Are Pre-lubed Keyboard Switches Good?
When you build your custom keyboard (or if you have a hot-swap board) choosing your switches and lubing them is the key to achieving a pleasant feel and sound to your keyboard. This is because lubing your switches will change their tone, in some cases making them sound deeper or quieter.
While that sounds good, having to spend 5-6 hours lubing your switches does not sound fun to many people so many keyboard builders are looking into factory-lubed/pre-lubed keyboard switches.
The Bad Reputation
The main reason why most hardcore keyboard enthusiasts don’t even glance at pre-lubed switches is because these have a bad reputation for being inconsistent. While hand lubing your switches you ensure the right amount of lube is placed in all the right places.
Letting a factory machine do that kind of delicate work instead produces quite a lot of skeptical remarks in the keyboard community. For a long time, this was quite true with pre-lubed switches being either under-lubed or over-lubed leading to subpar experiences.
The New Generation
While being aware of past mistakes is important, it is also quite important to look into the improvements switch manufacturers have made when it comes to factory lubing their switches. This is not to say that manually lubing your switches is dead, since nothing will quite be as consistent as that, but when you can get 90% of that experience from the factory a lot of keyboard builders will take the plunge.
The Crowd Favorites
To simplify your task I will give you a couple of recommendations for pre-lubed switches that the keyboard community has accepted as decent factory-lubed options. These will be in no particular order:
- Gateron Oil King
- C³EQUALZ Banana Split
- Gateron Yellow Milky Pro
- JWK Alpaca V2
- Wuque Onion/Morandi/Aurora
- Everglide Aqua King V3
There are a ton more options like the Akko line or the Epomaker line but these all come down to preferences and your budget. The more you try the better you will understand what kind of switches you like and how much money you are ready to spend on them.
TL;DR
Pre-lubed keyboard switches are becoming quite good with manufacturers getting better at applying the lube consistently for each switch. With 90% of the experience out of the box, for many factory-lubed switches will be a much better choice than spending a lot of time hand-lubing their switches.