Tech Lead/Team Lead. Senior WebDev.
Intermediate Grade on Computer Systems-
High Grade on Web Application Development-
MBA (+Marketing+HHRR).
Studied a bit of law, economics and design
Location
Spain
Education
Higher Level Education Certificate on Web Application Development
I must remember you that we are discussing about which is better to avoid wrist pain, on which case a low profile slim keyboard is the king, other things are associated to user preferences who are not applicable to everyone and which we can discuss on another side or on a specific thread.
Just to clarify your last point, tactile feedback means you are aware you pulsate a key, visual feedback tells you if you pulsated the correct or the wrong one. You'll, of course have tactile feedback even with no keys, like in your smartphone for example, every time you touch the screen you know you put your finger over a place where a key should be because you trained your memory this way. Try to switch from english qwerty layout into something highly similar but not same like Spanish qwerty. It only adds one key while others remain mostly the same, you'll feel some kind of frustration till you get used to.
I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
By tactile feedback I'm not talking about the feel of touching a key, I'm talking about the feedback that the keyswitch has engaged. Many monoblock keyboards don't give this kind of feedback at all, or they give very limited feedback (usually the resistance of the key to being depressed further changes, but often not enough that most people notice). I'm not saying it matters for typing correctly (although it kind of does, because it tells you that the key itself engaged and most people don't hop between keyboard layouts (and those who do typically know all the keyboard layouts they use)), but for minimizing overall force applied to a key (you can release the key the moment you get that feedback that the switch has engaged, instead of having to make it bottom out or having to guess where the switch trips just to ensure the keystroke is entered).
When it comes to wrist pain, there is no one size fits all solution, it depends on each individual and a specialist should be consulted in severe or prevalent cases.
Than being said, mechanical keyboards do help in some cases. As Austin says, the advantage of mechanical keyboards is that the key press is detected somewhere halfway the travelling distance of the key, with correspondent tactile feedback, so you don't have to press the key to the bottom, as opposed to how many monoblock keyboards work. This is important because pressing the key until the bottom generates a sudden back-pressure that strains the tendons. With a good mechanical keyboard you can just stop pressing once you get the tactile feedback, when the key still has some travelling distance left, which reduces considerably that back-pressure.
Tech Lead/Team Lead. Senior WebDev.
Intermediate Grade on Computer Systems-
High Grade on Web Application Development-
MBA (+Marketing+HHRR).
Studied a bit of law, economics and design
Location
Spain
Education
Higher Level Education Certificate on Web Application Development
it's not about the tactile feedback, it's about the wrists position you need to achieve to use a keyboard.
Using a low-profile one (mechanical or not) lets you use it on a more natural way (raising less your hands respectively to the wrists). Also releasing a key without that "key bounce" is an extra effort so there's no magic combination to win unless you reduce all the movements to the minimum possible, that is low profile and slim (TKL) keyboard, then get it mechanical or not, this doesn't matter that much.
I use a mechanical one everyday as I said (Logitech G915) which is mechanical with tactile switches and I love it the most. I have wrist pain too since years ago due to a chronic illness and I tried several keyboard types, the G915 was my first low-profile and the one that lets me code for 14h a day if needed without issues.
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I must remember you that we are discussing about which is better to avoid wrist pain, on which case a low profile slim keyboard is the king, other things are associated to user preferences who are not applicable to everyone and which we can discuss on another side or on a specific thread.
Just to clarify your last point, tactile feedback means you are aware you pulsate a key, visual feedback tells you if you pulsated the correct or the wrong one. You'll, of course have tactile feedback even with no keys, like in your smartphone for example, every time you touch the screen you know you put your finger over a place where a key should be because you trained your memory this way. Try to switch from english qwerty layout into something highly similar but not same like Spanish qwerty. It only adds one key while others remain mostly the same, you'll feel some kind of frustration till you get used to.
By tactile feedback I'm not talking about the feel of touching a key, I'm talking about the feedback that the keyswitch has engaged. Many monoblock keyboards don't give this kind of feedback at all, or they give very limited feedback (usually the resistance of the key to being depressed further changes, but often not enough that most people notice). I'm not saying it matters for typing correctly (although it kind of does, because it tells you that the key itself engaged and most people don't hop between keyboard layouts (and those who do typically know all the keyboard layouts they use)), but for minimizing overall force applied to a key (you can release the key the moment you get that feedback that the switch has engaged, instead of having to make it bottom out or having to guess where the switch trips just to ensure the keystroke is entered).
When it comes to wrist pain, there is no one size fits all solution, it depends on each individual and a specialist should be consulted in severe or prevalent cases.
Than being said, mechanical keyboards do help in some cases. As Austin says, the advantage of mechanical keyboards is that the key press is detected somewhere halfway the travelling distance of the key, with correspondent tactile feedback, so you don't have to press the key to the bottom, as opposed to how many monoblock keyboards work. This is important because pressing the key until the bottom generates a sudden back-pressure that strains the tendons. With a good mechanical keyboard you can just stop pressing once you get the tactile feedback, when the key still has some travelling distance left, which reduces considerably that back-pressure.
it's not about the tactile feedback, it's about the wrists position you need to achieve to use a keyboard.
Using a low-profile one (mechanical or not) lets you use it on a more natural way (raising less your hands respectively to the wrists). Also releasing a key without that "key bounce" is an extra effort so there's no magic combination to win unless you reduce all the movements to the minimum possible, that is low profile and slim (TKL) keyboard, then get it mechanical or not, this doesn't matter that much.
I use a mechanical one everyday as I said (Logitech G915) which is mechanical with tactile switches and I love it the most. I have wrist pain too since years ago due to a chronic illness and I tried several keyboard types, the G915 was my first low-profile and the one that lets me code for 14h a day if needed without issues.