Back around 2000 we had numerous force feedback joysticks, mice and steering wheels on the market, but only the steering wheels survived due to having a niche with sim racing. Joystick disappeared largely due to games switching to gamepads. Not quite sure why nobody ever tried to replicate the Logitech iFeel mice, that seems like a simple and cheap enough feature add into any mouse, especially these days with phone rumble motors being available for pennies. I quite liked the way the Nintendo Wii would give little haptics clicks when you moved the cursor over clickable UI elements, I'd imagine iFeel was similar, never tried it myself back then.

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, thanks for sharing!

This knob would be nice as an alternative "zoom in/out" knob for users of Wacom tablets, since you don't have the scroll wheel of a mouse.

The "mechanical keyboard" label is mostly arbitrary. Only somewhat reliable definition that matches with how it's widely used in context of keyboards that I can think of is "everything except, rubber dome, touchscreen and capacitive button keyboards (the ones without any moving parts, not the ones where keycap+spring moves one of capacitive surfaces)". Any attempts at defining it based on meaningful physical construction element or property will likely result in rubber dome keyboards classified as mechanical or some of the switches in "mechanical keyboards" as not mechanical.

According to your definition about point where force decreases -> half the mx keyboard switches are not mechanical because they are not clicky and have linear force curve without buckling point, but the rubber dome keyboards are "mechanical" because they have a point where dome buckles and force decreases.

If you look at the nature how the electrical contact or signal is made. Again rubber dome keyboard actually mechanically connect and disconnect the electrical contacts. But the few commercial "mechanical keyboards" using optical or magnetic switches which from the mechanical construction is almost identical to "real mechanical keyboards" would fall on the other side of split.

That said there is some use in classification of switches outside the context of keyboards based on whether they have any moving mechanical parts, or whether they contacts which get connected/disconnected during use and could increase resistance over time or spark in case of higher voltages and currents have their use in certain situations.

I use Cherry MX blacks, they also have no click (just like Silver, Red).

The advantage of auch a thing is that you can type them silent if you like. More silent than a typical laptop keyboard in fact. Being someone who does audio recording a lot this was the selling factor for me.

The lack of click is actually quite fine, I have no problems with it. You still have the spring you push down, so gaining a feeling for "when you hit it" is not that hard.

> It's not a mechanical keyboard switch, anyway. There's nothing to click. No moment when the force required decreases.

What you describe is called “tactility” and there is another DIY magnetic switch design that offers it, using three magnets instead of two:

https://hackaday.com/2022/01/17/3d-printed-magnetic-switches...