyboard as well.  I love both the MX Brown and MX blue.  I most certainly enjoy my time with the buckling spring.  It’s so much fun to drive a few people nuts with that board.  Sometimes….  So, I am not that picky to be honest.  Then again, please no variable force keyboards please.  I simply cannot abide by that.  It was an interesting experiment and somewhat tainted my views of Topre switch for quite some time.

The one thing I truly value in a Topre switch is the smoothness.  It’s something that Topre has perfected and hard to put a finger on it.  Pun intended.  However, I am beginning to hear good things about Gateron.  Yes, Gateron is one of the many Cherry MX cloners, but it seems to begin to claim a certain personality of its own: smoothness.  Perhaps it was choices of plastic and/or slight different position of actuation and hysteresis make it appear to do so.  I don’t know.  However, I am now quite eager to evaluate a Gateron based switch keyboard and see what happens.  If it does have that prized smoothness that I found Topre to be so endearing, then it would be an excellent and economical choice.  Stay tuned.