Indeed, this is not the experience we’d want anybody to be having with one of our keyboards.
At the time we needed to finalize our switch choice and selected Matias switches (more than 4 years ago), Cherry’s switches had an 18-month lead time, along with no guarantee that you’d get your full order. The various Chinese copies of Cherry switches were…very, very new. At that time, the quality was spectacularly bad. The ALPS-style switches we chose had a very good reputation in the market and among enthusiasts.
In late 2019, the market looks very, very different. If I were, say, designing a new keyboard today, I would make different choices than I did in 2015. But more on that another time.
With regard to this specific issue of a mechanical failure inside a switch: This is not the first time we’ve seen it, but it’s not, as far as we can tell, endemic to Matias switches. The switches are rated to 50 million presses and warrantied by the manufacturer for one year. To hit 50 million presses in a year, you would have to press the switch 1.5 times per second without a single pause.
We’ll talk a little bit more about this in the backer update we’re in the middle of writing, but the way we’re handling this currently is that we will not charge parts or labor to replace failed switches, even if your warranty has expired. (You will need to pay for the shipping.) If you’re competent with a soldering iron, we’re happy to send you replacement switches for the cost of shipping instead of you sending your keyboard to us. We can’t promise how long we’re going to be able to offer this service, but we’ll keep it up as long as we can.
If you’ve got a failed switch, please contact us at help@keyboard.io to arrange a repair.