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Comment by visarga | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering if sales of mechanical keyboards went up during the pandemic as everyone wfh.

The custom mechanical keyboard community has been slowly growing for years and at the high end figures probably weren't too impacted by WFH since the supply is as constrained as ever. The "good" stuff is run as group buys and typically sell out within minutes. Satisfaction75 had 1300 units available and sold out in just over 10 minutes, smaller runs like Iron 180 or Bauer 2 sold out in something like two minutes. Those examples are all from the fall.

And this is not a hobby for the impatient. Group buys take your money now, but often don't deliver for 6 - 12 months.

Some keyboards are unlimited (e.g., Grid 650), but that's typically not the norm.

Very true. One of the creators I interviewed - the Nemui - told me it took him about a year to create just the design. Figure in the prototyping, IC, and group buy stages, and then quality checks after the boards have been sent, then shipping them out, it can take 2-3 years from creation to completion (where the customer has it in their hands), and like you said 6-12+ months from ordering the board to having it as a customer.

But that's on the higher end, the "good" stuff. Lots of kits available now that can be assembled at home, or even pre-assembled.

Author here - I'm willing to bet online sales in general went up during the pandemic period. I can ask some of the guys I interviewed if they noticed any upticks in requests and can report back

so there has been an uptick in demand from the community. Covid has blown up the hobby in terms of size, as many more people have joined this year. and group buys are sold out in seconds (some to flip it for 300% the price, others who actually love/want the board)

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