SteelSeries was founded in Denmark in 2001 and is headquartered in Chicago, USA. SteelSeries born to games, thanks to cooperate with top professional e-sport players innovation and product development foe a long time, it is one of the best configuration in the electronic athletic events, is a worldwide leader in the professional game peripherals industry, its product categories include: keyboard, mouse, headphones, mouse pads, and scope of product sales more than 80 countries.

On January 22, 2020, in Chicago, the SteelSeries released the Apex 5, a gaming keyboard that offers the best of both worlds."We see that there is still a very large number of game player using traditional office peripherals, we carefully look at these products, decided to integrate the most advanced game technology of SteelSeries into it, Apex 5 using hybrid switch will smooth traditional membrane switch, green mechanical switch’s clear sense of touch and the combination of durability and listening, so as to realize the perfect combination of the two switches, bring brand-new control experience for players, said Ehtisham Rabbani, CEO of  Serry.

What is TTC Hybrid Switch?

How are they similar or different from traditional mechanical switches? Literally, the term "Hybrid" makes people think of gasoline-electric Hybrid cars, such as Lexus's LS 600HL, which combines traditional gasoline engine technology with electric technology to dominate the world. So what are the characteristics of defining a keyboard switch as "hybrid"? Before describing the hybrid switch, let's first discuss the characteristics of conventional membrane switches and mechanical switches.

Membrane Keyboard

The membrane keyboard was introduced later than the mechanical keyboard. The traditional membrane keyboard switch uses a silicone bowl with three layers of conductive film to switch on or off the switch. Its manufacturing cost is low, and it gradually becomes the replacement of the mechanical keyboard at that time.

Strive to let every player be able to use easily.No one should pay for a bad operating experience." Membrane switch needs to press to touch the bottom to conduct, feel stiff, long time use, finger fatigue and pain.

mechanical Keyboard

Each key of the mechanical keyboard is separately provided with a mechanical switch, the mechanical switch is composed of a shell, a button, a movable terminal, a fixed terminal, a return spring, and the green shaft button is a split structure, and the movable parts and movable terminals cooperate with the sound..

In addition to more durable and higher quality, the mechanical switch is also available with a variety of hand feel, there are straight up and down linear red switch, black switch, tea switch with paragraph sense, paragraph sense and can also issue a clear sound of "Click" green switch, if you like quiet can also choose the silent switch.So, what is the difference between mechanical switch and membrane switch in structure?

Membrane switch = silica gel bowl + conductive film touch bottom conduction

Mechanical shaft = return spring + conductive copper middle conduction

Industry designs that combine mechanical switches with traditional membrane switches have been ongoing, such as:

This uses a mechanical switch structure, which retains the movable terminal as the sound component, and opens a hole in the base so that the core can penetrate the housing and hit the bottom of the conductive film to conduct. Although the use experience is greatly improved compared with the ordinary thin film keyboard, the need to touch the bottom to conduct will bring stiffness of the hand, and the feel of the mechanical switch is not fully realized. Moreover, it is easy to damage the conductive film and affect the service life.

Hybrid Switch

Why is it called a hybrid shaft?

TTC Hybrid switch adopts split type button, double spring mixing with full explosive force, can quickly rebound. It also adopts TTC unique torsion spring sound patent structure, sound is clear, no noise, when pressing, you can feel the mechanical impact and Click sound to confirm the completion of input.

Just like the mechanical switch, the conduction travel of the hybrid switch is 2.0mm, and the total travel is 4.0mm. There are green switch, tea switch, red switch and black switch to choose from, and it is compatible with the key caps sold on the market.

Therefore, the only difference between the intermediate conduction of the hybrid switch  = double return spring + conductive film and the mechanical switch is that the conductive medium of the Hybrid switch uses the conductive film to replace the PCB circuit board. At the same time, there is no interference of the metal sheet of the mechanical switch, and the pressing smoothness of the Hybrid switch is better.

TTC Hybrid switch is the real sense of mechanical hand-feel switch, you can hardly feel the difference between the hybrid switch and the mechanical switch in the process of use.