While most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about the keys they tap all day, mechanical keyboard enthusiasts certainly do. As interest in DIY keyboards expands, there are plenty of things to obsess over, such as keycap sets, layout, knobs, and switches. But you have to get deep into the hobby before you realize there's something more important than all that: the stabilizers.
Even if you have the fanciest switches and a monolithic aluminum case, bad stabilizers can make a keyboard feel and sound like garbage. Luckily, there's a growing ecosystem of weirdly fancy stabilizers that can upgrade your typing experience, packing an impressive amount of innovation into a few tiny bits of plastic and metal.
What is a stabilizer, and why should you care?
Most keys on a keyboard are small enough that they go up and down evenly, no matter where you press. That's not the case for longer keys: Space, Enter, Shift, Backspace, and, depending on the layout, a couple more on the number pad. These keys have wire assemblies underneath called stabilizers, which help them go up and down when the switch does.
