Like a compromise between an ergo board and a data hand.
The motivation for this sounds convincing. My problem is that I’m not willing or able to put the time into learning a new layout, with or without a chording aspect.
I tried it to a lesser extent (Keyboardio 100) and stuck with it just long enough to determine it would be great if I never used any other computers with a standard keyboard. After 2 weeks I could barely even type on my laptop anymore - I just couldn't hold both layouts in my head. Numbers, punctuation, and special keys were completely different; even though letters were "the same" they moved enough I was making a ton of typos.
I came to the conclusion I wasn't willing to buy an additional keyboard for my work computer and give up my laptop so I ended up selling it.
I had a similar experience after switching to DVORAK as a nerdy teenager, however I found by just leaving my smartphone on QWERTY, I'm able to switch and still type 40 - 50wpm with minimal practice on a real keyboard. I'm more like 100wpm on DVORAK.
Practicing both layouts a little may make it possible to keep both modes in your head, but I don't know if a completely different input mode would make this harder.
I did not have the same experience with the keyboardio (model 01 in my case).
Not only did I not have trouble going back to a standard keyboard, but even after not touching the keyboardio for months, my muscle memory remained intact. Even the custom shortcuts I had set up remained in my memory. I was really impressed by that.
The only reason I'm not using that keyboard fulltime is that the keys kindof "stuck" where they become hard to press down. It's too bad because I really like the keyboard a lot! Unfortunately the model 01 does not have hot swappable switches.
I did switch out my switches for something clackier, and when I did I ended up pulling up some traces on the PCB. I was able to patch it with some jumper wire, but really don't want to risk it again to take the switches off and lube them. Bummer, because it's a fantastic keyboard otherwise.
I never use other people's computers (think about where their fingers have been), so this would never be a concern for me. I use an Ergodox and it's a little rough switching to the laptop (how can people hold their hands so close together?), but I can do it. I still use QWERTY though, with a bunch of local tweaks for non-letter characters.
I would say that if you type fast enough for as long as you desire without pain, the cost of learning a new keyboard layout is a questionable investment. But, if you have hand pain, you should probably work on resolving that immediately, or pain may become a disability. (I followed my own advice, my right pinky used to hurt after a day of work. Moving all the important symbols away from that pinky key, probably most notably backspace, cleared everything up. Many more years of typing stuff into a computer in my future.)
1) Home desktop
2) Work laptop (docked in my office)
3) Work laptop (actual keyboard)
4) Personal laptop
There's nothing I could do about either laptop. I could have spent another $300 to get another keyboardio for my office, but that seemed like a waste of money when I wasn't sure about it.
Interesting. I switched to a custom ergo layout (ZSA Moonlander) but my traditional QWERTY laptops are sufficiently different that I have no problems going back and forth between that and my desktops.
A couple of years ago I wanted to switch to an Ortholiner. I used magic keyboards until then. During the first weeks I actually realized that I never used my ten fingers. I was reasonable fast but my hands where more moving over the keyboard like a piano player. So I went one step back and bought a normal Lay-out mechanical keyboard and started to learn the proper 10 finger touch typing through several websites. I‘m still not mega fast but depending on the things I write I can be quite fast. While learning this and also tinkering with my keyboard firmware to add more comfortable shortcuts etc I lost the ability to write fast on my macbook keyboard. Every now and then when I have to use it, I slip into the old typing style. But it doesn’t feel as good anymore. I‘m on the same side here and would be very conservative with my time to spend it on this very special gear. And I only spend time and money on the normal QWERTY board :)
I think this is a super cool keyboard, but if I were going to learn a chorded keyboard, I'd probably go all in on the type steganographers use to type 300 WPM
Stenography is pretty difficult. It's more complicated than simply "chorded keyboard" might imply.
Going "all in" on stenography is a very significant time investment. Much more than what you'd think.
It's not like a normal keyboard where when you start you're just slow, but you know how to type every word. You won't even know how to type syllables/words that you haven't learned yet.
I've had a couple of tries but never got past the beginner stage, and there's many, many words that I have no idea how to type.
What would be really interesting would be a keyboard specifically for programming. Chords that can be customized to fit your language, would make a lot of sense. Integrate some ideas from things like Paraedit et al, and you could probably get up to crazy speeds in editing and writing really quickly.
I tried this, but honestly the keyswitches are awfully heavy when you are pressing more than 2 of them at once. I ended up half-building a steno keyboard with lighter switches for this reason... half-building because I started during the pandemic, no microcontrollers I wanted were available, and then I forgot about the project until ... just now. Someday though.
I don't really think it's fair to call it a chorded keyboard. It does have chords, but they are mostly optional and there for convenience.
Every alpha letter has it's own key. Some are on a second layer, but that layer is also "one-shot" so you don't even need to chord to use it, like you do with typing capital letters with shift, for instance.
Edit: looks like you toggle it with your right thumb? That seems like a lot of thumb presses or more key strokes per word. How do you know which layer is active when you return between sessions?
yeah the right thumb is a "one-shot" key to go to the second layer. So you press it, and then only whatever key you press next is on the second layer. So you're always on the fist layer unless you just pressed that key.
It does end up being (slightly) more keypresses, but it's built on the idea that 1.) two comfortable keypresses are easier than one uncomfortable keypress and 2.) our thumbs are already absurdly under-utilized on current keyboards.
No concave key wells kills it (and the Fulcrum) for me. The only folks who really know how to nail ergo are Kinesis and maybe MoErgo (though I still haven't seen it shipped).
I've had one for many years. It's my least favourite keyboard. As they rent them out, I would suggest trying one before buying, if possible.
Part of my dislike might come from the MX Black switches they used at the time, and I gather that alternatives are available now. Another factor is their keycap profile and the placement of the switches, which mean that if your fingers get misaligned, you hit a gap between the keys. This is more irritating than it sounds.
While not a criticism at the time it was built, it's also worth noting that there was (and is, I think) no layout customisation other than a choice between fixed layouts with a couple of switches on the underside of the keyboard. The case is vacuum-formed, which looks and feels cheap compared with modern competitors, and the bottom is glued on which would make repairs difficult (not that mine ceased to work).
The staggering is way too small for my hands. The hand will still have to move a lot, making touch typing harder.
I'd also say that the simpler learning curve here is a "faster horse". To reap the significant benefits, one should embrace a different paradigm of typing, with layers and chords.
I’m super happy to see more products popping up in this category. However that looks terrible to type on though. Flat, low and barely any stagger. Also it kind of looks like a toaster. Idk. Not for me I guess, hehe. But still, a good sign!
I have a Kinesis Advantage 2 and the thumb clusters are my favorite part. I think I probably spend too much time optimizing the layout of those keys though. Like, Escape is really awkwardly placed in the default layout so I moved it to the right thumb cluster, but I was actually just thinking about moving it to the left cluster. Talk about micro-optimizations!
There’s also the hold/tap key thing where you don’t have to move the key physically. Between that and layers the keyboard is an infinite canvas for customizations.
I played around with different tap&hold durations (how long you have to hold before it registers as a hold rather than a tap), but I just couldn't find a duration that matched my rhythm. I kept getting holds when I wanted taps (for short durations) or vice versa for longer durations. My current config uses tap&hold on two keys (home and end, which I don't use often anyway). Holding leads to "hyper" and "meh" which are two extra modifier keys (like control or alt/option/meta). I'm an emacs user so extra modifiers means I can basically store as many macros as I want!
The default Kinesis firmware is fairly limited. It has what they call tap&hold, but it is too limited to be useful in practice. So, it’s mostly limited to simple remaps and macros. That does have the advantage that you don’t fall in the customization rabbit hole.
That said, I made a KinT controller for my advantage, so that I can run QMK.
I have a keyboard with thumb clusters as well and more than micro-optimizations I see it as iterations until you find something that really suits your style :)
Hyper optimized HIDs are a fascinating curiosity to me. I feel like a lot of the time they’re meant to fulfill a daydream of optimization that oftentimes never gets realized.
It’s like stenography, the cost of deviating from the norm is high but very valuable for specific use cases.
Or maybe I’m just projecting my Jr. Engineer days where I spent silly amounts of time optimizing my text editor with dreams of it making me one with my computer.
> fulfill a daydream of optimization that oftentimes never gets realized
with so many things, creating something like this maybe you start like that but end up realizing you just wanted to express yourself. challenging the norm is a given and popularity is just a plus.
1. On the one hand, yes. It can be very idealistic. You might imagine that you will achieve a new level of productivity where you will look down on your previous level and think: “How did I ever get anything done down there?”
2. Computer input optimization often gets derided with some variation on the “my typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing code”. But first of all, productivity in the immediate sense might not be the point: the point might be ergonomics and health. And it sounds silly to get health issues by just sitting and typing stuff and yet… well, it does happen a lot, apparently.[1]
I have done some optimizations with regards to my keyboard but the holy grail for me (I feel like) is stenography (which you mentioned). But I fear that I’m not the kind of person that could devote something like on average 30 minutes a day for multiple months to that.
3. Things like optimizing my setup is what makes me excited. So if I can keep my idealism in check then the journey itself will have been worth the effort.
[1] You’re screwed either way: if you’re in a physical profession (a “trade”) you wear your body out. If you are in an office job you either don’t use your body enough, get some kind of ergonomic problem, or get burnout from being too much in your head.
I daydream sometimes of a day where someone manages to optimize keyboard input all the way down to just a few switches without making it too difficult to transition from QWERTY.
That is the dawn of seriously practical wearable computers. I think it would be a far bigger leap than smartphones ever were.
We already have mobile versions of every other computer interface without much, if any, compromise... except the darn keyboard.
The transition is the hard part for sure. I love reading about all this cool layout stuff, and it makes total sense for people who speed-type as part of their job (eg stenographers) or have some disability that precludes QWERTY usage. But for the vast majority of people (eg anyone who will be put into a situation where they will have to type on some keyboard that isn’t theirs more than once every two years) a non-QWERTY interface is not worth the investment.
I totally agree with you in theory but for this specific board, can tell you that it improved my typing speed ~10wpm, and completely eliminated my RSI issues.
When I say I had major RSI issues, I mean I once had to spend 6 weeks typing with only my left hand bc the right hurt so bad. So it was worth it just for getting rid of that.
But in general I totally agree with you. I think about that a lot when optimizing like VSCode settings, for example. Like "this isn't really productive work here. it just feels like it."
Ya this is exactly the kind of bike shedding I get wrapped up in sometimes. Lately I have been creating custom shelving and storage in my office for a clean look and better optimization for lighting, camera, and sound.
I realize I could be working on real work when I do this, but I enjoy it and I find it to be a needed break from real work as well as actually engender a bit more excitement in myself to get back to work.
Its nice to enjoy optimizations that you have worked on and implemented yourself.
I love the idea. Reminds me that I've always wondered why nobody ever made a keyboard with analog joysticks for your thumbs. Feels like keyboard design has stagnated because they reached a local maxima for being good enough decades ago.
That's not the reason at all, the typical modern keyboard is just about exclusively driven by legacy compatibility. The keys are still in the exact same layout that was dictated by the mechanical design of typewriters centuries ago for fucks sake. Does anything still use the "pause" button? Why would anyone ever want to lock the numpad? Why are like half of the keys duplicated? These are real questions we should be asking.
The real problem is that people have gotten used to something that barely worked, who then got catered to by manufacturers which lead to new people learning that same layout, perpetuating the same design into infinity because nobody wants to relearn typing. Driving cars with a wheel and pedals probably isn't optimal either, but it's all anyone ever learns to use so that's what ubiquitous. Language is the same.
that's why it's so absolutely nuts that smartphone keyboards are just touchscreen versions of legacy keyboards.
If there is any place absolutely ripe for new innovation and optimizations, it's there. But there are hardly any significantly-different options! (at least on iphone, can't speak to Android)
Like, why can't I set my keyboard to delete the last word when I swipe left across the keyboard? There are a million low-hanging fruit things like that.
At least on my Android Google keyboard, that exact feature exists (swiping left from the backspace key deletes words in a natural way). Similarly, swiping on the spacebar moves the cursor.
More generally, swipe typing, aggressive autocorrect, and voice input are pretty novel and core to any modern phone keyboard. If you want to see really wild stuff, look at some of the Japanese phone keyboards, they're mostly based on slide gestures that can translate to a physical keyboard.
Tried this briefly and it seems interesting. Any idea why it's free? That's a bit sketchy imo when it's not open source and there's no obvious way it's being monetized. I've seen that they sell Windows, Pocket PC and Palm versions, but that can't possibly sell enough copies to make it worth it?
My first guess is they're using the free model to promote their technology and be able to license it to companies. Which would be fine, just wish it would be spelled out.
Belkin made the Nostromo, which I had and used for AutoCAD. I sold it, and then I bought a Razer Nostromo later in 2013/14. They both had analog joysticks, or the plus-sign multi-switch on Nintendo devices. It had a thumbstick you could remove to use the plus-pad config.
I like the Nostromo and the follow-up versions and I have one of them. I just wish there was a full keyboard version of it and the joystick is a 4-way (8-way?) hat switch, not analog.
However this seems to be impossible to find. I can easily find any combination of any two of these, but not all three. Then if you start about thinking wireless on top - forget about it.
On the other hand every week I see another one of these wildly impractical keyboards that people are making (and in fairness I've also constructed one - although I can't justify actually using it). Just feels bad man.
Depends on what you put under "ergonomic", but you could take a look at the Ultimate Hacking keyboard: https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ (split, ISO layout & mechanical switches, not wireless however).
AFAIK, the only difference (for the UHK keyboard, at least) is that, on the ISO layout, the left-shift key is narrower, in order to make space for an extra key. This is visible for instance if you compare their US (ANSI) and UK (ISO) layout.
I think you’d really like the Dygma Raise. https://dygma.com/
It sounds like what you’ve described.
My daily driver is RGBKB Sol3 and I love it more than a person should love a keyboard. https://www.rgbkb.net/products/sol-3-keyboard-prebuilt
I went deep on keyboards but didn’t go the super minimalist route that I see get posted often. I type at 120wpm+ on QWERTY so “typing faster” was never the issue, just wanted to minimize pain.
It has been few years since I looked at ErgoDox last time there was no support for anything but ANSI layout and I get that most of these are US based creations so naturally US ANSI is the primary layout to support, I just can't justify unlearning my own layout since I have to maintain a fleet of computers and don't want to be reliant on carrying my custom keyboard with me.
I love these kinds of projects. Each time I move to another keyboard I inevitably “lose” keys - numpad, then function keys. So I’m maybe a couple of iterations away before I’m ready for this ultimate challenge.
Because you're tossing approachability out the window. Even for seasoned users, when you're typing with urgency or precision you miss having a clearly labeled, discreet key to press. And good luck using a friend's weird keyboard in a pinch.
Looks interesting, I already use a non-standard keyboard (Ducky 2 mini), which I really enjoy. It also uses another layer to access F-keys and arrow-keys for example.
The only downside I experience is when programs do not allow re-mapping of keys and use arrow-keys. Happens often with browser games, which is really annoying. There sure is a way to get around this since Ducky 2 mini is really flexible, but I'm usually not so much invested to go down that path.
Reddit.com/r/mechmarket often sells diy builds. I bought my dactyl manuform there.
Personally I’d suggest to go moonlander first, as zsa has built really great graphical configurator. Standard qmk graphical configurator is awful and you’ll almost immediately fall into code.
Keebmaker make a few of the cooler ones off the shelf (ferris sweep, sofle, corne. I've heard rumours they'll make you a kyria but it's not on their site).
Are there any wireless split keyboards? Google only finds split-but-still-attached keyboards, I want two independent elements, both wireless. Is there such a thing?
Happy for you that you ordered a 360 Pro, the regular 360 firmware is still extremely buggy. The keycaps on the 360 Pro are quite 'meh' though. I replaced them by Kinesis PBT blanks. Still don't like the Gateron Browns as much as the Cherry Browns or Silent Reds on the KA2.
I had a chance to try regular 360 in person and to chat with Kinesis engineer. I went with Pro since I think not having cords is especially attractive in the split design. Non-pro version has a cord which is off the table (it can be replaced with the longer cord, since it’s just USB-C, but still).
I commented on the different feel of switches, and he said that it’s more economical for them to use Gateron, quality-wise it should be the same. I think I’ll get used to them.
Keycaps on Pro are different to allow light through. Since I’m unlikely to use light to preserve battery, I’ll replace then as well. In fact I’m planning to reuse some keycaps from my current Advantage 2.
Biggest surprise that there is no forward-backward tilt. He said it’s hard to make it stable and tiltable in both dimensions. I guess I’ll have to come up with some custom tilting solution - same way I’m doing for Advantage 2 right now.
I liked cushion pad a lot and going to get it to try it out, but not sure if I’m going to use it long-term or prefer more flat-out setup.
I don’t like ESC being moved, but I do like that there are new extra programmable keys in the middle.
I like the idea for common words to be on a macro layer. I wonder if there is some simple way to generate one's personalized top 20 words or something.
yeah check out Benign Key Logger on github. If you go to my github profile (this keyboard is from me) I have a pinned repo there which you can use on the data you
get from running that keylogger to get you things like your most common words.
For instance I found out my second most common 5 letter word was "print" lol
If your work involves using a keyboard more than a few hours a day, getting an ergonomic keyboard is going to pay back those 300 big time in the long term. Wrist and finger pain are no fun.
Though, I'd rather go for one of the pre-manufactured keyboards that had a decent amount of group studies into the design. All those boutique keyboards and designs used by less than 100 people may be fantastic or may destroy your hands, who knows? The problem is, you only find out after using a keyboard for a longer time. (A lot of folks on /r/ErgoMechBoards switch designs every few months, so the anecdata there is not great.)
Designs like the Natural Keyboard or the Kinesis Contoured/Advantage have been around long enough to know what their long-term effects are.
Why would I invest the time, effort, and incalculable risk involved in adopting and depending on a boutique experimental keyboard system?
Why do all keyboard projects either mindlessly adhere to antique conventions or hopelessly diverge into zaniness? Why is it so difficult to find a multi-platform split keyboard with no gimmicks, standard layouts, and sane defaults. I will buy a back-stock of 10 when I find it. The closest thing so far is the Mistel MD770 so I own 2 of them.
Hey, I made this. It was only ever intended just for me, bc I have bad (really bad) RSI. I truly did not ever expect anyone else to want to make one. But I shared it on the ergomech reddit and people were interested so I put some work into the Github repo.
That being said, after realizing some people were actually interested, I also added a more standard 40-key version, bc I know most people don't want to go all the way to 20 keys. There is a pic of that version farther down on the README page.
I did not mean this as a criticism, but more as a cry for help! I have worsening RSI but a massively customized keyboard project would be so incompatible with my job requirements. I just wish so bad that there were a sane middle path.
I totally get you. I think that exists tho! Someone else mentioned the Keyboardio100 which might work well for you.
But I would also argue that it's totally worth learning a new layout. I think people overestimate how hard it is, and the difficulty of switching between them. If you have RSI, I would definitely recommend getting some type of split ergo board (maybe Corne?) and learning Colemak-DH layout.
Get a Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB with palm rests and the tenting kit. Which is pretty much like any ergonomic keyboard, but split and tented. Or get a Dygma Raise if you want QWERTY row staggered, but thumb keys. Or get a Moonlander or Keyboardio Model 100 if you want row stagger. Or get a Kinesis Advantage2 if you want almost all possible ergonomic features (I had wrist pains and switching to a KA2 solved that completely).
You can get some of there brands (in particular Kinesis) at regular ergo shops, so many employers will just see them as another expense besides a good chair or desk. (My employer bought me a Kinesis Advantage2 for the office-office.)
Why would I invest the time, effort, and incalculable risk
What incalculable risk?
You're just learning new muscle memory. Particularly if you're just talking about different key alignments (grid vs traditional typewriter staggered style).
If you're talking about learning a new layout, like going from QWERTY to Dvorak or Colemak, that's a much bigger commitment, but still not a risk or something you can't simply change your mind about.
I've gone from QWERTY to Dvorak and back, and from traditional to Kinesys and back. It's like learning to drive a stick shift, you can always give up or switch back and forth.
Consumer lock-in is a risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is a risk.
Speaking for myself, I also depend on having a job where I have a boss. It's an authoritarian relationship. If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware, it's much harder for me to get/keep a job. For a professional employee, this counts as another risk.
These risks are incalculable because the degree of dependence cannot be known until much later once all the quirks of the new system have been accounted for.
> Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk.
It's literally all open, you can build it yourself. If you really do develop a dependence on it, as long as you archive everything, you'll be able to get another one. You can't say the same about depending on a commercial keyboard.
I am slightly worried about my moonlander breaking and then no-longer being manufactured in 5-10 years, but I know I can learn a new layout in a few days, so it's not a big issue.
> Speaking for myself, I also depend on having a job where I have a boss. It's an authoritarian relationship. If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware, it's much harder for me to get/keep a job. For a professional employees, this is another incalculable risk.
Where have you worked that mandated you use a standard keyboard? I've had the opposite, when I had bad wrist problems, my employer bought me a whole bunch of different ergonomic keyboards and mice to try (including foot pedals) until I found something comfortable.
Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk.
Just... Unplug the keyboard and go back to your old one!
If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware
The only time your boss cares what keyboard you're using is when you hand in a requisition form. Even then, they're likely to be happy to foot the bill to have a productive employee and potentially avoid a future disability claim.
Again, you can just switch back to a regular keyboard. The human body is much smarter than you seem to think it is.
The boss will care when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware, or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips, or when you need to haul an armful of peripherals to the conference room for a standard meeting.
when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware
You mean plugging in a keyboard? Seriously, what are you even making up in your head here?
or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips
Your examples imply a laptop, which already has a built-in keyboard. Why would you haul your workstation keyboard into a meeting?
Again, you can simply switch back. Learning a new keyboard configuration doesn't eliminate the old layout from your muscle memory. Even going back to QWERTY after learning Dvorak is pretty seamless.
To give a similar example, do you normally use a mouse? Do you take the mouse with you to the coffee shop, airplane, or meeting, or do you just use the trackpad while you're there? Same thing.
Haven't tried learning DVORAK to see how easy I can switch back but as a 12 year vim user, not having access to vim bindings feels like coding with handcuffs. Luckily all major IDEs come with decent vim bindings but I would be afraid to learn another layout because then I'd become dependent on it and I'm not so sure I'd be able to switch seamlessly without a painfully dreaded time window to adjust.
Even if it takes a week to go back, previous comments were talking about being productive in a coffee shop or on a work trip which happen rarely. If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive.
Honestly, not that big of a deal, switching between layouts. At some point I switched between DE and US-International where basically all of the characters used for programming are in different places. I still can go back and forth between them.
I know people who have tried a bunch of different layouts, and maybe the best comparison is “swimming styles”. The people who tried like more than two, had no problem switching back and forth. If you are a professional swimmer, you will have no trouble switching between styles.
For vim and Dvorak specifically there seem to be macros which map Dvorak to QWERTY under the hood if not in edit mode. So you can use muscle memory for that.
If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive.
As someone with literally decades of experience with alternative keyboard designs and character layouts, I can assure you that your fears are ridiculous.
It's not in any way a problem to go from, say, a Kinesis or Ergodox running Dvorak back to a QWERTY laptop for a day.
You wildly underestimate the human mind and body.
Now, learning Dvorak or Colemak after years of QWERTY, that is difficult. Going back, however, is easy.
I've been considering a custom keyboard setup and have thought about this for a while now.
In summary: the custom keyboard part supply chain seems robust since it's intertwined with the standard keyboard industry. If you stick to components used for normal keyboards or from other stable industries you should always be able to source the parts.
Yes, you are committing to building your own keyboards for life, but the construction techniques are usually not that exotic so this should be manageable. (In addition learning to make your own keyboard should teach you some skills that probably has other uses.)
Making your own gives you some long term assurance. Unlike e.g. the Data hand, which I understand is now unobtanium, something like the Ergodox will be something you should have available for life should you choose to.
It's very easy to build your own keyboard. Most do miss important ergonomic features though, because they are hard to do without mass-production. E.g. many designs lack good palm rests, many are 2D (except the various Dactyl versions), and tenting options are limited and often not as stable as pre-manufactured keyboards.
Are moonlander and ergodox too zany or too out of the default? I used a MD600 for a while, and found that keyboards that are just qwerties chopped in half diagonally in the middle-ish aren't really taking advantage of the splitness enough, so ergodox or a dactyl seemed better for me.
My moonlander took a few days/weeks of getting used to, but it’s not very «far out» in my mind. The biggest hurdle is getting used to the ortholinear keys, but this quickly feels much better. Would warmly recommend to anyone spending much time in front of a keyboard, really.
The biggest hurdle is wondering why your space bar is no longer working on a normal keyboard, and realising that you are actually smashing the alt key :D
But seriously, I love my Moonlander(s) and have no regrets buying them.
> The biggest hurdle is wondering why your space bar is no longer working on a normal keyboard, and realising that you are actually smashing the alt key :D
This hasn't really been an issue for me after the first week or two of use. My muscle memory adjusts based on which keyboard I'm using. Typing this on my MBP's laptop keyboard while I work using my Moonlander day-to-day.
> But seriously, I love my Moonlander(s) and have no regrets buying them.
Also got a second for the office because of how much I love it. Only minor regrets because spending over 1k on two keyboards (after caps, etc) is a tough pill to swallow.
Agreed, I make small tweaks occasionally to improve some behavior and it gives me a good feeling deep down to know I can change what any key does at its most basic level. I don't even use layers too much but most of my keys will have both a tap and tap-hold option and it's crazy to think that I can choose to change it at any time without any issue, and having it carry over between computers since it's all in the keyboard itself.
I still haven't figured out a good combination for an Esc/backtick key since I use both keys pretty commonly and there just isn't space for both.
I got a Moonlander about 3 months ago, and it took me about a month of getting used to the key layout until I was typing at similar speed to a Macbook keyboard (which for me is fairly fast, about 120wpm). The hardest letters for me was shifting from my index finger to my ring finger for 'c', and shifting '.' from my other index finger to my other ring finger. I basically got used to never typing a key with my ring finger below the home row and with the ortholinear keys it was just no longer possible to type quickly while having my index finger handle everything. The keys also poke out quite a bit more than other keyboards so when you stretch to type a key with the "wrong" finger you are also much more likely to accidentally press another key.
Getting used to spacebar, backspace and enter, all of which I shifted to thumb mappings, took only a few days. You hit those keys so often you learn the muscle memory very quickly. This to me is by far the best part of the moonlander, having 4 super-accessible thumb keys and 2 semi-accessible thumb keys that I can program is a massive, massive improvement over a standard keyboard. Your thumb is completely wasted in a normal layout.
I still am far below my "normal" speed for programming, but that is because I'm trying to figure out the best custom mapping for (){}[]<>=+ and then train the muscle memory.
Overall I'm very happy with the purchase, I feel like it is much more ergonomic and with another few months of service and perfecting my layout it will hopefully end up being much faster and more convenient than a normal keyboard layout as well.
In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits with virtually zero tradeoffs beyond the couple of days it take to adjust to it.
Could you elaborate on the benefits in taking more "advantage of the splitness"? Maybe I'm overlooking a big missed opportunity.
For me, I at least need to transition from my laptop keyboards (linux/mac) to my split keyboards without distracting from the work at hand. More generally, I think professionals should never stray too far from industry standard tools.
My main issue with ergodox is consumer lock-in. Dependence on custom keybindings is one thing, but dependence on custom physical keys is bad practice outside of special circumstances.
> More generally, I think professionals should never stray too far from industry standard tools.
I have used a Moonlander for close to two years now. Other than the few days at the beginning before muscle memory developed, I have had no issues going from a Moonlander, to a standard mechanical, to laptop keyboards. It's not nearly as big of a problem as you're making it seem, coming from my own experience.
And why can't someone choose to use a tool that helps them? What's so wrong with that?
> My main issue with ergodox is consumer lock-in. Dependence on custom keybindings is one thing, but dependence on custom physical keys is bad practice outside of special circumstances.
What even is this argument? Oryx is just a layer on top of QMK, an open source keyboard firmware. The keys are all standard row 3 keycaps, with the exception of the thumb cluster which are 1.5u and 2u keycaps. Sure, the thumb cluster is unique, but that can be said for dozens of different keyboards: A lot have macro keys, or twists and knobs to control things like volume. Arrow key designs are different from manufacturer to manufacturer. Hell, the entire layout is different based on which country you're in. Having a thumb cluster seems like an extremely minor lock-in considering muscle memory isn't limited to one layout at a time.
> In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits with virtually zero tradeoffs beyond the couple of days it take to adjust to it.
"standard layout, but split" doesn't quite do enough to fix a big deficiency of standard layouts:
Disproportionate use of the pinky finger compared to the thumb. - The thumb is much stronger than the pinky fingers, but the pinky fingers get used for many more keys than the thumb.
It's much more comfortable to be able to use the thumb for enter, backspace, tab, escape, than having to move the hand & use the pinky finger for these.
>In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits
Splitting a staggered keyboard is only 2% of the ergonomic benefits in my experience. You're just splitting a terrible design into a wider terrible design. It's the finger movement that is un-ergonomic.
Have you used an ergodox or other ortholinear keyboard? I absolutely can't stand to use non-ortholinear keyboards now.
I don't care about lock-in. Staggered qwerty is lock-in to terrible keyboards.
I have my own keyboard for work and home. When I spend >12h per day on a keyboard, I need it to be how I like it.
There's loads of those? Kinesis Freestyle, Matias Ergo Pro, Mistel Barocco, Cloud Nine ErgoFS. You could also build one.
A split keyboard only addresses one or two problems. The US QWERTY layout is objectively awful and there's loads of room for improvement. Even adding a single modifier key instead of the massively useless space bar is a huge improvement but people are married to the idea we must alternate thumbs to space because 60 years ago it actually took effort to do.
Kenesis Freestyle (tested)
- NOT multi-platform, "Mac" version has no function key
Matias Ergo Pro (not tested)
- NOT multi-platform, A lot of non-standard key placement and spacing
Mistel (tested) - Like I said, this is the best option
Cloud Nine (tested) - NOT multi-platform, ridiculous footprint will hardly even fit on my desk WITHOUT a mouse, countless unnecessary features, I do have a friend who loves this keyboard but even they agree that they should have better options
Matias Ergo Pro absolutely is cross platform. There's a DIP switch under right CMD or alt and you can swap between Mac/PC. I've done this. I'm not even sure how beneficial "cross platform" is when you can just swap modifier controls on the Mac (the problem platform) anyways?
Did you try the Kinesis Freestyle PRO? They advertise advertise Mac and Windows support while the NON-pro is Windows or Mac.
The function key isn't a real key either. It's a key to do something on the keyboard itself. Plenty of Mac keyboards made by Apple even don't have one.
Considering the "non-standard" key placements on these keybaords are about as big of a change as the average laptop and the Cloud Nine literally has a standard PC layout so I think you're just really picky. Maybe just build one?
The Matias has weird function keys on the left side and seems quite asymmetric.
The Mistel is the best, off the shelf, not too expensive split keyboard. If money is no object, the UHK is what I would buy. The thumb clusters are optional and modular.
I wish there was a more affordable split keyboard.
I tried it and had to return it. It's not multi-platform and the mac version is horribly designed so you have to sacrifice media keys to have function keys.
Ive been thinking about this quite a bit along with portability in mind. Its led me to sketch out this idea involving smaller 0.75u keys inspired by Atreus: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/x6mbjh/s... - while the layout is a bit more ortholinear in theory one shouldn't have to deal with layering. The bigger tradeoff is its handmade due to the modified keycaps.
> Why do all keyboard projects either mindlessly adhere to antique conventions or hopelessly diverge into zaniness? Why is it so difficult to find a multi-platform split keyboard with no gimmicks, standard layouts, and sane defaults. I will buy a back-stock of 10 when I find it. The closest thing so far is the Mistel MD770 so I own 2 of them.
Try finding what you are looking for but with an ISO layout. Which is why I am thinking about buying a second Mistel MD770.
Layers have less "incalculable risk" when you design the layers yourself for your needs and according to your logic.
Don't use layer setups other people designed verbatim; take inspiration from them.
For example, my own ergo keyboard has no dedicated backspace button; instead I chose to have fn-M (a thumb function key) and it's actually better for me than reaching for a true backspace key.
I would never expect anyone else to be able to use my keyboard though.
The Mistel MD770 is quite unergonomic. It has positive tilt (bad for your wrists) and only very small amount of tenting. There many keyboards that are more ergonomic from companies that have been around a long time (e.g. Kinesis).
The Kinesis Freestyle Pro is a pretty boring (in a good way) mechanical split keyboard. It has an (optional) tenting kit, which I guess could be seen as zany, but it really adds quite a bit of comfort.
I tried it. It's not multi-platform and the so-called mac version has no function key so you must pick between media keys and function keys.
It also takes up a lot of unnecessary desk space and has a lot of bonus keys nobody asked for, but I would have still used them (one for win and another for mac) if I could adjust volume on the mac version without a 3rd party hack.
I think you are confusing the Pro with the Freestyle2. There is no separate Mac version of the Freestyle Pro (or Edge RGB) and it is fully programmable (and has a separate programmable function layer) and is a mechanical keyboard.
The Freestyle2 is a completely different keyboard, has a Mac version, is not programmable and has rubber dome switches.
Yah, I’d probably be happier with a version that lacked all the extra keys on the left and right as well as useless stuff like the function and media keys, but I just ignore them.
The motivation for this sounds convincing. My problem is that I’m not willing or able to put the time into learning a new layout, with or without a chording aspect.