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Comment by nousermane | Hacker News Reader

> 315 million times. That's an order of magnitude higher than we typically test fatigue resistance

Nah, it's not that bad. Decent mechanical keyboard switch is specified for 100 million clicks [1, or google for "switch million actuations"]. Surely good engineering can eek out another order of magnitude. Not to mention - pacemaker leads ("wires"), the only part that bends, have way less stress on them (= larger bend radius) compared to a keyboard switch. Oh, and technology of multi-strand wire for redundancy is a very well established and understood one.

[1] https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/4974/EN_CHERRY_M...

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You're not counting failure rate over time. How many people actually click a key 100M clicks? What does the bathtub curve look like? What's the failure rates at 1,10,100,200M clicks?

I'm going to assume those failure numbers are far higher than you'd want for something keeping you alive.

Seen way too many failed Cherry MX (OG, vintage and third-party) switches to believe that.

I've had Cherry switches fail right as the keyboard's warranty was up. The switch feels soft after wearing out, it gets dust in it and starts double typing, etc. Pacemakers need to be 100% reliable, not 99.9%.

The absolutely arrogance to assume a keyboard switch and a pace maker are anywhere near the same thing…

Indeed, the keyboard switch people have to produce a device that's manufacturable at scale for pennies per unit, and can be fitted in unforgiving environments by the untrained.

How is that comparable to a pacemaker in any way? They aren't made for a similar scale, price, or 'environment', and would only be installed/serviced/dealt with at all by anyone aside from highly trained specialists.

Intentions aside, I read it as a very narrow comparison of the relative durability - I'm guessing they weren't trying to devalue pacemaker engineering.

They also make a product that, when it fails, doesn’t generally kill anyone.

non-comparable operating environments

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