Why MX Keys key hinges break

Under each key of an MX Keys sits a small X-shaped plastic part — the scissor hinge. It translates your press (vertical, a few millimeters) into a guided, stable motion. Without it, the key would sink crookedly, drift out of alignment, and the keyboard would become unusable within weeks.

The scissor mechanism is not a recent invention: laptop keyboards have used it for a long time, because it allows thin keyboards (1-2 mm key travel) while keeping a stable feel. It is the opposite of rubber-dome-only (cheap, mushy) and mechanical switches (thick, loud).

The MX Keys hinge is made of a hard, abrasion-resistant plastic. On paper it should last the keyboard's lifetime. In practice, it breaks.

When an MX Keys hinge breaks, it is usually at a weak point: the junction between one of the four arms of the X and the central axis. Every keypress flexes that exact spot, and after a very large number of strokes the plastic eventually splits.

Manufacturers quote key lifespans in millions of strokes, measured in a lab by a robot pressing the centre of the key at constant force, with no dust. Real use is less regular.

In real life we press with greasy fingers, at varying angles, sometimes sideways when we catch the neighbouring key. The plastic fatigues, micro-cracks appear at the junction, and one day the hinge gives. On a heavily used keyboard, that often happens after a few years.

Here is the troubling part: this tiny part cannot be ordered individually from Logitech's website. Customer service points you towards replacing the keyboard, under warranty or not.

The logic is understandable: running a spare-parts catalogue, per reference and colour, with an ordering system for consumers, is expensive for a maker that sells complete keyboards.

But for the owner of a keyboard costing over €100 that stopped working because of a few millimetres of plastic, it is absurd. This is exactly what the EU right-to-repair directive, adopted in 2024, sets out to fix. Keyboards are not (yet) covered by its obligations, but the market is moving: independent resellers like us fill the gap.

The hinge often breaks after a few years of heavy use. Nothing suggests it was designed to fail; but nothing was planned to replace it individually through official channels either.

It is the same pattern we see on smartphone batteries, printer cartridges, and the 2016 MacBook Butterfly keyboards. A critical fragile part, non-replaceable officially, that turns an expensive product into electronic waste the moment it gives. The difference with MX Keys: the part is actually accessible and replaceable — it just needed someone willing to sell it.

That is what we do. Not out of activism, out of pragmatism: there is demand, the technical fix is simple, and every key replaced keeps a whole keyboard out of the bin. Between April and September 2026, hinges were by far our best-selling part on the site: 114 hinges in 44 sales, far ahead of any single key.