u/RoadtoVR_Ben

▲ 10 r/bifl

Shout-out to my keyboard. 8 years old and no reason to think it won't go another 8.

I bought an ergonomic keyboard from a company called ZSA back in 2018. It wasn't cheap ($300), but I reasoned that I'd rather invest in a high quality product than something that would break in 5 years as many keyboards do.

Image courtesy RTINGS.com (my poor board needs a serious cleaning right now)

Eight years later, this thing is still going strong. And when looking at the cost of ownership per year, it's now a very reasonable price compared to a keyboard that only lasts 5 years. It's lasted so long that they don't even sell this version anymore. I have no reason to think it won't last another 8 years.

An important point worth noting is not that the company somehow designed a keyboard that would magically never break. Instead they made a design that's extremely easy to repair.

The board uses mechanical switches (the clicky party under the key cap). All mechanical switches fail eventually, however, the board has solder-less switch attachments which means when a switch starts to get wonky or fails, you can swap it out with a new one in 30 seconds. Mechanical switches cost like $0.20 each, so it makes no sense to throw out the entire board when a switch fails.

If you ever invest in a nice keyboard, I can't recommend enough picking one with solder-less switches so you can easily replace switches and keep using your keyboard many years into the future. Good warranties and repairability is something worth looking for in all products if you're looking for BIFL!

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u/RoadtoVR_Ben — 8 days ago