This Kickstarter keyboard combines 1970s tech with magnets to make every key pressure-sensitive.

One of the big benefits of mechanical keyboards is that there are almost an infinite number of different designs and switch types to fit your needs. But regardless of whether you’re using a gaming-friendly Cherry MX Red switch or a more typing-focused Cherry MX Blue, the actual mechanical mechanism inside each switch is largely the same; you press down on a key, an electrical circuit gets completed, and the resulting signal indicates that a key has been pressed. However, Input Club, the keyboard startup behind cult keyboard community favorites like the WhiteFox, has a different idea about how mechanical keyboard switches should work.

Input Club is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for the Keystone, a new keyboard that will be the first to feature the company’s new mechanical Silo switches. Rather than relying on a metal contact like most other mechanical switches, these Silo switches have a small magnet that moves up and down as you press a switch. Then, a small Hall effect sensor in the PCB is able to measure this movement by sensing changes in the magnetic field, and it translates this into an electrical signal which the keyboard registers as a keypress.

It sounds like an arbitrary change, but it’s one that creates some pretty interesting opportunities. For one, according to Input Club CEO Andrew Lekashman, the smaller amount of moving parts inside the switch means that the company expects them to last a lot longer. Their estimate is that these switches will last for billions of presses rather than the millions that current Cherry MX switches are able to withstand. There’s also no need for metallic pins to be in contact with the PCB, which means that it’s easier for the switches to be hot-swapped without the need for soldering. (Although, unfortunately, that also means that the new switches aren’t compatible with keyboards designed for regular Cherry MX switches.)