just in case you want to splurge, couple or pre-orders open now. ETA date who knows with the pandemic, prob summer 2021.
https://oblotzky.industries/products...kshake-edition - 220 eur
65% layout
smoothest linear switch you can find right out the box, factory lubed with the king of lubes, Krytox 205g0
hotswap pcb
quality cherry profile keycaps (these are nicer and a bit lower than OEM, which is what you find on 9x% of pre-builts)
pre installed thick silicone dampening pad that fills the inside completely (for removing echo and ping)
top stabilizers
compatible with QMK and VIA (best pieces of software for in depth macros and such)
seems expensive but it's not really for what it offers. if you were to build your own with the same parts, you'd end up spending about the same.
https://wooting.store/products/wooti...127.1604075139 - 180 eur
full size Hall Effect keyboard
contact-less switches, much like opticals, but these effectively have infinite reliability, they are approximated at hundreds of billions of actuations, rather than the pedestrian tens of millions that cherry mx and clones get rated for. they would likely take you 2000 years to start failing but nvm, they're cool
there's an assembly on the pcb and a magnet, together with another magnet in the switch. when these get closer to each other, i.e. you press a key, the sensor detects the increase in magnetism and registers a key press. magnets don't wear out, the sensor is solid state so that won't wear out, so these will basically last you and your next 20 generations (prob until someone spills a coke on the pcb and fries something)
they are incredibly smooth because they have no contact points, it's just a spring pushing a magnet down
they have analog capabilities, i.e. you can use your keyboard as a controller, for instance in driving games or you can bind multiple actions/macros on different stages of pressing a key down.
you can set your own actuation distance, can move it as high or low as you wish.
wooting has another optical keyboard capable of analog input, with the clever use of prisms to reflect the infrared light in different angles on a sensor, which in turn determines how far down you've pressed a key. however I do not recommend that one because of a glaring fault in the stems of their switches, they had to be made out of thin transparent plastic and so they constantly break.
they have good software with profiles for games and tons of guides on how to get stuff going. really cool company, they've built a whole community around them.
prob a TKL version of this in the future. I'm planning to get that one.