For many of us, a good keyboard was a bit of an afterthought when it cam to building our PC. It only took our first mechanical one to completely change our minds. The next step in keyboard evolution seems to be optical and I’m a bit surprised I’m not seeing more companies jumping on board. Thankfully, not only is Bloody offering optical switches in their new B975 keyboard, but the actuation point is improved from traditional mechanical switches as well.

The huge selling point for optical switches is that they’re supposed to respond 25% faster than mechanical. When you look at how fiber internet improved on the speeds of copper lines, it’s no surprise at all. If you’re a typist, you probably won’t care nearly as much, but the competitive gamer should definitely be interested. You may not sit down to a B975 keyboard and notice a difference in the first 2 minutes, but a couple of days can make you feel like you have a bit more of an edge than before. An issue I’ve seen with other optical switches though, is that they retain the same actuation point as traditional mechanical switches, around 2mm. Bloody improves on the design by making sure the B900 series has a 1.5mm actuation point on their boards. EpicGear, while still using mechanical switches, did the same thing with the actuation point on their Defiant boards. My experience there was that at first I was pretty sure it made a difference, but after some solid use of going back and forth, I knew it was an improvement and loved the shorter actuation point.

I really like the fact that Bloody included a shorter actuation point to add to an already faster responding switch. I have no doubt that in competitive gaming, the board will feel more responsive than other boards, but I wouldn’t stake an official claim to that without thorough testing. Even if the optical switches merely come out even, you still have major advantages like 100 million click lifespans and water resistance. It’d be nice to know that if my cat pukes on my keyboard again, I have a good chance it’ll work after cleaning it up. I have to say, 2018 is shaping up to be an interesting year with new companies bringing us new innovations and I look forward to seeing more! Check out the gallery and links below for more info.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HJCZ45

https://www.bloody.com/en/product.php?pid=11&id=162