Gateron Lanes Switch Review

Oh man, it’s great to be back on the writing horse. Or since I am the one doing the writing, does that make me the horse that it’s good to get back onto? While you all were hopefully enjoying the last few weeks of slim updates from me and finally getting around to reading all of my switch reviews that you’ve previously only glossed over in past weeks, I was doing seemingly everything but working with keyboard switches. Over the course of the past two weeks I’ve upended what feels like my entire life by packing it all up, moving it down the road about an hour into a new home, and then unpacking it all once again. I’m thankful to say that that process has been complete and I now have plenty of room to buy even more things to expand into the rest of my newly acquired space – both house and writing office. With significantly more storage space and room to spread everything out in the office, I’m really hoping that the ever expanding number of switches I’ve catalogued will not fill up the room quite as fast as the last place, but then again that’s entirely outside of my control. In the meantime, though, everything is here and in it’s rightful place. And yet despite all of the artisans, packaging, and switches I’ve accumulated over the last few years being here beside me as I start out writing this review, I can’t help but feel a tiny bit unproven and green in this moment. (The new kind, not the envious kind.) Sure, last weekend’s Scorecard Sunday went over well and the last few social media posts looked great, but sitting here and actually writing out a full length review is always the real, true test of how things are for me. Even after having written reviews from Minnesota to Kentucky, and everywhere in between from professional grade research labs to broom closets at state fairs, I can’t help but feel some palpable anxiety in writing this review here in this new backdrop. Some of these nerves I can tell are coming from trying to continue an over half-decade long ritual of mine in yet another new and unfamiliar place, though an equally as large part of it has come about specifically because of these switches. One could easily make the argument that both reviews from last month in the Keygeek Y2s and Novelkeys Classic Blues were incredibly rich in their details and backstories, and yet I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel as if the Gateron Lanes and their story is just bigger. More imposing, even. The fact that I’ve watched what I think is three separate rounds of these switches sell out nearly instantly on various storefronts in the past few weeks to the point that even I struggled to get a set for reviewing only further nails home this anxiety for me. Whenever switches like these get to be this big and this quickly swept off the shelves, I feel a pretty strong pressure to make the reviews about them equally as big and showstopping, even when I am not the first to get my hands on them or to get my review out. Luckily for you all there were a lot of details for me to sweat out on this one, so hopefully it was worth all of the stress.

Figure 1: Feel free to imagine this is me and Mrs. Goat as of a few weeks ago. It's not, but feel free to, nonetheless.

Switch Background

If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of hunting for a house in the US before, let me tell you that it is about as all-consuming of a process as you could possibly anticipate, and then some. This is even more so true in a seller’s market like where I am at now as houses will be listed and sold within literal hours of being posted for sale. I’d taking breaking everything down into boxes, moving, and then unpacking and setting everything up all over again over nearly anything I dealt with during the searching process. Asa result of this occupying what felt like the entirety of my existence over the past few months, Lanes just kind of seemingly popped up out of nowhere on me. I actually first head about them and their existence as late as the last weekend of July 2025 in a follow up conversation with Bowl, the eponymous owner of Bowl Keyboards, following Chicago’s ‘That Windy City Keeb Meetup’ we both attended a couple of weeks prior. Despite both of us having been present and in the same room for nearly eight full hours, I somehow completely avoided actually talking to Bowl and his team even after stopping by their table and having a brief and silent moment of appreciation for both their switch packaging and the select range of switches that they were selling there. Reaching out afterwards to congratulate them on their success and to point out this appreciation for their switches that I clearly only said inside of my own head, we started a conversation about switches that lasted way longer than anything we could have reasonably sustained at a meetup. Towards the end of that conversation, though, Bowl had remembered my complete lack of social graces and then proceeded to twist the knife a little bit by saying “I wish I had gotten to show you the sample of some new Gateron’s we’re working with that are similar to Orange Alps. I don’t know if you’re an Alps fan, but we modified the Gateron Melodics to make them tactile by changing the molds of the top housings while still using the same ‘click’ mechanism.” I was kicking myself even more by this point for not having said something at the meetup. Following my obvious enthusiastic reaction, we talked a fair bit more about these new switches before parting ways and I felt simultaneously very excited for these switches and a bit less mad at myself since I now knew about these new, upcoming switches. After all, it always feel cool to be on the receiving end of top secret insider information from vendors that gives me a peak behind the curtain. This swagger wore off nearly instantaneously after having clicked out of our conversation and into the SwitchModders server as a new “Lanes” switch was being openly talked about nearly identically to what Bowl had described to me. And then I saw similar conversations in the 40’s server, and Bowl’s server, and then basically every other switch server I clicked in after that. Everywhere I was looking Gateron Lanes had been being discussed – not just for days, but for weeks, and even sometimes months in some places. This wasn’t some Truman Show short of moment where everyone in these Discord servers could hear all the thoughts in my head, nor was it Bowl just being a really likeable guy that talks to every single person in the hobby, it was because the idea behind the Gateron Lanes switches was public from its very inception.

Figure 2: I mean it is pretty clean packaging if you ask me...

Not even a year ago on December 3rd, 2024, a fairly fresh Geekhack user by the name of Lanes posted a little read topic in the ‘Making Stuff Together’ section bemoaning a lack of recent innovation in MX-footprint tactile switches. Citing perceived similarities in feeling between the recent click leaf based Gateron Melodic switches and the feeling of original Alps SKCM Orange switches, this user pretty pointedly asked the question as to why almost nobody had yet made an MX-footprint switch with a “usable” tactile leaf. (“Usable” being a very key word here as Lanes had stated that the Zeal 3-in-1 Clickiez switches, which did have both a tactile mode and leaf-based mechanism in the MX footprint, were “nearly unusable for extended periods of time… and fatiguing to type on…”) While this question garnered only a couple of responses initially, it was clearly far from just an offhand, passing question that Lanes had tossed out there. Speaking with Lanes in preparation for this review, I was informed that this question was actually driven out of a very deep interest in and previous exploration of Alps SKCM Orange, Alps SKCM White, and SMK Gen 2 keyboard switches. After having built and used over a dozen different boards with these various switches in them in the time leading up to this question, he had been wondering throughout the months preceding his post if anything of the sort could truly exist in the MX footprint in a less aggressive fashion than Clickiez. While Gateron Melodics were impressive to him when they were first released a year prior in December of 2023, and enough so that he still claims to this day that they’re the best current clicky switch on the market as of the time of writing this review, they were ultimately clicky and not the tactile-only feeling and sound that he was seeking out. Sometime between December 3rd, when he first posted his question, and the tail end of holiday break on the 31st, Lanes was working on modifying and improving a pretty beat up set of Alps SKCM Orange switches when he recalled the existence of the ‘paper mod’ used throughout the years to touch up old Alps switches. This rather old modification, as demonstrated here in this partial video by Chyrosran, was done by sliding a semi-rigid piece of cardstock between the leaves and outer housings of Alps to help silence old tactile Alps leaves which had become inadvertently clicky over the years. After having complete it for the particular handful of switches which were treating him poorly at the time, it occurred to him that a similar thing could probably be done with Gateron Melodics as well. Not finding any initial success with the same paper cardstock that was working for his Alps switches, he eventually cut up pieces of poron switch pads that were lying around and jammed them into a similar location in the Melodics between the backside of the click leaf and the housing. Finding immediate success with this idea, he then posted an update to his original Geekhack thread. After showing off this invention in a step by step fashion that you’d imagine would be the start of the rest of this story in this background here. However, the current state of Geekhack in 2025 meant that this ride for the Lanes switches very nearly suffered a quick and early end right there in that very post.

Figure 3: Lanes' initial post on Geekhack that led to the creation of the Gateron Lanes switches.

Figure 4: Photo of Lanes' update from the end of December showing how he used poron strips to mod the Gateron Melodic switches into pseudo-tactiles.

Only a few short weeks later on January 16th, 2025, Manu – who works for Delta Key Co – was talking in the general channel of Alexotos’ keyboard Discord about seeking out a new manufacturer to get some tactile switches made. Not just wanting any set of tactiles, though, Manu was on the hunt to find someone who could specifically make “[Zeal] Clickiez but cheaper and improved.” Serendipitously, Lanes was not only present in the channel at the same time that Manu was asking these questions, but freshly off of posting his updated idea on how to make just that sort of thing happen in Gateron Melodic switches. Expressing interest in the idea when Lanes had pointed out to Manu that he had already solved this very problem and would be willing to share his idea with him, Manu asked Lanes to ship his initial prototypes he had made to the more local Bowl Keyboards and then only minutes later stated that he’d begin reaching out to Gateron to potentially work on prototyping them into a real product if Bowl confirmed they were as good as Lanes had suggested. And the rest was effectively history from this point on. Following this public announcement of a project being formed, discussions quickly started behind the scenes with Manu, Bowl, and Lanes scrambling to generate ideas on how Gateron could effectively make a non-frankenswitched version of the poron gasket bound Melodics that Lanes had came up with. What came out through the next few weeks of brainstorming was a concept similar to that of Gateron Deeppings and would see a Melodic-style switch be made by Gateron with a hole cut out in the front of the bottom housings for a small plastic injection molded piece to be squeezed through the housings in front of the click leaves to act as a permanent pseudo-paper modded tactile switch. However, when Gateron quoted the efforts that would be required to make such a switch, they effectively simultaneously shot it down altogether in pointing out that not only multiple new molds would be made to make these switches, but that new machines to inject the injection molded ‘dampening pads’ at this angle would also have to be developed as well – something which was beyond too expensive for even the team of Manu, Bowl, and Lanes. (This ‘too expensive’ idea is elsewhere quoted by Kairi – another person who was present and active in Alexotos’ channel at the time of inception of the Lanes switches – as Lanes stating that Gateron would require an MOQ in excess of 200,000 switches in order to get the costing down to even $0.70 per switch.) After having slept on the rejection a bit, Lanes then came up with another way to much more easily and efficiently achieve the same result: rather than using injected squishy pads, instead have a small outcropping extend down from the top housings and ‘wedge’ itself behind the click leaves of Gateron Melodics instead. Not only did this idea make the production of Lanes switches much more feasible by dropping the R&D load down to developing only one new mold part with barely changed geometries, it also ultimately resulted in an MOQ and pricing from Gateron that the team found acceptable. In only a few short months since following trio luckily all collided with each other in the same part of the town square, they had an agreement with Gateron to start producing a tactile leaf based MX switch – the Gateron Lanes.

Figure 5: Hunt for “cheaper and improved” Clickiez switches begin by Manu in the Alexotos Discord server…

Figure 6: ... and is just as quickly ended up by the appearance of Lanes.

Figure 7: Bonus image from the initial discussion of Gateron Lanes switches in which they were formally named by Manu.

Figure 8: Product render showing the original Gateron Melodic housing design (Left) and the alternative idea that became Gateron Lanes concocted by Lanes to have the top housings wedge behind the click leaf to act like a paper mod (Right).

While the explicit timeline underpinning the development of the Lanes switches beyond their initial “public launch” in mid-January of 2025 is a bit foggy with respect to the details, it’s beyond clear that the development cycle for these switches was fast. Unconventionally fast by all modern switch standards, even. Reminding ourselves that the idea for these switches was literally posted in the waning hours of 2024, the team of Manu, Bowl, and Lanes had these switches through multiple rounds of ideation and prototyping phases and into full scale production with one of the largest switch manufacturers by just mid-June of 2025 according to updates from Bowl’s Discord server. With really only one quality control issue being found in mid-July of 2025 slowing them down for 3-4 weeks while Gateron fixed the issues, the Lanes switches were in the hands of numerous vendors as of August 14th and listed for the first rounds of sales the very next day at $0.63 per switch – only to be sold out, at least on Bowl’s website, within an hour. A self-modified switch concept to a full scale production and initial sell out in eight months is not only astounding at any point in time in mechanical keyboard switch history, but something even more so from a large manufacturer like Gateron in 2025. The timeline and sell out periods for all other vendors supporting the lanes switches was equally as fast, with Delta Key Co, Swagkeys, Keybay, and others receiving, listing, and selling out their Lanes switches with whiplash like speeds in the closing weeks of August. Some of them have even since sold out second and even third rounds of restocks of these switches leaving them effectively largely unavailable for the majority of time that they’ve been available. In fact the rate of sales for these switches was so fast through Bowl’s server that I had actually missed my chance to buy them because I was actively packing up my switch collection and I had to get a set flown in from Keybay in Canada for this review under direct threat of tariffs crossing the border into the US. And so while these switches are effectively as hard to get as peak COVID-19 toilet paper, I suspect that they will continue to be restocked, sold out, and a restocked yet again many more times in the coming months and well into 2026. While I did not directly ask Bowl, Manu, nor Lanes directly about what their explicit plans for the future of the Gateron Lanes were, I suspect that the community will continue to demand them for quite some time into the future irrespective of their wishes.

Lanes Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Gateron Lanes switches come with flat gold stems in deep navy blue housings that remind me of absolutely nothing in particular at all. While this is definitely a unique color scheme among all of the switches that I’ve collected to date, and it does come across as nearly dark grey/black with gaunt yellow stems in the low lighting of my writing office, I genuinely can’t think of any real world connection to this specific color scheme. Luckily for me, though, I don’t have to creatively dream up one as Lanes shared that they are technically both incomplete in color and based on something in the real world that is close to his heart. (As if having a switch named after your username and directly designed by your switch modifying attempts wasn’t personal enough!) Inspired by his time growing up near the then home of the Florida Panthers NHL team at Bank Atlantic Center, his color palette of choice for his first switches were actually the deep navy blue, flat gold, and red accents of the Panthers’ home jerseys. While ultimately he decided not to go with the red top housings that the switches were initially designed to have due to fears that they were too close in appearance to that of Gateron Quinns, he was still happy enough with just the present color scheme as is to move forward with it. As was discussed in the background section above, the colors are not the only things that are different about the Gateron Lanes switches and there is at least one detail of note in the top housings worth looking at below. A breakdown of each of the components of these switches, as well as their interesting sub-part details, may be found in the following paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 9: I hate to be that guy, but those red accents really do make these a complete color scheme...

Figure 10: Admittedly, though, I can see how these switches might look like Gateron Quinns if a red color for the top housings was chosen. (Note that this image is from Kinetic Labs as somehow I haven't bought these for the collection yet.)

Figure 11: Gateron Lanes switches and their components.

Looking first to the deep navy blue polycarbonate top housings of the Gateron Lanes switches, we find them to be initially identical looking to that of the Gateron Melodic switches released almost two years ago before them. In addition to the inverted ‘GATERON’ nameplate which is incredibly common among premium Gateron-made switches since the debut of the Oil Kings back in December of 2021, these also feature the same fully covered half height LED diffuser bubbles as the Melodics which hide a key feature for their leaf mechanisms inside of it. Internally, the housings also appear incredibly similar to that of the Melodics, featuring single capital letter mold markings in the upper left- and right- hand corners underneath the name plate region, a filled LED diffuser, and a small outcropping on the right hand side of the housing which sits directly over top of the leaf mechanism in the bottom housings. Unlike this outcropping in the Melodics, though, the ones present in the Lanes feature a slightly more pronounced tab that juts out perpendicular from the housing and is made to wedge between the backside of the click leaves and the housing itself to produce a more ‘tactile’ feeling than a clicky one. Beyond this one little feature that separates the Melodics from the Lanes, though, the only other thing which is worth noting here is that the fully opaque top housings of the Lanes appear shiny and smooth on all of their flat surfaces whereas the bottom housings below are more matte and flat in appearance. While I’m not entirely certain if this is the case, my suspicion is that this is a combination of the material choice and molds used to make these top housings which are both clearly different than the bottom housings.

Figure 12: Gateron Lanes top housing exterior showing inverted 'GATERON' nameplate and opaque LED diffuser bubble that matches Gateron Melodics.

Figure 13: Gateron Lanes top housing interior showing single capital letter mold markings in the upper left- and right- hand corners as well as small 'wedge tab' outcropping that interfaces with the leaf mechanism in the bottom housing in the lower right-hand corner.

Figure 14: Size comparison of the 'wedge tab' feature of the top housings on the Gateron Lanes (Left) and Gateron Melodics (Right) showing that they do interact differently with the leaves in the bottom housings.

Stopping next to the flat gold POM stems of the Gateron Lanes switches, we find that these are identical to the stems of the Melodics at every point of detail despite them producing an entirely different feeling and sound than the Melodics. As a result of the wedge tab built into the top housings shown above changing the complete range of motion of the click leaves in the bottom housings to produce a more tactile-like feeling, there was effectively no need by Gateron to modify these stems at all nor their small outcroppings that are used to trigger the actual leaf mechanism. Found on the very bottom corner of the backplates, this small, squared off outcropping is just one feature that does make these stems (and those of the Melodics) markedly different from that of other recent Gateron switches. Other features include the 45 degree angle capes on the front and back plates of the housings as well as the hollow, dual-rail guider rails that are meant to slot into a third-rail style bottom housing. Websites marketing the Gateron Lanes have also stated that they are lightly lubed from the factory and the initial in-hand experience when opening them shows this also to be true with a fairly small amount of lube being well distributed on all four sides of the housings and even in between the gaps in the slider rail sides.

Figure 15: Gateron Lanes stem front and back showing tapered center pole, caped front and back plates, hollow slider rails, and trace amounts of factory lubing on all surfaces.

Finally arriving at the matte, deep navy blue bottom housings of the Gateron Lanes switches, it’s worth stressing that yet again these are identical to those of the Gateron Melodic housings in really every conceivable way. Internally these similarities include the presence of a strong south side spring collar, padded third-rail style guider rails, shiny mold ejection circles in the base of the housings as well as along the upper edge of the bottom housing, and of course the bent silver leaf mechanism used to produce the distinctive feeling (or sound) of these switches. As this leaf is identical in shape, placement, and angle as those of the Gateron Melodics it is again worth stressing that their differences in feeling and sound only come about as a result of the extended wedge tabs present in the top housings. In fact these similarities in both stems and housings are why the Lanes are also referred to as “semi-silent clickies” on some storefronts such as Bowl Keyboards despite being more readily thought of as tactiles. Externally the bottom housings also continue in similarities to the Melodics and many other modern Gateron switches with features including PCB mounting pins, a ‘GATERON’ anticounterfeit branding stamp between the metal PCB pins, a pair inverted capital letter mold markings between the PCB pins and the LED/diode through-housing slot, and of course an offset front attachment clip for the top housings to make space for the click leaf. There are also trace amounts of fine factory lubing located on the various parts of the bottom housings of the Lanes, though I feel it editorially responsible to note that these are interior parts only and not the exterior ones.

Figure 16: Gateron Lanes bottom housing interior showing identical structures to that of the Gateron Melodics including a south side spring collar, mold ejector circles in the base, third rail guiding rails, and a left-hand corner click/tactile leaf.

Figure 17: Gateron Lanes bottom housings exterior showing PCB mounting pins, pair of capital letter mold markings, and raised 'GATERON' anticounterfeit brand marking between the metal PCB pins.

Push Feel

Behold! The great Alps SKCM Orange switch.

Figure 18: Why yes, this is actually a non-MX footprint switch force curve that I actually collected for once.

According to Lanes these very switches (and some of their historical shortcomings) were the direct inspiration behind the switches that have brought us all here today, so I felt it would be at least semi-worthwhile to actually visit them as a starting point to this section. With a wide, mid-stroke medium-light tactile bump, Alps SKCM Oranges are one of the two quintessential Alps tactiles that have not only made up a majority of people’s experiences with Alps over the years, but have also helped cement their popularity in the community even to this day multiple decades after Alps closed it’s doors. Sure, some could easily argue that the slightly heavier feeling SKCM Salmons are more “truly tactile” or that SKCM Ambers are more “authentically Alps” in feeling if they can afford to find them and afford to buy them, though the ubiquity of the Oranges mixed with their not overly harsh under-finger feedback is a big reason they are as popular as they are. However, like all good vintage switches most Alps do tend to degrade over time if not sealed in their original boxes forever. The SKCM series tactiles are prone to an especially annoying style of degradation in which they tend to become clicky over time, something which we’ve only very rarely seen in the MX footprint in switches such as the Kailh-made Box Novelias from 2018. The classic fix for tactile Alps switches which have become inadvertently clicky, as described above, was to slot a small piece of semi-rigid paper or cardstock between the leaves of the switches and their housings to dampen out this incidental clicking. (Also something that this very Alps switch that I measured ironically needs, itself.) Porting over this idea into Gateron Melodics, Lanes ended up cutting out poron switch pads to wedge into the tiny space between the housings and the click leaves to result in switches that ultimately looked like this.

Figure 19: Zoomed in view of the an original Gateron Lanes prototype constructed from wedging a cut up poron pad into a Gateron Melodic housing.

Figure 20: Lanes even labeled a cute little box for the prototypes before sending them on over!

Figure 21: Force curve for the Gateron Lanes Prototype switches made via poron pads wedged into Gateron Melodic housings.

Looking at the force curve of the original Lanes prototypes that he produced and comparing it to that of the SKCM Orange Alps just a short throw above, I can understand that quite a few of you are probably skeptical of the claim that these were inspired by the SKCM Oranges at all! And as for an initial consideration, I really can’t fault you for believing that. These modified Melodics not only have a much earlier starting point to their tactile bump in both their force curve and in-hand feeling, but they also have a significantly more steep drop off in force after their tactile bump around 1.50 mm into their downstroke. By comparison, the Alps SKCM Oranges appear much more winding, meandering, and slowly arcing between its bump and non-bump parts of its force curve. However, I think that these differences are actually much more apparent than the similarities that these two switches share. Even though the Melodics themselves have a leaf that is significantly less wide than that of the Orange Alps, they pack a surprising amount of force to them that actually matches that of the Orange Alps, peaking at a force of about 62.2 gf as opposed to the Alps’ 61.5 gf. As well, the bumps of both these initial prototypes and the Alps SKCM Oranges are similar in their overall proportion as well, taking up only about one millimeter of stem travels that pull up a tiny bit short of 4.00 mm in both switches. In hand these similarities and differences blend together to produce prototypes that were similar to the SKCM Oranges in that they packed a short, medium strength tactile bump though with a much more jarring and harsh sharpness leading into and out of their bumps than the more mellow Alps switches. Surely there’s no way that a simple adjustment of the top housing molds for the production-made Lanes could overcome those differences with the SKCM Oranges, right?

Figure 22: Force curve diagram for the stock Gateron Lanes switch.

Despite only being born of a single wedge tab added to the top housings of already exiting molds that separated the Lanes from their poron-stuffed Melodic predecessors, the final production Lanes significantly bridge the gap between the idea and the inspiration – and it’s even more than what the force curves above for them would suggest. The Gateron Lanes are medium-light strength tactile switches that have a small bump that not only feels noticeably more centered in its downstroke than what the figure above would suggest, but also much more rounded and subtly oncoming as well. All of the harshness both ramping up into and then out of the tactile bumps of the prototype Lanes is completely removed here and the final switches are left with the same sort of winding, rolling tactility that the inspiration Alps SKCM Orange switches had in spades. Polished off with housing collisions that are noticeable but not overly provocative and factory lubing that makes these switches unambiguously smooth at all points throughout their stroke, the final production Lanes switches truly feel like a more clean, distinctive, and well composed Alps Orange switches. Sure, some degree of separation is had between them and their ancient inspirations on account of the fact that Alps are a bit old and scratchy, but the less well produced leaves with worse factory lubing of the Oranges makes the more modern machining and competency of Gateron’s production facility just feel that much more futuristic. The Gateron Lanes have a tactile bump that doesn’t feel exactly like that of any old Alps SKCM Orange switches that you’d pull out of a keyboard, and that’s because they feel newer, cleaner, and more well-kept. These actually feel a lot like what I’d imagine Alps would feel like today if they were still producing switches in 2025.

Sound

Since the poron stuffing idea that inspired the creation of the Lanes switches was ultimately born of the very same paper mod concept that was meant to modify the sound of existing, wayward tactile switches, there were some pretty strong expectations over here that the Lanes would sound substantially different from the Melodics despite their overarching similarities elsewhere. And for what it’s worth, this subtle tweak in design on Gateron’s behalf really is all that it took to do the trick. The Gateron Lanes switches have ended up as medium volume tactile switches that pack well rounded, slightly snappy sounding tactile bumps that blend seamlessly into a three-step combination with their equally as firm, equally as resonant, and equally as loud housing collisions. (Yes, even despite the tops being made of polycarbonate and the bottoms being made of nylon.) While this overall tone does pitch up quite a bit under more aggressive typing speeds, and does lend the tactile bump a much more harsh, scraping edge to its tone than I think most users would expect, altogether they’re decently consistent in this sound profile so long as you don’t type oddly. If I’m to be super nitpicky about the Lanes, I’d say that some of the switches in my batch (~10% or so) occasionally have bottom outs or transitions into their tactile bumps that sound as if they’re being struck off center and thus slightly hollow, though in a fully keyboard with keycaps attached I doubt this is a feature really anyone would especially notice. As well, the Lanes are free from ping and any sort of metallic tones, though can also sound as if they have ever so slightly chalky scratch tones to them depending on the environment and/or board that they’re being used in.

As for the direct comparisons drawn between the Gateron Lanes and the Alps SKCM Orange or the weird marketing definition of “semi-silent clicky”, I really feel as if the Lanes don’t do nearly as good of a job of living up to either as one might expect. As for the Alps portion of that claim, while the Lanes do very much pack in that same sort of smoothly rolling feedback tactility that makes for good SKCM Oranges, their lack of sheer direct surface area between the leaves and stems makes for a much more subtle overall tone. The wider area of contact between the leaves and stems of the Alps as well as their overall size not only makes them come across generally louder than the Lanes, as well as most other MX-style switches, but also makes them feel much more “rich” and full sounding. It’s almost as if the Alps SKCM Orange switches just occupy more “ear volume” than the Gateron Lanes. As for the claim of these switches being semi-silent clickies, the Lanes just simply have too much subtle volume to them to be considered as such. These just sound more like average medium to light strength tactile switches than some sort of modified ‘loud but not loud’ switch. Sure, the Gateron Lanes are more quiet than other leaf based switches we’ve rarely seen in the MX footprint, as well as virtually all of the clickies that range from chaotic click jackets to clean and crisp clickbars, but they just lack any of the sharpness or aggressive harshness that I truly feel is required of a switch to be worthy of the title “clicky” in my mind. Despite being borderline incoherent of an opinion, it is at least internally consistent with my issues that I take with the “silent clicky” Kailh Box Mute Jades that were released under similar marketing a few years ago.

Wobble

The Gateron Lanes boast a weird combination of stem wobbles for modern era Gateron switches, having slightly more stem wobble than the average switch in the N/S direction and slightly less stem wobble in the E/W direction. While the molds for the top housings of these switches are different than those of Gateron Melodics, the differences don’t really show up in any fashion that would lead me to think that they could cause this issue which is otherwise not present in the Melodics. On the whole, though, the stem wobble isn’t too bad and at the least consistent from switch to switch across the batch that I received.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 24: Numerical details regarding the force curve for the stock Gateron Lanes switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1500 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- The Gateron Lanes switches that were broken in to 17,000 actuations had a sound profile that was overall less consistent than that of a stock batch of switches. While the sound did not really necessarily change for the worse insofar as they picked up an errant spring ping or scratchy noise, rather the shuffling and occasional off-center stroke sounds noted above became more noticeable than before.

- After 17,000 actuations, there was a slight increase in both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Gateron Lanes switches which is fairly reasonable to expect to see.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the shift in the Gateron Lanes’ overall sound profile only continues to drift further with them picking up click leaf ping in their sound in addition to the overall drop in sound profile consistency. Ironically this is the very sort of break in defect that drove the paper mod inspiration that served as the foundation of these switches’ design.

- No further increases in stem wobble were noted in this batch nor the one after it, making the Gateron Lanes fairly resilient to change on this metric over the course of the break in cycle.

51,000 Actuations

- In addition to the changes in stem wobble and sound profile of the Gateron Lanes, those that were broken out to 51,000 actuations also began to become noticeably more scratchy with the aforementioned small grain shuffling feeling becoming more prevalent in these switches than their stock counterparts. As well, the tactile bumps are only the ever so slightly tiniest bit less sharp and more rounded than their stock counterparts, however I imagine this change is a little more acceptable given that these were originally designed to be medium to medium-light tactiles that weren’t overly aggressive in the first place.

Figure 26: Comparative force curve diagram for the Gateron Lanes switches throughout their break in process.

Interestingly, for the very first time since I’ve started doing comparative force curves for the broken in switches in these full length reviews, it does appear as if there’s a regular, changing trend over the course of the break in process. While subtle, and only really over the magnitude of ~5 gf in total, it appears as if each successive stage of break in of the Gateron Lanes reduces their peak tactile force. This somewhat aligns with the notes above how the switches broken in out to 51,000 actuations felt as if they were much more rounded and not nearly as sharp as their stock counterparts.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Gateron Lanes switches side by side.

Figure 27: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Sillyworks x Gateron Type R, Cherry MX Purple, Drop Holy Panda X, Akko Cilantro, Zeal 3-in-1 Clickiez 75g, and AEBoards Naevy EC)

Sillyworks x Gateron Type R

- While the Sillyworks x Gateron Type R and Gateron Lanes switches are comparable to each other in terms of their E/W stem wobble, the Type Rs have ever so slightly less N/S direction stem wobble.

- Despite these switches having a similar peak force to one another and overall (positive) tactile bump size, the less aggressive rise in force of the Lanes as can be seen in the comparative force curve below lends them a much more mellow, lightly tactile feeling than the Type Rs that would likely make them less wearing to type on. As well, the Lanes also have a much softer bottom out than the Type Rs.

- Of these two switches, the Sillyworks x Gateron Type R’s are the much more sharp, crystal clear, and louder tactile switch with both a bump and bottom out that strike the ears significantly more noticeably than that of the Lanes switches. As well, the Type R’s also don’t have that subtle chalky tone in their strokes that I pick up in the Lanes.

Cherry MX Purple

- While it is fairly close, the Gateron Lanes just barely edge out the Cherry MX Purple switches in terms of their N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. Surprisingly, and despite these being from two entirely different manufacturers, they both have that same where the N/S direction wobble is noticeably lesser than the E/W direction.

- Even though the comparative force curve between these two switches below shows that the Lanes are a fair bit stronger of tactile switches, their slow rolling nature makes them actually feel similarly heavy to that of the MX Purples. Unlike the tactile bump in the MX Purples, though, the Lanes’ tactile bumps feel more singular, focus, and less punchy at the point of the bump.

- The Cherry MX Purple switches have a decent bit more scratch to their feeling than the Gateron Lanes switches even despite the use of Cherry’s MX2A lubing platform.

Drop Holy Panda X

- In hand, the Drop Holy Panda X switches definitely come across as the more ‘stuffy’ of these two tactiles, with a more forceful, immediately punching tactile bump as compared to the ostensibly mid-stroke, slowly increasing in force tactile bump of the Gateron Lanes switches.

- There’s quite a bit less stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W direction of the Drop Holy Panda X switches than there is in the Gateron Lanes.

- Comparing the overall sound profiles of these two switches, the Drop Holy Panda Xs are louder, sharper, and much more aggressive at the point of the bump than the Gateron Lanes. With subtle undertones of spring ping and housing collisions that are starkly absent in tone compared to their tactile bumps, the HPX switches just come across more disjointed and awkwardly constructed in terms of their sound than the more coherent, balanced 1-2-3 punch of the tactile bump, bottom out, and top out of the Lanes.

Akko Cilantro

- Despite what the comparative force curves below would suggest for these switches, in hand these are the two tactiles that feel the most similar to one another out of all of the comparisons on this list. Sure, the Akko Cilantros have a bump that starts immediately into their downstroke and is lighter overall weight than that of the Lanes’ peak force, but the aggressiveness of it does well to pair with the slower, more developing, and overall later tactile bump of the Lanes. The Lanes switches definitely are a tiny bit more ‘poppy’ and forceful in their peak force, though.

- These two switches are also fairly similar to each other in terms of their overall volume and tone, though the Cilantros have housing collisions that stand out a bit brighter and provide a slightly higher pitched overall tone to them than that of the bottom outs of the Lanes.

- The Akko Cilantro switches have quite a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than that of the Gateron Lanes switches.

Zeal 3-in-1 Clickiez 75g. (Tactile Mode)

- While I know that Lanes had specifically called out the 40g weighting of the Clickiez in his initial Geekhack post as being too aggressively tactile instead of the 75g ones, I completely forgot just how strong the tactility of the Clickiez 75g switches is. These Clickiez are so aggressive that they actually literally make the Lanes feel linear in a direct head to head comparison.

- In addition to just feeling otherworldly in how much more tactile they are, the Clickiez are also far and away a different beast than the Lanes when it comes to their overall sound profile. The Clickiez are louder, sharper, and even full size stapler-like in direct comparison with the quiet and subdued Lanes switches.

- The Gateron Lanes do have a bit more stem wobble than the Zeal Clickiez switches in both N/S and E/W directions.

AEBoards Naevy EC

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the AEBoards Navey ECs are the only ones that feel less tactile than that of the Gateron Lanes switches. While this is likely in some part due to the fact that they have an overall lower peak force, I suspect it is also because their tactile bump force is much more spread out than that of the Lanes – something which explains why the Lanes feel less tactile than some other switches on this list that have lower weight, sooner striking tactile bumps.

- There’s quite a fair bit less stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions of the AEBoards Naevy EC switches than there is in the Gateron Lanes switches.

- While this isn’t an entirely fair comparison due to the radically different switch design of the Naevy EC switches, they are quite a bit quieter and more subtle sounding than that of the Gateron Lanes switches. And yet for all of the faults that the Lanes do have with their sound, they at least don’t have the same thinner, more plasticky tones at their topping out that the Naevy ECs have.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.