Ever since I was lucky enough to get to debut these switches in my Chicago meetup panel titled ‘The Untold Stories of Unsold Switches’ I knew for a fact that I wanted to write a full length review for them. Well, that time has come! This week I take a deep dive not only into the Invokeys Hojicha Reserve switches, but also the deep development and prototyping process that brought these gold flake embedded switches to us today…
As always, thank you all for the continued support and readership week in and out. This review was a particularly long and difficult one to write for various technical issues but knowing that you all would really like seeing the prototype phases that went into these switches made it easier to stick through it all.
Awesome review as always Goat! Glad I read this one too! I had already written off Invokeys Reserve switches because I saw the Matcha Reserve has only 3.3mm total travel. Which is much to short for my liking & I had incorrectly assumed the other switches would feature similarly short travel. However after reading your review these Hojicha Reserves seem like a tactile switch that could be right up my alley. Gonna have to grab a batch when I get the chance!
These seem like switches I’d enjoy; I like the style and always appreciate low wobble. Great comparisons as always!
Oh man, Fantastic Planet - I have the DVD and just watched it again the other day. Not too many films like that… I first saw it as a kid and it stuck with me.
I bought 6 packs of them (108 total) and just played around with them in the hand for now, but initial impressions are positive. Its quite smooth out the hand but I also think that they have more of a heavier lubed feel as Theremingoat notes, and this causes it to have a bump where I can’t feel the downslope quite as distinctly for the snap feel. There isn’t a lot of lube but they lube all the important contact points on the stem, and the rails have a thin coat. I tried using a dry brush to distribute existing lube which improved the distinctiveness of the bump, and a light 3203 coat improved this further.
I’m planning on swapping the springs out with 18mm 60g ones but out of the box I think these are perfectly reasonable to use stock.
I recently mounted the sister linear switch (Matcha Reserve) on a keyboard and I concur, they feel really good out of the box, the factory lube is satisfying (for a linear) and sound is right in the average. They are really tight too. A kind of modern “go anywhere” switch.
So I’ve been typing on this for the better part of two days and I have some more impressions. These have stock springs with a light coating of 3203 on the stem, some very light coatings added to the rails as well. For context, some of my favourite switches are Durock Blue Lotus, T1, Sunflowers, Ergo Clears, all with 60g 18mm springs. I generally prefer switches that have a very mild amount of pre-travel and a medium-large sized bump that allows me to feel the ramp up - peak - downslope of the bump.
Compared to T1s, these have less pre-travel and a less intense peak bump, with a slightly more drawn out sensation because of the decreased peak. The peak force is well matched to the bottom out force of the spring, allowing you to bottom out gently without slamming down as you bottom out. But because of the lower peak force and pre-travel, the snap/sharpness of the bump is less defined and as a result I don’t quite type ‘on the bump’ of the switch as much. The spring contributes a lot to the drop sensation compared to the bump, so I don’t really recommend spring swapping or the snappiness of the bump will be neutered. I placed one of these stems into the T1 housing and had approximately the same bump as T1 stems in T1 housings so to me most of the low pre-travel bump comes from the leaf design on the Hojichas.
I said earlier that I think these switches are really good as stock switches and I’d have to say that’s still the case. The bump profile isn’t quite my absolute favourite but as a system when considering the stem shape, leaf strength, spring choice and switch materials, its a quite good switch.
I would recommend that if you get a chance though to clean up the lube on the stem if you can. At least 30% of the switches that I opened had lube on the legs that was this amount if not more, which made the bump distinctiveness really weak.
These are really good switches. For my personal preference I think I still prefer Blue Lotus/T1 bump shape, but these switches are a really good option for an all in one switch with no fussing required.
I’m about to list mine for sale if anyone watching this thread is interested and wants to DM me. Selling for retail. They sound nice; however, the spring isn’t to my liking, and I don’t feel like spring swapping them.
