Summary
Mechanical keyboard switches are clicky and pleasing to the ear, but you can only hear them if you’re using the keyboard. These little, super cheap fidget toys solve that problem.
Playing with clicky things calms my mind—it sounds nice and gives my hands something to do while focusing on something else. I used to do this with retractable pens (back in the days when we needed to handwrite essays), much to the dismay of my classmates.
But now,mechanical keyboardsand switches achieve the same effect. The clickiness and sounds the mechanical switches make are pleasing to hear, and the ways that different switches will have different feels and ‘clicks’ make them even more satisfying.
But there are a few downsides when you view mechanical keyboards in this light. First off, you can’t just play with them idly while sitting around—you only get to enjoy the clicks and thocks when typing, which implies I’m not thinking about how to tackle a task and actually doing the task. Generally, if I’m playing with a fidget toy, I’m doing the former.
Second, you will usually only have one type of switch in your board at any given time, so if you want to enjoy something different, you’ll have to grab another one of your keyboards, or if you only have one, swap out the switches entirely.
When randomly browsing Amazon, however, I found an unlikely yet perfect solution.
Taiyin Mechanical Keyboard Switch Keychain
These cute keychains allow you to swap the default keyboard switch with any other one, making it so you can have a variety of clicky fidget toys available at your fingertips.
Easy to Swap and Replace
These little toys are ingenious. While I initially assumed I could only use whatever keyboard switch was already installed in them, I quickly found out that you can pull them out and swap in other switches without damaging either. Upon learning that, I got to work.
I pulled out everykey switch setI owned, grabbed one of each, and replaced the blue switches in the toys with them. Now, instead of six keychains with the same feel, I had four that all felt different. Whenever I needed a fidget toy, I pulled one out and started clicking on it, and if it wasn’t the ‘feel’ I was looking for, I’d try another one.
Every time I got a new keycap set, I’d put one of them into a keychain. If one of the switches is defective, I can put the broken one into the keychain—since the base itself is a simple cube, you don’t need the leaves to fit to pop it in. These little novelties can make even switches you would typically toss or need to try and fix still useful.
Now, I have seven unique mechanical switch keychains, and as I try out new switches, I’ll have even more to add to my collection. I won’t even have to guess which toy has which switch, either, since the base is transparent.
If you want to take things even further, you’re able to even pick up aswitch tester sample packto get a huge variety of new switches to swap in. I might do that myself soon—and who knows, maybe I’ll find a new favorite switch set after trying them out.
Impulse Buy Price
The best thing about these fidget toys? They are dirt-cheap (in a good way). At the highest price, you’ll be paying $10 for a pack of six, and depending on the color scheme and possible discounts, you can even pay a dollar or two less. Even if you end up not using them and they sit in a drawer somewhere, you’ll still have paid less than a takeout meal for the whole set.
Also, if you’re reading this, you likely have another tech geek or two in your life, so you may even use these as a fun surprise gift. You can pop your own switches in for them, or let them customize their own set, but either way, for $10, even a few moments of playing around with these little keychains are worth the price.
