published on July 16, 2024 in blog

Cherry Unveils Viola Mechanical Switch for Low-Cost Keyboards

Since their resurgance in the gaming market almost a decade ago, mechanical switch keyboards have become and have remained a popular item within the gaming market as well as the market for high-end keyobards in general. And it's easy to see why, as mechanical switches have many advantages compared to keyboards with rubber dome or membrane switches; however they have one major disadvantage, their high cost. Cherry, the company that commands a sizable share of the switches market, introduced its low-cost Viola switches at CES 2020 that promise to enable keyboards makers to build cbeaper mechanical keyboards.

The Cherry Viola is a brand-new switch with a spring and V-shape bronze contact system. The switch uses an industry standard cross-stem that is compatible with a wide array of keycaps, and is contained in a precisely-engineered housing made of a plastic polymer featuring eight pillars. The engineering tolerance for the new switch is less than 0.01 mm, which helps to ensure wobble free keystrokes, a solid feel, and better typing accuracy. The switch uses a POM-socket, so it is frame mounted and does not require soldering.

Cherry’s Viola switch resembles Cherry’s MX Red when it comes to a 2 mm actuation point, a 4 mm total travel distance, and a 45 cN actuation force. Cherry promisees that the switch will be ‘mechanical’ and ‘tactile’, but the company does not want to draw direct parallels with its MX-series due to obvious reasons.

Comparison of Mechanical Keyboard Switches
	Cherry Viola	Cherry MX Blue	Cherry MX Brown	Cherry MX Red	Cherry Silver	Razer Green
Actuation Point	2 mm	2.2 mm	2 mm	2 mm	1.2 mm	1.9 mm ± 0.4 mm
Actuation vs Reset Point	no data	no data	no data	no data	no data	0.4 mm
Total Travel	4 mm	4 mm	4 mm	4 mm	3.4 mm	4 mm
Actuation Force	45 cN	60 cN	55 cN	45 cN	45 cN	50 g
Actuation Feel	cross/linear	linear/tactile	linear/tactile	linear	linear	soft tactile
Switch Lifecycle	? million	50 million	50 million	50 million	50 million	60 million
Switch Color	white transparent	blue	brown	red	silver	green

The architecture of the Viola switch was engineered not only to reduce its costs, but also to decrease production costs for makers of keyboards. Furthermore, since Viola uses transparent plastic, the switch is fully compatible with SMD LEDs enabling manufacturers to build low-cost gaming keyboards with RGB backlighting.

At this time Cherry is not disclosing the cost of its Viola switch, but the company says that it expects the Viola to be a killer of rubber dome switches, which implies that it is rather cheap to make. Though ultimately the final price of keyboards are up to the manufacturers, so we'll find out the answer to the cost question in the coming quarters when the first products based on the Viola switch emerge on the market.