This came to my attention as a fan of Divinikey as a vendor where I could get a nice variety of switches, lube, films, accessories and more. Divinikey is a stateside company and so its shipping is very reasonable for people in the US compared to KBDFans, some of whose merchandise Divinikey sells as a stateside proxy. I had been very impressed with their service and quality products, so when they made their own switch, and it hit a lot of my preferences out of the gate, I got a batch.

They are manufactured by Tecsee and come with a 67g spring. The coloring is supposedly based on monkeys, which is what “Saru” means in Japanese, more specifically, the Japanese macaque. It’s nice to see a new animal in the mix in a sea of panda switches. They have a long pole stem, with Nylon bottom and polycarb top. The total travel is only 3.0mm which is shorter than even many long pole switches. They are about 50 cents per switch, which puts it at a mid-range price point. My preference is for tactiles with a medium strength bump, so these were vibing with me. The stem wobble is noticeable but with films, the overall keystroke is tight.

They have a really nice tactile bump, that is sharp but not unpleasantly so. Due to the reduced travel, almost the entire keypress is the tactile bump with not much travel outside of it. The bottom out is very crisp and makes a distinct clack. They are 5 pin switches so they can be used without a plate without much trouble. They are actually quite nice to use plateless, which I have heard is not as common with tactiles. They were great on the half-plate Mode SixtyFive. That may be to do with the long pole, and nice contained sharp bump. I also swapped the springs for 63.5g ones being my preferred tactile spring weight for most switches, and they performed just as well with lighter springs. I can’t say whether it will perform well going down to weaker springs, as some tactiles have return issues at low weight.

Compared to Naevies

There have been a wave of Tecsee long-pole switches. Having tried the Naevies, also from Tecsee but lighter on both bump and spring, these are heavier switches but in my opinion very satisfying to type on, more than the Naevies. The Naevies had a bit of scratch that I haven’t noticed with the Sarus. The more pronounced tactile stem makes the Sarus feel more like a true tactile whereas the Naevies felt like a linear with a bit of turbulence (this is a exaggeration of course). It’s not that the Naevy bump was the smallest I had used, but just felt kind of less intentional, to get a little subjective. It felt like AEBoards made the Raed linear switch really nice, but then they wanted to appeal to tactile fans and slapped a bump on the Naevy and called it a day. Naevy is not a bad switch by any means, it’s just that I’d consider them a light tactile. It’s worth considering for people looking for a long pole light tactile, since that is a rare combination. But if you’re looking for something like a T1 but long-pole, the Saru is definitely closer to that.

## Compared to Boba U4T

The bump isn’t as rounded or as fatiguing, as the Boba U4Ts, making it possible to type faster and for longer. Both the Saru and the U4T are long pole, though not everyone considers the U4T long pole since it’s only slightly extended. The Saru switch is on the clackier high pitch side, whereas the U4T is very deep for an MX switch (some would say the deepest, it even has ‘Thock’ in the name). The the long poles on both these switches makes for a crisp, loud, and satisfying bottom out.

## Marketing

Divinikey seems to be going all out with marketing these switches, with a sticker they are sending with random packages to market it, and featuring it on their homepage. The Saru

It’s clear they put some thought into these and I’m impressed and excited to see more switches from Divinikey.