part · switch

HMX Cloud Linear

Spec sheet

Type: linear
Top housing: nylon
Bottom housing: nylon
Stem: mixed
Spring: 42g actuation · 50g bottom-out
Travel: 3.9 mm
Factory lubed: yes
Released: Sep 1, 2023

Light linear with an LY stem in PA12 top and PA2.0 bottom housings. Voiced as a clacky, high-pitched poppy linear; popular as a budget pick for builders chasing a clean top-out without a deep thock.

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Mentioned in 9 articles

Cross-section line drawing of a mechanical keyboard stack — keycaps, switches, plate, PCB, gasket socks, case, and desk surface — each layer labeled with its acoustic role and drawn in a single warm-grey stroke with an ochre splash highlighting the plate and a brass-bronze theme dot at the upper right.

Deep Dives

The physics of thock: how every layer shapes your keyboard's sound

Every component between your fingertip and the desk makes a decision about your keyboard's sound — the switch, the plate, the case, the surface it sits on. Understanding what each layer adds or subtracts is the difference between chasing a sound blindly and engineering it deliberately.

thockJun 3, 202615 min read

Annotated cross-section of a Hall-effect key position — a stem with a small embedded magnet descending toward a Hall sensor on the PCB, with four labeled callout lines (magnet, Hall sensor, analog voltage, firmware threshold) and an ochre accent on the sensor pad, drawn in a single warm-grey stroke on a warm-paper field.

Guides

Hall-effect keyboards: a practical buyer's guide

Rapid trigger, per-key actuation depth, analog axis output — Hall-effect keyboards deliver all three, but only if the firmware matches the hardware. Here is what to look for, what to pay, and who should skip the category entirely.

thockMay 30, 202610 min read

Side-view cross-section of a tactile switch — top housing, rounded-bump stem, spring, and bottom housing rendered in a single warm-grey stroke with a muted terracotta splash across the bump shoulder and a faint panda-style top/bottom contrast banding the housings.

Deep Dives

Why the Drop Holy Panda X feels the way it does

The Holy Panda was a six-month frankenswitch project for most of its life. The Drop Holy Panda X is the first version where the geometry, the spring tune, the housing pairing, and the factory lube were the spec — not the mod.

thockMay 12, 202613 min read

Cherry MX2A switch cross-section, side view — top housing with stem hole, cruciform-mount POM stem column drawn in cherry-red splash, 5-coil spring, bent-leaf contact, and bottom housing with pin contacts; a thin dashed callout traces from the stem-housing interface to a magnified circular inset showing the new factory grease ring with scattered lube dots.

Deep Dives

What Cherry's MX2A revision actually changed

Cherry's MX2A landed in 2023 with a real engineering update — factory lube, tighter tolerances, the same 100M-press lifespan. The reason the discourse cooled isn't that the switch failed; it's that the enthusiast slot it aimed at was already claimed by the time it arrived.

thockMay 10, 20267 min read

Exploded-axonometric silhouette of a mechanical keyboard switch on a dark background — top housing, stem, spring, and lower housing separated by thin gap lines, with a single pale-cyan accent dot anchoring the stem.

Deep Dives

How HMX took over the mid-tier linear slot

Two years ago HMX was a name on a vendor page nobody pronounced confidently. In W19, the Cloud sat second on our tracker and landed in half the $120 prebuilts the scene argues about. The rise wasn't an accident.

thockMay 10, 202612 min read

Side-view of five stacked keyboard-plate cross-sections — brass, aluminium, FR4, POM, polycarbonate — drawn as parallel horizontal layers in muted tones with a single warm-terracotta splash on the FR4 band at the centre of the stack.

Deep Dives

Plate materials, explained: what brass, FR4, POM, and aluminium actually change

The plate is the cheapest variable in the build and the one builders argue about hardest. Most of the heat is misdirected — but a usable fraction of it is real, and the difference is worth pinning down.

thockMay 9, 202613 min read

Guides

Lubing 101: what matters, what doesn't, and where to stop

Lube moves the sound and feel of a switch in ways nothing else in the build can. It also chews up a Saturday and ruins switches when applied with the enthusiasm the rabbit-hole crowd recommends. Here is the version that earns its keep.

thockApr 30, 20268 min read

Trends

How 'thock' became an acoustic spec, not an accident

A decade ago a thocky board was the win condition of a $300 custom — the payoff for the right switches, the right lube job, the right patience. In 2026 the same sound is table-stakes for a $150 prebuilt: factory-lubed switches, silicone dampening, gasket-mounted plates, PBT doubleshot. The stack that used to be enthusiast-only is now what mid-tier vendors design toward from day one.

thockApr 26, 20268 min read

Side-view cross-section silhouette of a Hall-effect switch in 2px warm-grey stroke on a transparent canvas — top housing, stem, and lower housing with the sensor seat — overlaid by vivid coral magnetic field lines arcing outward from the stem magnet, with warm-bronze accent hits along the housing edges.

Trends

How Hall-effect quietly became the new mid-premium default

The polling-rate hype is loud and easy to wave off — 8K, 32K, numbers chasing each other up the spec sheet. The quieter story is that the magnetic-switch tier has stopped being a Wooting-shaped niche and has settled into the $100–$230 prebuilt slot the scene actually buys from. The volume has moved, not just the marketing.

thockApr 22, 20268 min read

HMX Cloud Linear appears in editor-curated build sheets.

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