[Hardware] Kailh Silent Box Red Mechanical Keyboard Switches Review: Smooth and Light

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Kailh Silent Box Red Mechanical Keyboard Switches Review: Smooth and Light
Kailh Silent Box Reds are quiet linear switches that actuate easily.

Whether you’re a speedy gamer, lightweight typist or heavy-handed with a habit of bottoming out, there’s a mechanical keyboard switch these days for everyone. Selecting or making the best gaming keyboard or your next productivity workhorse is like picking the right dance partner. The keys have to be able to keep with your fingers, without overpowering or boring them. 

The newest switches from Kailh are for those who don’t want the clicky showmanship of something like a Cherry MX Blue or even the tactility of Cherry MX Browns. Instead, Kailh Silent Box Red mechanical switches will win over those who like their keys to stay mum. And with only 35 grams of force to actuate and 3.6mm of total travel, these are some of the lightest actualting mechanical switches you can get. 

Let’s talk about the pink elephant in the room. These switches’ stems aren’t red, as the name implies. More honestly, they’re a bright pink the shade of a cartoon pig. Like many mechanical keyboard switches, they feature a plus-shaped crosstem, allowing them to fit standard keycaps that would fit on traditional Cherry MX ones. I used the Kailh Silent Box Reds with ABS double-shot injection keycaps from Glorious’ Modular keyboard for most of my testing, for example, and I also fit Razer PBT keycaps and HyperX Pudding PBT double-shot keycaps on them. 

Note that Kailh’s Box switches don’t get their name from their stem shape. Instead, the ‘box’ moniker refers to the shape of the housing’s structure, which is box-like for fighting off dust and moisture. Interestingly, retailer Kono believes Kailh’s box design in general makes them more durable than Cherry MX’s bare crosstem design. The retailer claims they last “25% longer than regular MX variants during stress testing” and also are less wobbly. If you’ve ever noticed wobbly keys with any of Cherry’s Red switches, Silent Box Reds are worth considering. 

In my roughly two months using a Glorious Modular keyboard with Kailh Silent Box Reds on and off, I spotted a shameful amount of dust and hair around the keycaps. Upon removing the keycaps, I saw that problem carried over to the spaces between the switches too. However, I couldn’t spot any dust in the switches or in the circle stems. And, of course, the keyboard has been functioning properly.

Kailh’s Silent Box Reds are IP52-certified. That promises that dust won’t enter in notable enough amounts to interfere with the product working. According to the DSMT, which makes the certification, this rating also assures you that “vertically dripping water shall have no harmful effect when the enclosure is tilted at an angle up to 15° from its normal position.” That’s quite specific but at least tells you that these are at least somewhat waterproof. That’s more than Cherry MX Silent Reds offer. The switches’ IP40 certification only promises that objects over 1mm won’t interfere, and doesn’t cover liquids at all.  

The Silent Box Reds fight off dirt with their slider design and sealed composite gold alloy contacts. Keep in mind that Kailh says this certification applies best when “applied to products that meet the corresponding protection level.” 

Kailh designed the switches to be both easy to press and quiet. According to the vendor, the switches require 35g of force to actuate, and noise is kept to under 30dB. Noise reduction purportedly occurs in each switch’s glass fiber-reinforced base. 

In terms of materials, the switches are also working with copper alloy static and movable plates, a POM slide and a POM/TPE stem, a PA66 base and cover, a stainless steel spring and a buffering rubber mat. 

With a transparent casing, the switch is also RGB-ready. Kailh recommends pairing the switches with a keyboard using SMD LEDs directly mounted onto the circuit board. They certainly had no problem illuminating my Glorious Modular keyboard. As far as I could see, the RGB was just as bright compared to the keys using Gateron Brown switches.