Are Mechanical Keyboards Too Loud for Work?

Mechanical keyboards can play a great role in improving your workflow by providing a better typing experience that can also reduce the strain on your hands, but are they too loud for work? Let's talk about it.

In my previous article, we talked about how mechanical keyboards can be loud and different ways to lower the overall volume of your keyboard. While this definitely relates to that, a big factor is whether or not you work in the office or from home.

If you work in an office, I would definitely recommend not taking any chances of getting into trouble and just buying a silent switch as your default option, as normal switches can be too loud for most in a work environment.

For long typing sessions, tactile switches are your best bet as they offer a nice tactile bump that you can feel on each keypress, and thankfully for us, silent tactiles exist. My suggestion would be to check out the WS Silent Tactile Switches from Wuque Studios as it features the following specifications:

• Top Material: Nylon
• Bottom Material: Nylon
• Spring: 15mm / Single Stage
• Stem Material: POM
• Pins: 5 pins
• Travel: 3.50 ± 0.3mm
• Bottom-out: 63.5g

These switches feature a medium tactile bump and have a solid factory lube job so they can be used right out of the box. They also feature a silent stem, which is what gives them that quieter typing experience in the first place. If you don’t like feeling that tactile bump, then going with linear switches is still a great option to consider.

Just like in our previous article, the silent gecko linear switches are my go-to recommendation for linears, but they are out of stock at the moment of writing this article, so another solid option is the Chosfox Summer Lime Silent Switches that have the following specs:

• Top Material: P0K
• Bottom Material: PA mix with a large portion of GF C5
• Stem Material: POM + Custom silicone silencer
• Pins: 5 pins
• Pre-Travel: 1.2mm
• Total Travel: 3.6mm
• Actuation: 45g
• Bottom-out: 58g

While I may be slightly biased as the colorway is awesome, the switch performs very well and can be used not just for office work, but for gaming purposes as well since it features a lighter weight and faster actuation. The factory lube job is also solid which means they can just be used right out of the box with no modifications needed. These two switches are just my recommendations, but there are plenty of other options to choose from, so I recommend watching review videos on YouTube if possible before making any purchasing decisions.

If you work from home, these limitations may or may not apply to you, but if you want a muted-sounding switch that is not necessarily completely silent, I would recommend checking out the Kinetic Labs Moon V2s or the Vertex V One linear switch. Either of these features a more muted or softer-sounding keyboard while still having its own sound profile associated with it.

At the end of the day, I do think that your standard mechanical keyboard might be a bit too loud for an in-office work environment, so I would highly suggest only using silent switches for this specific situation. If you work from home and don’t have to worry about being too loud, then the sky is the limit!

In my previous article, we talked about how mechanical keyboards can be loud and different ways to lower the overall volume of your keyboard. While this definitely relates to that, a big factor is whether or not you work in the office or from home.

If you work in an office, I would definitely recommend not taking any chances of getting into trouble and just buying a silent switch as your default option, as normal switches can be too loud for most in a work environment.

For long typing sessions, tactile switches are your best bet as they offer a nice tactile bump that you can feel on each keypress, and thankfully for us, silent tactiles exist. My suggestion would be to check out the WS Silent Tactile switch from Wuque Studios as it features the following specifications:

• Top Material: Nylon
• Bottom Material: Nylon
• Spring: 15mm / Single Stage
• Stem Material: POM
• Pins: 5 pins
• Travel: 3.50 ± 0.3mm
• Bottom-out: 63.5g

These switches feature a medium tactile bump and have a solid factory lube job so they can be used right out of the box. They also feature a silent stem, which is what gives them that quieter typing experience in the first place. If you don’t like feeling that tactile bump, then going with linear switches is still a great option to consider.

Just like in our previous article, the silent gecko linear switches are my go-to recommendation for linears, but they are out of stock at the moment of writing this article, so another solid option is the Chosfox Summer Lime Silent switches that have the following specs:

• Top Material: P0K
• Bottom Material: PA mix with a large portion of GF C5
• Stem Material: POM + Custom silicone silencer
• Pins: 5 pins
• Pre-Travel: 1.2mm
• Total Travel: 3.6mm
• Actuation: 45g
• Bottom-out: 58g

While I may be slightly biased as the colorway is awesome, the switch performs very well and can be used not just for office work, but for gaming purposes as well since it features a lighter weight and faster actuation. The factory lube job is also solid which means they can just be used right out of the box with no modifications needed. These two switches are just my recommendations, but there are plenty of other options to choose from, so I recommend watching review videos on YouTube if possible before making any purchasing decisions.

If you work from home, these limitations may or may not apply to you, but if you want a muted-sounding switch that is not necessarily completely silent, I would recommend checking out the Kinetic Labs Moon V2s or the Vertex V One linear switch. Either of these features a more muted or softer-sounding keyboard while still having its own sound profile associated with it.

At the end of the day, I do think that your standard mechanical keyboard might be a bit too loud for an in-office work environment, so I would highly suggest only using silent switches for this specific situation. If you work from home and don’t have to worry about being too loud, then the sky is the limit!