How Long Do Mechanical Keyboards Last and Why?
There is no single peripheral on a gamer’s table that takes as much of a beating as their keyboard. Although angrily typing away can shorten the lifespan of your keyboard if you have Shrek fingers, in reality, mechanical keyboards tend to last for quite a long time.
There are quite a few reasons for this conclusion so hear us out.
The Mechanical Switches
It might sound self-explanatory but the main reason that mechanical keyboards can take a beating is the simple fact that they use mechanical switches instead of membranes or other types of cheaper actuation mechanisms.
Unlike cheap keyboards, mechanical keyboards have a dedicated mechanical switch for each key so if one key breaks the rest of the keyboard works without issues. Mechanical switches are also durable being rated around 50 million keystrokes making it incredibly hard to wear down a switch the same way you would wear down a membrane keyboard.
If one or more of your mechanical switches is broken there are also simple ways of fixing this issue. If you own a hot-swap keyboard, that allows you to simply pull out your old faulty switch and all you have to do is plug in a new one and you are good to go.
You can potentially also fix the old switch by opening it up and inspecting the mechanism for faulty parts so you do not have to spend money on a new pack of switches.
If your keyboard is not hot-swappable then you will need to de-solder the old switch and solder a new one in, which makes the process a bit more tedious but still offers incredible repairability and allows you to use the same keyboard for ages.
The Modularity of the Parts
As you have seen mechanical switches are quite modular and can be easily replaced in a mechanical keyboard. The good news is that most of the other parts follow the same philosophy making mechanical keyboards pretty hard to kill off.
If you built your own keyboard you might have noticed that assembling the final product feels a lot like playing with Legos so if something does indeed happen to your mechanical board you can simply plug out the faulty bit and find a replacement.
Is the cable broken? Most keyboards nowadays come with removable cables so simply find a different USB Type-C cable. Are the keycaps getting dirty? Remove them from the switches and either wipe the old ones or buy a new set of keycaps.
Did your keyboard case crack? You can order a replacement case made out of different materials giving you the feel and look of a brand new keyboard altogether. In the end, every single part of your mechanical keyboard can be taken apart and cleaned or fixed with very little technical knowledge about the process.
This simple fact allows mechanical keyboards to live for 5-10 years without any issues and if maintained well it can keep on going for many more years to come. So in the end the question of how long can a mechanical keyboard last depends on how well you clean it, but without any maintenance 5-10 years should be no problem for any modern mechanical board.