On most mechanical keyboards the switches are soldered to the circuit board. If you do not like how they feel, your options are to live with it or to desolder about ninety joints without damaging anything.
A hot-swap board puts each switch in a socket instead. They pull out with a small tool and push back in by hand.
Why this is worth caring about
Switch feel is the one part of a keyboard you cannot judge from a description. "Tactile" and "linear" are categories, not experiences, and two switches with the same label can feel completely different in the hand.
On a soldered board, choosing wrong means buying another keyboard. On a hot-swap board it means buying another set of switches, at a fraction of the price - and you can change only some of them. Heavier springs under the pinky keys is a common fix that soldered boards make impractical.
What it does not do
Hot-swap changes the switches. It does not change the case, the plate, the keycaps or the sound the board makes when you bottom out. If you dislike a keyboard because it sounds hollow, new switches will not fix that.
It also adds a little height and a very small amount of wobble compared with a soldered joint. Most people never notice. The people who do notice tend to know in advance that they will.
How to actually do it
- Unplug the keyboard.
- Pull the keycap straight up with a keycap puller.
- Grip the switch at the top and bottom clips with the switch puller and lift it straight out. Straight, not angled - bent pins are the one way to ruin this.
- Check the new switch has two flat pins and two plastic legs, all straight, then press it in until it clicks.
A whole board takes about twenty minutes the first time.
What we stock
The 87-key tenkeyless board has hot-swap sockets and comes with the switch puller, which is the tool most keyboards make you buy separately.