Around 2 years ago now, I took the plunge and bought myself an Ergodox EZ split island keyboard. Quite franky, it is the biggest quantum leap in the ergonomic experience of interacting with a computer I have seen since learning Vim. It is comfortable, effortless and fast. If you spend any significant time interacting with computers it is a complete no brainer to invest in optimising the IO channel between your brain and the machine.
Here is a link to my keyboard layout which you can freely use. It is optimised for Vim and Ubuntu use.
> it is a complete no brainer to invest in optimising the IO channel between your brain and the machine
Why? You'll never even double the "throughput" of that "channel", let alone improve it by an order of magnitude.
And I say this as someone who wasted lots of time and money attempting exactly that before I realized that typing is not what I spend most of my time doing while programming.
It's not just about improving the bandwidth (although that is nice), the one thing I wouldn't trade that the Ergodox gives me is a very low error rate in typing. This is hard to achieve with a traditional keyboard, especially when you starting throwing special characters into the mix that require two-handed contortions.
I've heard the refrain "you don't spend most of your time typing when programming" so many times it's almost become a trope. I personally spend enough time typing during a typical day (working or otherwise) that I really appreciate the benefits of a highly optimised keyboard setup, although of course YMMV. I don't think the argument holds water.
It's not the bandwidth per se, so much it's the continuous attention cost spent on keeping that bandwidth going.
Better tactile feedback and more reliable input means I don't have to constantly multitask half a task worth of attention onto making sure the input I think I'm doing went off as intended, which makes it easier to concentrate on the main task, which reduces the build up of fatigue, which reduces the rate at which the cost of mental effort increases throughout the day.
Which is not to mention things like the chance of getting hand cramps from the additional tension there caused by interacting with a less reliable keyboard, and by the tendency to use excess input force in attempt to get strokes through more consistently.
By my read y'all need more practice typing, not a fancy expensive ergo keyboard. Other than the occasional hand cramps this lifelong nerd doesn't have any of those problems on this old, mushy MS natural.
I thought so too untill I started having RSI/CTS issues. I've since switched to a 'fancy expensive ergo keyboard'. And it fantastic, I'm about as fast as I was on a traditional qwerty, but with less errors. However most importantly I have far less RSI/CTS complaints when typing on my redox than I do with a non-split (even ergo non-splits). My arms are in a far more natural position and so is my wrist thanks to the tenting and tilting I can do with the redox.
So if you are typing a lot, I would recommend getting an ergo before you start having issues.
For reference I could type about a paragraph in one go on a regular keyboard, now I can type an entire page before I start having pains/cramps.
Jumping in to chime in on this. I developed issues a few months ago, then swapped over to the ergodox, and my daily pains stopped. If you can't afford the ergodox, I also found the Microsoft Sculpt worked wonder. I picked up a used one on eBay and it's been great.
I use a Sculpt as my work keyboard and, while fantastic, have you had any issues with the range of the wireless transmitter? I feel like it doesnt go beyond a couple of inches unless it's plugged into a powered USB hub -- even then it still occasionally drops keypresses
Totally agree. I never realized this until one day it started hurting to do work which really took the wind out of my sails. Adjusting my setup to better compensate for eye strain and rsi related issues really helped.
Unrelated to parent topic, but related to your comment on eyestrain, I have found that using f.lux to change the color temperature of my monitors to match the fluorescent lighting in my office (with a color temperature of 4200K) to do wonders for alleviating eyestrain.
Changing the temp on my monitor and making additional adjustments to my workspace helped. However, thank you for the suggestion. I had previously known this as a mac only software.
Fully agreed. I am very thankful that I took typewriting classes when I was younger. I do not think it is a coincidence that I also do not have trouble with keyboards being difficult to type on, unlike 90%+ of the folks I work with. Just plain putting in the hours of practice on proper form may not be a very exciting answer, but I can't think of a more effective one.
I agree 100% with you on this. My first year of high-school we had a typing class on an IBM Selectric keyboard. Our teacher was a wizened old secretary that for a considerable portion of her career used a non-electric typewriter.
What has always stayed with me was her guidance on posture and form. The 'piano style'* on which she insisted is almost completely contrary to modern ergonomic teachings, and yet I can say almost 40-years later; still works and is effective.
I readily admit that I'm probably lucky too in that I don't follow that guidance to the T, I do however follow the basic form of it. This anecdote simply agrees with your statement.
*: 'piano style' wrists higher then knuckles, finger-tips hovering/barely touching home-row, back straight
It might be a consumer perception issue, either relating to the inexpensive (relatively) price or the Microsoft brand that keeps users away from the Natural versus other more complex designs.
Agreed. That statement is one of those catty oft repeated things we are supposed to take as gospel for some reason.
Personally: I spend ALL DAY typing. Configurations, code, documentation, tutorials, arguments for doing things one way or another, user stories for work, chatting with my coworkers, running cli commands.
I see a huge difference in my productivity between myself and my peers partly due to my faster text input and editing skills.
> I've heard the refrain "you don't spend most of your time typing when programming" so many times it's almost become a trope.
Yeah. Yet, when you switch to a completely different (and maybe not very comfortable) keyboard layout and get slowed down to 50% of your usual speed and make a lot more typos, it just immediately shows how incredibly frustrating coding can get even if typing isn't the primary challenge in it.
Input should flow effortlessly and comfortably. That just makes it easier to focus on the more important stuff.
What an Ergodox lets me do is this: while standing, with good posture, I extend my arms, level with the ground, to where they comfortably and naturally want to be.
Then, I put the keyboards there, adjust the desk up to that height, and put books under the monitor until the center is exactly level with my eyes. Trackball to the right.
This is dramatically more comfortable than anything else I could be doing. It's hard to convey how uncomfortable a straight keyboard is to someone who hasn't tried the alternative.
For me, I notice the difference in my shoulders. They tuck in with a compact keyboard, and then my wrists bow inward. It ends in a slouch and increasing neck pain over time - even my personal laptop makes this noticeable after a short amount of time.
Ergodox EZ may puzzle people with its layout, but the split island part alone has made computing comfortable for me, especially when combined with a sit/stand desk. There's a lot less physical strain to wrestle with, which a bigger difference as time goes on.
OH! I just realized this explains why my right shoulder is lower compared to my left! Every time I take a photo, the photographer always tells me to bring it higher. My neutral position for my mouse!
> It's hard to convey how uncomfortable a straight keyboard is to someone who hasn't tried the alternative.
I've tried split keyboards. They feel unnatural. I feel like I type better/faster when my hands are closer together.
The single greatest thing I've ever done to completely cure RSI pain while typing is eliminating "wrist yaw" - i.e., maintaining a mostly straight line from my elbow to my knuckles. The bonus is that I can type comfortably on any keyboard.
Yep totally agree, in fact sometimes when people see it and ask me questions about it, I suggest they stand at my desk and lay their hands on the two islands. Even without typing a single character they almost invariably react extremely positively to the ergonomic pose.
I defined custom layers so that I can toggle a layer on depending on whether I'm using the keyboard with Chrome OS or Ubuntu Linux. This allows me to use the same shortcuts between the two OSes, while they are otherwise not customizable on Chrome OS. Also, it allows me to use media keys for Chrome OS on a split/ergo keyboard.
Plus as a Vim user, I'm able to use HJKL arrow keys in any app on either OS.
It eliminates frustration. I hate having to look away from the screen, and with a regular keyboard I always have to look down too often, unless I'm writing just prose.
I think folks should not bother trying to justify their keyboard preferences. You're right that it usually makes little difference in terms of productivity.
On the other hand it can be very rewarding to choose something relatively unique for one's keyboard, or even make their own. The keyboard is kind of "intimate". It makes sense to make it yours. Not everything has to be utilitarian.
This differs from one man to the next, as well as by specialty. Some people work better by typing out code quickly, permuting it several different ways, and coming up with a final revision. On the other hand, I sometimes spend ten minutes staring at my screen, then bang out ten lines of code that get something _just right_. However, someone who's more devops/sysadmin focused might type more, as he's piping lots of tools together to filter the output of something, at least from my experience.
I bought a Razer Blackwidow and it makes the experience of typing, whenever I type, a much more pleasant experience. The first time I used it, it almost felt like cutting through butter compared to any keyboard I'd used before. And it will last for tens of millions of keystrokes. I may not type much, but those times where I do, it is beautiful.
I'll be honest, I bought an Ergodox EZ a year or so ago and have consistently struggled to get comfortable using it. I have set up quite a few useful macros for programs I use daily like tmux as well as making it more vim-friendly (after many interations) and yet I still find it a serious chore to get past the fact that the keys feel un-naturally placed. Eventually I just give up and switch back to my laptop keyboard (I'm usually trying to write something and it feels like the keyboard is blocking my natural stream of typing) and so the cycle continues.
I guess my question is -- did everyone else switching to the Ergodox EZ have this problem? And should I just push myself to suffer through it more? Or is it the case that I should revisit my layout (again) to figure out if there's a way to further optimise it so it feels less foreign? One of the really frustrating things is that there isn't a natural place to put fairly common programming key combinations such as "()", "{}", "=+", or "-_" -- does everyone else just use layer toggles for that?
EDIT: Ah, I see your layout makes fairly significant use layer toggles. And you also had trouble with "on-boarding" for the first few weeks -- I guess I just need to force myself to use it then. I might take yours and modify it to add some of the tmux and i3 macros I have defined.
I had a difficult time initially adjusting to my ergodox, a few years back. For the first month or so it felt like I had had a stroke. What worked for me was:
1. Only switching to layers when pressing and holding keys, not having them permanently toggle - otherwise, I find it's very easy to get disoriented and mistake what layer you're on.
2. Not using any common keys as toggles, since the sight delay was driving me insane
3. Probably the biggest one - instead of trying to learn/adjust to the layout you have (especially the default, which I found to have a lot of questionable key placements), whenever you press a key and something other that what you expected to happen happens, adjust your layout to make your original intuition work. This involved a lot of frequent small layout changes initially but I think led to a much less intense learning curve.
Yeah I found it very painful at first (like learning Vim but perhaps 5x times worse). I highly recommend using typing.io to get used to it. Since the training examples are source code, it ensures you get exposed to special characters, which is crucial if you're using your ergodox for programming.
As you can see from the table on my GitHub page, progress was slow and took several weeks to reach baseline levels. This was from maybe 45-60mins per day of dedicated practice. I see the time investment as having paid for itself tenfold already.
I also switched to an Ergodox EZ (about 2 years ago), and the switch was very painful. At first, my speed was divided by 2.
Using some typing practice, I managed to get to my usual speed on a normal keyboard and then thought: good, now I can definitely remove my old keyboard for good. My god this was wrong:
When typing what I saw before me, my brain could dedicate 100% to typing, and this was fine.
But when programming, or even writing an email, part of my brain must concentrate on the content, and my typing what very laborious, maybe half of the normal speed, with many errors. This was taxing much of my mental energy.
I kept on for a at least one month of typing practice before really making a permanent switch.
It was hard, but I do not regret it at all.
Worth noting: I thinkered with the layout quite a bit. Even moving one special character somewhere else could take me a full day to adjust, and it was painful. So I finally settled on a good, but probably not optimal layout.
As some other comment above, I do not use common keys as layer keys (something I really wanted to use) because of delays. It is not much, but I experienced much more typing errors with this.
I’ve been using the smaller version (no arrow or function keys) for about a year now. It took a little bit of adjusting to get used to no arrow keys, but it’s a great experience now! The `fn` key could perhaps be better placed, but other than that I have no qualms.
I used to get a lot of back pain, which I realize now was from scrunching my shoulders together to keep my wrists in typing position for X hours per day. The fact that it’s a quality mechanical keyboard (the quietest switches, brown I think, are just fine for an office) is an extra bonus. I’d recommend giving it a try for anybody considering it. It’s a good in-between, being an ergonomic keyboard that isn’t particularly “funky”, in terms of layout.
The build looks reasonably straightforward. I suspect I wouldn't be able to use low-profile switches with this, but I'll fully admit I'm not well versed in keyboard assembly.
Thanks for this. I'm getting closer to what I'm looking for.
I bought an MD650L and found the switches to be unusably bad. I, too, wished for a low-profile Quefrency.
I'm comfortable designing and assembling PCBs but don't really have time to debug a brand-new design, so I've ordered a low-profile Lily58 kit. The Lily58 is most of what I want and has open source PCB, schematic and case. If it doesn't work for me, I'm expecting to modify it to something more like Quefrency.
no pricing info, or anything else to suggest any way to get one of these from what I see. Maybe it's the English version that suffers in this way?
They look cool. If they could make one with no need for wire between the two halves I'd dig deeper on how to get one I suppose.
I wrapped my head around the ergodox by realizing that you have to use layers. It's not supposed to map 1:1 with a regular keyboard.
I use a modified version of the default symbol layer that's more programmer friendly (I think) and I put the toggle for this layer under my right index finger. I feel like I'm more accurate now because it's not just my right pinky doing all the symbol work.
I don't use toggles for these common symbols like /\'[-+] . The trick is that you make the top row as same as a normal keyboard, move ]\ from second row to the bottom row as they seldom get typed (] got auto completion most of the time).
Your mileage may vary! I found it easy and rewarding, other people find the ortholinear layout confusing and struggle to type on it, as some sibling comments show.
The one hitch I hit early on, is that it turns out I type 'y' with the left finger on laptops, and on a stock ErgoDox, that involves hitting a layer button, which of course throws off one's rhythm. I had to turn that key into a dead key until I got used to typing y with my right finger (I still hit it with the left on a laptop).
Hah, the key I struggled with the most was 'b'. My brain was convinced that was a right index-finger key the first couple of weeks using an Ergodox EZ.
The microsoft natural 4000 keyboard is pretty standard except split in the middle. It's good enough for me, no need to relearn but much better to use. I still get wrist problems but it takes longer.
Haven't tried the Ergodox, but had bad experiences with thumb keys on both a Kinesis Advantage and a Keyboardio.
Then I tried the ultimate hacking keyboard and I absolutely love it, especially the mouse emulation layer. And it took me way less to get used to it compared to the above two. I can't recommend it enough!
Writing Rust in Dvorak on an EZ Ergo for a living is next-level techno-paradise to many a nerd. Kudos for that!
Also, if by any chance you feel like sharing details about how, and in which order you made these transitions; things you wish you knew before trying... please don't hesitate :)
I used Colemak (which is similar to Dvorak) and I would really recommend learning it if you don't already touch type. It does involve a little bit of pain at first and you'll feel really tempted to go back but in a week I was already fast enough to do useful work. I'm not a speed demon by any means, I type at the same speed I did before (60 wpm) except now I don't need to look at the keyboard which is very convenient in ways I didn't realize would be possible before. For example now it's much easier for me to take notes in a meeting or class because I can keep my eyes on the subject.
The worst part was having to relearn keyboard shortcuts, so I don't know if I'd recommend it to an emacs or vim user.
Thanks a lot! I've searched a bit based on what you said and sort of found a point of entry into Colemak. It's very enticing. I'm not a touch typist yet (use all fingers but quite inconsistently I suppose, yet 'fast enough' for me and without looking).
Would it be sensible to make such a 'dramatic' layout change at the same time as the switch to a split ortholinear such as the EZ? It seems more straightforward to do it all at once, but also taking quite the tall order at once — ortho + colemak + strict touch typing.
I think it would be sensible to make all the changes together.
If you already type e.g. T with the wrong hand, then it's annoying to start typing it with the correct hand (because it's on the other side of the split), then learn a new location with a new layout.
(Do also consider Dvorak. The difference is not really worth an argument, but at least with a programmable mechanical keyboard one of the main advantages -- that Control Z/X/C/V remain in place -- can be kept with Dvorak with a small adjustment to the layout. I've never tried Colemak, but I do like the hand alternation design of Dvorak, and I think I would miss it.)
Thanks for the advice/perspective; it definitely helped me decide how to proceed.
I'll definitely make all changes at once, then. I'll experiment with both Dvorak and Colemak for the letter keys.
Shorcuts are not much of a problem for me, extensive MMO raid gaming in my teen-20's made sure of that.
I miss AutoHotKey (AHK, windows program) very much, haven't found anything to remap keyboard inputs so extensively and granularly on Linux. KDE helps a lot, but nowhere near enough for my taste. I'm very excited for the EZ Oryx firmware tool in that regard, as it may replace AHK (and whatever it can't do yet, I can probably program, which is sweet).
The one thing I wonder about as a colemak user is should I have opted for a fully optimised layout instead? Having the common keys stay the same as qwerty was convenient while learning colemak but really isn’t necessary after a few weeks. I don’t regret choosing colemak though because it’s got good OS support (cones built in with Linux and OSX) while the fully optimised layouts typically have to be manually installed. I’ve been a happy colemak user for about 8 years now and couldn’t imagine still using qwerty.
I’m an unhappy vim Colemak user. I remapped HJKL to NEIO, which implied some other changes (particularly needing to find new keys for N and I), and now I never know what keys to press because I can’t keep track of whether I’m using a local vim with all my settings. Touch typing on Qwerty and Colemak is no problem, but changing my vim habits is much more difficult, I suppose because I don’t think as much about the letters when I’m not using them to spell out words.
I experimented with changing the config so that the vim keys remain in the same physical qwerty locations and I suppose if you have super strong muscle memory for vim commands it probably makes sense to do that, but I didn’t so ultimately decided not to remap keys. Yes my hjkl are in weird locations, but I actually got used to it quit quickly (and on my kinesis advantage, I just use the cursor keys since their in reach).
Used to map navigation to AltGr+u/n/e/i (for up down left right), so qwerty i/k/j/l which was a suoer comfortable way for me to navigate (left thumb on AltGr and then wasd style cursors) but since I got the kinesis keyboard, I haven’t bothered. I do still use windows key + unei for navigating in i3
Non-Qwerty layouts are probably much better for Emacs users, at least if they know the somewhat dated names for the commands: most of the letters are chosen (if at all) for their initial, rather than their position.
Moving the cursor Forward, Backward, Previous line, Next line is Ctrl+F/B/P/N, which doesn't involve learning anything new when changing layouts. "Paste" is actually "yank", so that's Ctrl+Y.
I used to use an Ergodox Infinity that I built from a kit. Since then I've moved to the Model 01 from https://keyboard.io
Why? I find the thumb clusters way better, I feel like they're just a bit too far away on the ergodox keyboards. That, and the shape of the keys and the curve of the stagger are better IMO.
The downside is you can't use any keycaps because they're unique to this keyboard.
I tried an ergodox after years with a kinesis advantage, end of the day it was just worse. Finally put a custom controller in my advantages flashed them with qmk and custom keymaps and sold off the ergodox.
But I'm not planning to switch because it will make me unlearn all the traditional keyboards for me. In particular, I will have trouble touch-typing on a laptop keyboard after that, and there are zero options for an Ergodox-like layout on a commercially available laptop. So, no way to work on a train or a plane.
I wish some laptop maker were so brave as to offer a split and angled keyboard as an option on a laptop with decent internals, though.
I also use an (QWERTY) ergodox, and I'm fine jumping back and forth between normal keyboards and the ergodox. I'd say budget 2-3 weeks to get comfortable on the ergodox, and then another 2-3 weeks before you're comfortable jumping between it and normal keyboards again.
If only there was an Ergodox keycap set with all printed keys. I used an Ergodox EZ from when it was delivered after the crowdfunding campaign, right until the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard delivered on its campaign, and I stuck with the UHK mostly because all keys are labeled. I post this every time there is a thread about the Ergodox in the hope there will be keycap sets available some day...
The keys are not profiled (they are all the same shape, rather than having different heights for each row), so except for the F and J (which have homing dips) they are interchangeable.
Alternatively, there are the geeky custom sets, like https://candykeys.com/group-buys/kat-milkshake , which sometimes support Ergo/Orth layouts. They can be less flexible (if they keycaps are profiled), and they will be considerably more expensive.
I actually put this in my Ali Express basket last week, but I'm still on the fence about actually ordering it or not. My experiences with Ali Express key caps are hit and miss. Then again I probably shouldn't be posting complaints about key cap sets online and then not try every option out there.
I also have an Ergodox EZ. It is in fact revolutionary. Just being able to move keys around was so helpful for me. I have ({}) on jkl;, for example (shifted with a key below V...). Symbols are much more comfortable to type, and frequent operations like backspace and enter are on my pointer fingers or thumbs, so I'm not straining my pinky all day.
The Ergodox is not perfect, though. I think it has too many thumb keys (blindly copying Kinesis); they take up space but you can't really take advantage of them. Going from a staggered layout to ortholinear was quite the struggle for me. I endured and "got it", but I know a lot of people aren't going to have the patience.
Ultimately I like this article because it shows that hand-wired keyboards are quite practical. The author went overboard making it look nice, but you can build yourself a very nice keyboard with an Arduino, some switches, diodes, and wire, and a 3D printer. It won't look as nice, but you can get every single detail perfect.
The biggest mistake of my adult life, in my opinion, is that I didn’t buy a good keyboard sooner. I Kinesis Advantage2 now (with a foot pedal for shift), but I almost bought one ten years earlier, but didn’t because of the cost. I really wish I had.
Most of us here on HN spend so much of our lives typing that we really should invest in good tools, especially for comfort. I rely on my hands so much that I feel like spending $300 to protect them from RSI and to improve typing comfort and accuracy is a no brainier. I think anybody who types a lot should get an ergonomic split keyboard with mechanical switches (and learn to not bottom the keys out). Your hands will thank you. A once off cost of $300ish is really not that much compared to discomfort or injury.
complaining about $300 for a great keyboard is like complaining about a pricey bed. You use it for how many hours of the day if you're a programmer/engineer? Maybe it's worth spoiling yourself.
Precisely, although I don't think it's spoiling yourself. You use some things a whole lot that it makes sense to spend comparatively more on them than you would on "normal" items:
* Bed
* Office chair
* Keyboard and mouse
* Monitors
* Footwear
* Cooking basics like a couple of knives and a pan or two.
"At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet."
Perhaps a modernized/realistic version would be "you can spend $200 on pizza ten times in a year, or you can spend the same on a couple of knives and second-hand stainless steel pans. At the end of the year, you may have some excess body fat depending on activity level, or some good useful cookware" (or something, I dunno, I'm never going to be as smart or eloquent as Terry Pratchett GNU)
Your list of "Bed, Office chair, Keyboard and mouse, Monitors, Cooking basics like ... a pan or two." (all except footwear) aligns very well with my list of "things that don't fit on a plane".
Unfortunately my life isn't stable enough to invest in something that I can't carry with me when I have to move. It's luxuries like these that I've often had to go without entirely (having a chair and desk is so nice compared to using a laptop on a mat on the floor). If immigration were easier, I'd have already settled down, but instead it's been 8 years and counting living like this. I really hope my pending resident visa application comes through this time, so I can start investing in things like those.
They do, however, fit in a shipping container. By the time you paid for all of these things, shipping them is a lot cheaper than buying them all again.
Shipping takes several months, and assumes I know the address in the destination before I set off. By the time a shipping container would arrive, I'd already have been there for 90 days, and need to leave again.
Tbh, cheap(er) keyboards don't necessarily are unreliable and fall under that theory. I'm mildy interested in buying a fancy keyboard, but the Logitech I bought in highschool refuses to die...
Your keyboard, like the AK-47 rifle and the UN26 bottom bracket, is an interesting exception to the Vimes theory. Cheap, unsophisticated, but virtually indestructible.
I'm not sure if there's a common mechanism by which things like that come to be. Possibly that they are designed for customers who are buying in bulk for use by other people (cubicle drones, PBI, buyers of assembled bikes), and who have a vested interest in reliability.
Something I hadn't quite considered: a 2000-something Logitech is cheap by todays standards, but back then Logitech was covered the range from affordable to high-end (Gaming keyboards with screens for maybe ~$100-130?), probably didn't make much really cheap ones, and likely didn't want to skimp to much on the cheaper models and ruin their reputation for the expensive ones. They weren't cheap enough for the effect to "trigger".
Yep. I got pretty into keyboards this year and ended up spending over $500 and probably 50 hours on research, key switches, key caps, soldering, firmware programming, and learning Colemak and ortholinear layouts. I enjoyed the process, but it would be pretty difficult to argue that it was a worthwhile investment on purely pragmatic grounds. When you spend $200 on a keyboard, you’re inclined to spend hours fixing it when there are problems (which every custom-built keyboard has) rather than just dropping $20 on a new one. I’m not getting any of that time back and I’m not any faster at typing.
It's the same as spending $10k on a mattress - it's just dumb. Yes you spend a lot of time in it, but after a certain point you're spending money to feed someone's marketing, not paying for any tangible benefit.
I never get the more expensive product unless it's obviously or provably better. Baseline assumption is that quality is the same and they just want more money.
> complaining about $300 for a great keyboard is like complaining about a pricey bed.
except it isn't a great keyboard when compared with standard keyboards, and its value proposition is absurd when taken into account that standard keyboards cost around 10€ and ergonomic keyboards by reference brands such as Microsoft go for about 50€.
I've used the €50 keyboard; it's certainly better than the €5 keyboard (at retail) that ships with most desktops, but it's still not anywhere near as good as a Kinesis or Maltron, the cost of either is less than 1‰ (so a rounding error of a rounding error) of the cost of employing me for a year, and they'll last longer than the five-year depreciation period for office equipment.
The kinesis keyboard costs more than some low-end laptops. It's hard to sell the idea that it's ok for a keyboard to cost more than a regular everyday work computer, even if it's price is expressed in coffee cups.
One of my colleagues (a PA, not a developer) has a "Rollermouse Red" which costs $400.
It's an easy sell when the doctor says "you need this to avoid time off work" or similar. More developers should take a preventative approach and invest in ergonomic hardware.
(I'm pretty sure my desk is about $500, and the chair probably similar.)
$500 is a low-end, made-in-China sit/stand desk. For one made in the US with a hardwood top, it could be $2000 or more, not including monitor arms and other useful accessories.
My chair at home actually only cost $500 because it was the store's house brand, but it happened to be the most comfortable. If it weren't for that, I'd have bought an Aeron. A name-brand office chair lists for $1000-$1500, but avoiding a sick day or three due to back pain makes one very +EV, very quickly.
On the other hand, it will outlast many mass-produced low-end laptops made of the cheapest of components.
Mine is still going strong after more than a decade.
Also, these 300 eur laptops are not something I'd consider for everyday work. Way underspecced for a lot of stuff, and generally miserable to work with or carry around.
It's one of those situations where a store front or a friend with the item you're considering helps a lot. My favorite keyboard ever was a Model-M buckling spring keyboard... one year I broke a retainer clip for the spacebar while taking the key caps off to clean it... I decided to toss it, it was probably close to a decade old at that point.
After that for about another decade, I bought a new keyboard each year, often anywhere from $20-50, and it was always disappointing... I'd put up with it for the better part of a year and move on. I'd tried several of the more popular mechanical keyboards, never quite the same.
I then found Unicomp was still making them... though not exactly the same, still really nice imho. I use one of the 103 key models at home. I've since switch to a cherry mx brown das keyboard at work to spare my coworkers the noise. In the end, the $120 or so I spent for a keyboard that's lasted me years is far better than one I've swapped out at least once a year.
I'd probably consider it if I had any signs of RSA or actually liked split keyboards at all. Ironically, moving to a mechanical keyboard with a tactile feel, the RSA symptoms I did have have since gone away. I've still tried several other KBs and styles since then, my only suggestion is stay away from mechanical keyboards under around $80 as they're often knockoff switches that are not as good and don't feel the same.
It's great, and what's not to love if you're a POSIX guy? The Ctrl and Caps Lock keys are swapped, so the Ctrl key is on the home row like God intended. It has buckling spring, positive keyclick action and it's so good if you do a lot of keyboard input or use Vim and/or Emacs. The bottom plate is steel and it's heavy, it won't slide around on my desk.
Sure, for custom mechanical keyboard snobs, the keycaps aren't anything to write home about because sometimes the key characters aren't properly centered on the key surface. But my keycaps look OK, maybe I just happened to get a good one. And it doesn't bother me anyway because I never look at the keys when typing.
Kind of wish I'd started with a keyboard that had the ctrl where the caps lock is... I can see the appeal. One thing I've found from some bad keyboards is I really favor the left ctrl and the right shift, when either of those are out of position it's truly a painful experience for me (notably on many laptops).
You can hop on reddit and resell it on for 50-100 less than you paid for it. This makes the experiment less expensive, and if you're trying to pinch that last penny and have some patience, you could cruise those same forums until one comes up on sale, and sell it off for what you paid for it.
It's not spoiling yourself! What tradesman would buy a 15$ no brand cordless drill that they'll use dozens of times a day? Yes the cheapest one will spin the drill bit when you push the button, just like one 10 or 30 times more expensive - but just the better ergonomics makes it worth it. One aspect of being a professional is using proper tools.
I work with senior developers all around me all day, most of them don't see a reason to spend more than $10 on a keyboard, and mock me constantly whenever I get a typo somewhere about my $150 daskeyboard.
I’ve always assumed that ergonomic beds and keyboards were equal parts snake oil, once you get past the obviously terrible bargain basement stuff. Do you think there’s a meaningful difference?
€10 gets you the cheap keyboard which leads to bad wrist positions, which can contribute to RSI and carpal tunnel.
€60-80 buys a mass-produced ergonomic design, like the Microsoft Ergonomic. These aren't adjustable or programmable, but it's easily a worthwhile improvement.
(Personally, I bought a mechanical keyboard because I don't like the low-travel laptop-style keys that are now standard on the MS Ergonomic and other similar "cheap" ergonomic keyboards.)
€100-150 buys a mass-produced, adjustable, reprogrammable (to some extent) keyboard, like a Kinesis Freestyle. This will help people with wrist issues, and will seem an obvious improvement to anyone who has a Microsoft Ergonomic. It also comes with mechanical keyswitches, which give more options in typing pressure.
€300 buys a sculpted ergonomic keyboard, like the Kinesis Advantage2. I've never used them, but people who have had wrist problems seem to swear by them. They look comfortable to use, if you know how to touch-type in the standard way.
Within this whole range are DIY and small-scale ergonomic keyboards. The price varies a lot depending whether it's self-assembled, self-printed/cut, etc (this obviously makes no difference to the effectiveness of the keyboard), the type of key switches chosen (this makes some difference, but will eventually lead to the kind of discussions one hears about 99.999999999% copper speaker cables where people are spending €2+ per switch) and the key caps (which is 99% appearance).
All of them are fully programmable, and there's potentially a lot of customization possible for tilting, positioning and so on.
The key switches and key caps are independent from whether the keyboard is ergonomic or not, so you can also spend €300+ on an extremely un-ergonomic keyboard with just 50 keys, a milled aluminium case, 8° tilt, no feet, €2 switches and incorrect Japanese key legends with colours taken from a manga. This should be considered art rather than a useful tool.
Adding the €150 Japanese key caps to a €120 kit-built ergonomic keyboard doesn't make it worse, but mine looks good enough with the plain €15 key caps.
Good tools will see you through a job with ease; they pay for themselves. Bad tools will have you hating life and doing a poor job at things. I spend many, many hours at a keyboard, every day. Life is too short to put up with terrible tools.
My current favorite keyboard is about $150, and I would happily pay more because it's a good tool and when things are groovy I hardly notice it's there. I have a couple spares in a closet, because I don't want to spend time retraining.
I don't think it's handmade. It has an injection-molded case, a PCB with surface-mount components that are likely pick-and-place'd, etc. I don't think they build them in quantities comparable to Logitech... but it's basically a mass-produced product.
According to https://ergodox-ez.com/pages/sustainability they make it in an office rather than a factory. Obviously that doesn't rule out a small pick and place machine but it seems less likely.
I believe Adafruit does some of their "manufacturing" in their New York City office. I have seen videos of the pick-and-place machines they have there.
More likely is that Ergodox EZ outsources the PCBs, cases, metal parts, etc. and just do the final assembly themselves. (The keyswitches are socketed, for example, so you just pop those in, put the keycaps on, flash the latest firmware, maybe run a quick test, and ship it out.)
The line can be really blurry these days. Take a tour of the Prusa factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX3pDDi9PeU. Sure, they ship you 3D printed parts... but they have hundreds of 3D printers running 24/7 to meet demand. Is that handmade? Is that mass produced?
I'm on year 5 or 6 with a self built ErgoDox. it's really tough to imagine going back to anything else full time. I ended up building another to keep at home.
Not sure how much it's changed, but I was able to build both of mine <= $200 each.
How do you build one? I'm handy with a soldering iron (and even designing my own PCBs), but I'd still want to not spend more time on it than I have to (e.g. if there is firmware I can just use).
The QMK firmware is pretty simple to get up and running. The wiring is pretty simple too, you have your rows and columns, and then connect each to an input on the microcontroller, and then configure your row/column/key layout in QMK.
It's pretty perplexing, I'm seeing just the PCB go for $50, when you can get that PCB fabbed for $10 from the design. It appears like everyone just marks stuff up at every step, an ergodox-ez costs $300 but around $100 if you assemble it yourself.
Do you have any links to the boards or instructions you used for this? If I'm going to try building a keyboard (which I want to do) it may as well be more ergonomic than my curent one.
I impulse purchased the carrying case they released recently... Tbh not very happy with it. The molded foam inside the case only fits the keyboard but not the silicone wrist rests, which imo are vital. The space efficiency of the case is pretty poor too so it doesn't easily fit in a suitcase or weekend bag. I mostly end up just piling the keyboard into a bag loose.
I’m using an Atreus at the moment and while I enjoyed carrying it around when I was learning the layout, once the novelty wore off it got really old having to pack up the keyboard every day. I’ve switched back to a spare regular keyboard at work as a result. If you want to go all in, be prepared to invest in two keyboards!
Has your conventional keyboard typing suffered significantly? Seems like that might be a problem for laptop use when traveling without the special keyboard.
I use an ergodox as well and I still manage to use my regular keyboard just fine but it feels bad. After drinking the ergonomic kool-aid you notice how awkward normal keyboards can sometimes be.
That being said I've made a script that uses xmodmap and xcape to emulate some of the functionality of my ergodox layout. Obviously I can't physically modify the keyboard but I can remap control to caps lock, use xcape to make it send escape when used on its own (and use "space cadet shifts" to input parentheses), I also like to shuffle some keys to make them easier to reach (for instance I don't use Alt a lot but I use Super to control my WM, so I use xmodmap to swap them on regular keyboards).
This is a very good question and it did in fact occur to me when I was designing the keyboard layout. Partly due to this concern I stuck with a QWERTY layout for alphabetic characters, so I'd at least retain some familiarity with traditional keyboards. Besides that, I'm typing on my laptop right now and often plug in a traditional keyboard if I'm gaming, so I haven't found lack of familiarity with a traditional keyboard a problem.
I do have some lingering switching issues, notably I've put -/_ and +/= on the left side since there isn't room on the right, and `/~ are below left instead of above left.
It's annoying for the first hour, then the muscle memory kicks in. It seems to be slowly but surely sinking in, I expect at some point my fingers will just learn which is which.
I'm simply a mechanical keyboard user, I have a few trusty Filcos that I use and I will sometimes buy a keycap set and wait 1 year for it[1]; I don't have the courage to build custom keyboards.
However I do derive a vicarious pleasure looking at the build logs and end results shared by others, this post included. The two best places I've found to follow are the /r/mechanicalkeyboards[2] subreddit and the geekhack.org[3] forms which goes even more in-depth into specific subtopics.
It's a lovely world of enthusiasts that I am happy to place on a pedestal and admire.
There's also a fairly new subreddit, /r/ErgoMechKeyboards/, which only has ergonomic keyboards (simply split ones, or more usually with staggered columns rather than rows, and often a 3D shape).
Fewer fancy, expensive keycap sets, and more works-in-progress with wires sticking out.
There are small companies selling prebuilt keyboards and kits elsewhere, but I don't know them offhand, except for https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33006060286.html from China (as I have one). There's also https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket where there are people that will build the keyboard for a fee, or sell keyboards second hand.
I use a kinesis advantage2 with brown cherry keyswitches. (I think it's available with others) - my only complaint is that it's kinda giant.
Overall, it's pretty great; if you don't want to build your own, and if you don't want to change your keyboard, it's the best choice because it has been in production since the early '90s with few changes to layout; for me? this is big- changing layout is a big deal. The kinesis has been in production long enough that I am pretty confident I won't have to learn a new layout until keyboards go by the wayside
It's probably the least portable keyboard I've owned, though.
I use the Advantage2 as well, and now have two so I don't have to lug one around to my second location. But when I got my first one, it sat for almost a year because I couldn't be bothered to learn how to type on it. I'm glad I finally took the plunge though because it has relieved my hand/wrist problems and I love typing on it.
Most recent models can only be found in kits or even parts you need to source. Some people sell assembled keyboards so you can limit yourself to those, but at this point your best bet is to buy a kit or the parts and find someone to assemble it. It's really not difficult to do if you can solder and have a bit of patience, if that's a design with a PCB. Handwiring is more challenging.
One model that's easy to find assembled is the Ergodox. But it's been improved by new models like the Iris, Corne, Gergo, Kyria, Lily58…
I've been using a Kinesis Freestyle Pro for over a year. The wristpad they sell is pretty bad, so I attached the wristpad from my Matias Ergo Pro (the keyboard kept breaking).
Maybe that's just me, but I get really annoyed by other people using (freakishly loud) mechanical keyboards in the office. It disrupts me from doing my work and some keyboards even penetrante my Bose QC ii with quiet music on...
There are three broad types of key switch: clicky (makes a loud click), tactile (tries to feel like there's a click but be fairly quiet), linear (no feeling except gradually increasing resistance).
There are also silent versions of tactile and linear switches.
Clicky switches are inappropriate in every office, and silent switches may be preferred in a particularly quiet office. Typical keyboards (Dell, Apple) fall somewhere between the tactile/linear and silent switch mechanical keyboards.
I work in a lab where most people have mechanical keyboards (including myself). Yeah, it's a little noisy, but that's nothing compared to the volume at which people talk, and how they frequently have simultaneous unrelated loud conversations within the same small space.
I agree especially because I use a mechanical keyboard as well, and it makes convincing someone to bring it more difficult. Some folks are really unreasonable with the sounds that they expect others to not be able to hear, and I think it ruins it for the rest of us.
The last time I dropped by /r/mechanicalkeyboards it was full of people that thought Cherry MX was the be-all end-all rather than just a brand name and a poor substitute for something like a proper buckling spring switch. Is that still the case?
Got to play with one of these (pre-production sample as I recall) at a meetup. Wonderful key feel, put in my order a few days later and have been patiently waiting since.
People gravitate toward MX equivalent switches because you can customize them. You can mimic or surpass the topre experience which has been the gold standard. There’s also a thriving niche market for keycaps which is very much focused on MX compatibility.
Maybe it's just a matter of taste, or maybe you have some original old keyboard like the Model M in mind. I've good a Unicomp Spacesaver and a keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches and I've got to confess that I prefer the latter. Both are good but the Cherry switches feel "snappier" in a very pleasant way.
In these cases, having a caps lock key somewhere on the keyboard probably makes sense. But sort of by its definition, you aren’t using caps lock anywhere near as much as return yet it takes the same amount of space. Swapping caps lock and left control seems reasonable at a minimum
I think you spelled "escape" wrong. Yes, I'm a vim user.
On the keyboards that support it I've had it remap to another layer if I hold it, but I'm thinking of using it for escape/ctrl, as I do use some emacs commands from time to time (mostly evil mode, but not everything). But I haven't decided where to put my layer switch key yet.
I do this and it’s my favorite thing to show people to induce a mindfuck. I hold for control and tap for escape. Then I hold out for a day or two and make them go crazy before pasting them a link to the qmk docs page for the feature.
A commenter elsewhere in this thread [0] is claiming to have built a bed frame from pallet wood and soda cans found in the street - I'm almost certain it's inviting a descent into the Four Yorkshiremen sketch.
Particularly if you're not interested in spending €100 plus on the keycaps, then there are keycaps on Alibaba for much less money, but they don't necessarily cater to every possible layout.
- you will mostly work on the same place (or you accept the burden of traveling with your keyboard and be "that guy" when you set it up. Personally for the same hurdle, I prefer a secondary screen on the go)
- you will mostly work on the same machine (or you have multiple keyboards, one for each machine, and if you are in a data center or tech support, you move with your keyboard).
- you will not be exposed to many different keyboards, or layouts (e.g: you don't need to go help users and customers on their machine that don't allow plugging in, you don't teach, you don't use your phone a lot, etc). Switching layouts all the time is a nightmare.
- you can afford the initial lower productivity (e.g: you are not a freelancer that needs a regular output).
- cables and taking space are ok. Taste is taste, after all.
- you have the money, and find it is better invested in this than say, a better screen, mouse, graphic card, battery, etc. And renewal. Or you have enough to have it all.
- you are certain of this model is what you need or you can afford trying many. There are many ergonomic keyboards. They are all special and expensive in their own way.
- your layout is available. I'm french, I use AZERTY. Or you are fine learning to type with the wrong letters, or using stickers. I often buy/user computers in/from the US, and just type from memory after setting the QWERTY to an AZERTY layout. One of my friend like Dvorak (actually Bepo, the fr version)...
- nobody else than you will use your computer. Or you have several setup and are ok to switch every time.
Now I understand that as it's my job, optimizing this key element of it makes sense.
1. I am "that guy", but who cares? It's like a carpenter bringing his own tools. I bought a second one after 1 year of lugging it around, because it's worth it to me.
2. Use/buy US QWERTY on everything, with US-International dead keys. I've been typing German (QWERTZ) this way for >10 years now, and it makes some programming tasks/tools easier to use.
3. Alternatively get a set of blank keycaps for your keyboard. This is actually a key ;-) feature of mechanical keyboards, you can get keycaps in all shapes and sizes and even custom printed ones. I use blanks or US QWERTY.
4. Keep a second (regular) keyboard plugged in case a coworker comes around. This is easy, as there is usually one on the desk already.
5. Borrow keyboards from friends for 2 weeks and try them out full-time. Some that I've tried were downright painful. I know it's hard to return stuff in Europe but if you can, try to.
6. Although expensive I think it's a good investment, especially if may prevent health issues in the future. Some employers may even pay for it, or offer an alternative.
Those are not solutions, those are workarounds, incomplete ones, and for only half the things I mentioned.
You may accept the price of those compromises depending of your context, what's important and the ROI or course. That's what our jobs are about after all.
I don't mean to say you should not buy those keyboards, I only want to provide another point of view.
I totally agree, but it's not all black and white.
You can still have nice things N% of the time, and just fallback to the regular stuff when away from your desk.
Also the keyboard community isn't always rational or focused on ROI. It's both parts ergonomics (preventing health issues) and optimizing for productivity and nice working conditions (regardless of cost).
So you don't share your computer with kids or the spouse (you have money or no spouse/kids), don't teach, don't do much on site user support, don't visit much clients, don't travel for pleasure or family much, don't use much virtual keyboards, are not at a university, etc.
It's not a good or a bad thing, but it would be a mistake to generalize it.
No, I don't do those things. Sharing a computer is a fairly uncommon activity for me and most people I know. And even if it is something you need to do every now and then it is always possible to add an extra layer to your kb config which is the standard layout so other people can use it.
The overwhelming majority of people use the same one or two computers (one at work, one at home), and don't mind using a laptop keyboard when travelling to a meeting or visiting a client.
Anyway, since you're in Europe, don't you have a mixture of keyboards amongst your colleagues anyway? I certainly do -- I've noticed US, UK, Danish, French, Swedish, German and Russian printed keyboards. There are also about 4 kinds of ergonomic mice in use, of which two look pretty weird -- and the users of these mice are not developers, they just had/have RSI issues.
Every case is different, that's my point. The keyboard match a very specific profile: geeky user typing a lot, with few occasions to be forced to switch.
For me, as a trainer, I'm constantly on other's people machine. Thanks god they are all the same layout.
As a freelancer dev I also can't be less productive for 3 months.
As someone that travels a lot, I don't want to package a keyboard in my bag back. Planes make you pay extra for to check luggages in now a day. Beside for the space, I'd rather have a portable secondary screen: the gain of productivity is way higher.
Again, not saying you should not buy the keyboard. It may be a very good choice for you. Just speaking of the other side of the coin.
I have quite an idiosyncratic keyboard layout and when I switch to use someone else's (normal) keyboard I'm puzzled for a moment but then switch into it. You might find you can do this easier than you think. Try a custom keyboard at home and treat it like a hobby, only using it when you feel like it.
My experience from switching keyboards or layout is that there is a initial cost in productivity: you type way more slowly and it's harder to think, for a few days up to a few months depending of the importance of the change.
I had pretty severe carpal tunnel syndrome for about a year when I did data entry full time. What helped was improving my posture, not tensing up and slamming the keyboard at full force all day, and resting/shaking out my wrists every 15-30 minutes during extended typing.
I have a mechanical keyboard today but doubt it would have helped more than any other (much cheaper) keyboard that requires less keypress force. The problem is that squishy $5 cubicle keyboards tend to be really, really bad in that regard.
I worked at a place for 6 months and in that time I developed severe wrist issues, when I left they vanished. The only physical difference I could pinpoint is desk height, both the jobs before and after had considerably lower desk heights.
More recently, when I started working from home more frequently, my wrist issues reappeared. My desk at home is higher than my desk at the office.
So I can completely understand a tweak to wrist position making dramatic changes to RSI or CTS.
It's really common for computer programmers. In every big corp I've been in, there's usually one of 10 people who has an issue with it and uses some weird keyboard. I have pretty bad RSI and it comes from just being a computer user since I was 3 and developing bad habits along the way.
My impression is that it hits data entry clerks a lot harder than programmers. Programmers end up having to stop and take breaks frequently to think about what they're doing.
A thought occurs: Are RSI issues worse with enterprise Java programmers and other people who end up having to write tons of boilerplate around all of their code?
If you're at all into custom keyboard making, and you haven't already, check out the QMK firmware: https://qmk.fm/ It makes it a lot easier to deal with the non-standard layouts that you'll probably want to use.
10 months in with my Ultimate Hacker Keyboard, and I can confidently say that it brings me more joy than any other electronic device I have, with maybe the exception of my MBP. Before I had mild RSI here and there, but with the UHK I have zero pain, ever. But it did take a lot of learning. I spent about 3 months feeling like an idiot ( hitting keys that weren't there, forgetting which macro I'd mapped, typing an arrow in vim mode instead of hjkl, etc ), so maybe it's not for everyone.
I have an UHK now and love it so much that I bring it back and forth to work everyday. Before the UHK I had a MS Sculpt and was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to get used to the UHK so I used Karabiner to set up a mod later and pretrained myself for a couple of weeks before pulling the trigger. Once I got the UHK the learning curve wasn't bad at all. For people who maybe tried a split keyboard and couldn't deal with it I would recommend the UHK since it's mostly the same as a regular keyboard.
I'd love to get a split keyboard (especially one with a long cable so I can have the two halves shoulder-length apart), but 300 euros for a keyboard is WAAAY too much.
Maybe I can somehow repurpose my old (or even current) Das keyboard into a split one.
Depending where you're coming from, 300Euros one time payment can be a steal compared to the time and money you could end up spending at the physiotherapist or chiropractor later in life.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here but I find it ironic that some well paid developers in the western world can justify dropping nearly $1000 every year on the latest handheld social media machine and consider that a worthy investment but when it comes to spending $300 once on something that can help prevent certain health conditions it suddenly can't be justified.
And I find it ironic that some multibillionaires can justify buying a private jet but when it comes to buying good toothpaste they're suddenly "too poor".
I mean, assumptions are great, if you like building straw men. You know almost nothing about me, where I live and how much I make, or how much my phone costs (hint: under $200, once every two years).
Please don't feel threatened by my comment, I wasn't talking about you or anyone in particular. Like I said, I'm not pointing any fingers and if that's how you understood it, I apologize.
I don't feel threatened, I just think that the intersection of people who spend $1000 on a phone every year and those who won't spend $300 on a keyboard is very small. Besides, people spend their money on what they want to spend it on, and a $300 keyboard isn't expensive because of the existence of $1000 phones, but because of the existence of $100 keyboards.
I wonder how difficult would be mouse functionality integration to both of them or there was such an attempt before, would be quite interesting to use those with double pointer.
IIRC there was a variation someone made with a small trackball under the thumb. I thought that was an interesting idea. You're talking about having two mice inputs? That's pretty cool.
I don't really understand why people want such tiny keyboards.
The most comfortable (and healthy!) way to type is to have your hands a shoulderwidth apart so you don't have to compress your arms.
I used an ergodox infinity for a while which was fantastic in terms of back pain but terrible in terms of everything else.
I currently use a Kinesis Advantage 1 which I'm tempted to dremel in half so I can get proper separation. It's that or learn how the Dactyl is configured so I can add enough keys to it to be useful :/
Aren’t the Ergodoxen already two separate units it is there a cable limitation? I was looking at buying one or a similar split keyboard for the reason you stated.
They are and that works fine, but the infinity has a really bad case that I had to modify just to stop it sliding around on my desk. Also I had one from the bad batch whose USB ports would occasionally rip off the board taking its traces with it (and mine did)
A few weeks of regular use and practice will overcome muscle memory. You just have to force yourself to never touch the old layout during that time. I think that's where most people stumble, because adapting a new layout while trying to do work is kinda frustrating.
I've wanted a left-side number pad for a long time. I've contended that (for right-handed people) having a number pad on the right is poor ergonomics. If I centered such a keyboard in front of me, then the number pad would be in the way of my mouse. So I end up offsetting the keyboard several inches to the left, which causes me to have to position my arms awkwardly in order to reach the letters. I ended up using keyboards with no number pads at all (in my case a Leopold FC660C).
I don’t have too much trouble with this just yet. But the next keyboard will be without a num block, but I will add a https://www.ipv6buddy.com/ to the right of my mouse for all my hex and up address needs. (Not affiliated, just a fan)
I’m on the verge of doing this. I have an Ergodox EZ but I want thumb clusters that are more useful, plus I’d like an encoder knob or two. The Kyria is close but it doesn’t do RGB per key or have a thumb cluster that exactly matches what I want. To the drawing board I go!
I did this [1] to an Ergodash kit, although I don't find it practical to press the furthest thumb key with my thumb. You'd want the Ergodash Mini which has one fewer row.
I chose by printing the PCBs for several split keyboards and working out which one fitted my thumbs best.
TIL people put knobs on their keyboards. Do you generally have to configure your own actions for knob events or is there software that supports them out of the box?
If many people have added the encoders in the same way to the same keyboard (e.g. because there's an optional space on the PCB for it), then it's probably just a configuration option on the keyboard firmware.
If you've made a completely custom keyboard, or hacked an existing PCB to add the encoder, then there is a little more configuration.
Either way, there's then a few lines of code to define the action when turning the encoder knob.
The keyboard is configured to either send keys (e.g. PageUp/PageDown, Up/Down, VolumeUp/VolumeDown, AltTab/AltShiftTab) or to send mouse wheel events. You can have it send something different if you're holding "Fn" or whatever, or anything else you can think of.
I just realised that having the keypad on the left is actually a great idea, solves the problem of wanting to keep the mouse closer to the main section of the keyboard, while keeping the keypad. Also, the keypad placed on the left can double as a cheaper alternative to those expensive gaming keypads. Anyone who is not into DIY could achieve the same by combining a TKL (tenkeyless) keyboard and a stand-alone USB numeric keypad.
Title should be modified to "build it instead (as long as you want a mechanical keyboard).
I love Apple's Magic Keyboard 2 very much. I've looked around a lot, but there's nothing out there with its super low profile that's also customizable.
My ideal keyboard would be a Magic Keyboard with a variety of key colors, RGB lights, and the ability to split it in half so I can put my arms in a better position.
IMO the most reasonable upgrade for 99.999% of "normal" people is just a plain $90 mechanical keyboard with Cherry switches. Any advantages of all this other stuff are pretty incremental unless you are really spending your days typing non-stop, which I'd wager is rare among software engineers.
The keyboard I want is one where the surfaces can be separated from the electronics so I can wash the damn thing.
I believe there was one gaming keyboard that worked this way (custom overlays) and Logitech has one keyboard they claim is washable, but IIRC the keys are mushy. No thanks.
I love the idea of a mechanical keyboard (and I would love to build one), but I hate the thick keys and travel distance of each key press (I'm used to the thing keys on my MacBook Pro). Are there any mechanical switches that are low-travel?
This unusual layout arrived from a convoluted train of thought - switching from a full-size to help with mouse-related RSI issues; missing the keypad; and being left-handed.
Honestly as a righty putting the numpad on the left makes much more sense to me now that everyone expects to have a mouse in easy reach of their dominant hand.
Not that I've put this in practice myself; the only time I ever really need a numpad in my life is on the very rare occasions I'm playing a roguelike.
One day I'll likely be faced with making my own keyboard layout or losing the wonderful Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Delete layout I've been used to for years now on a long discontinued keyboard model (I seriously have a box of spares under the bed that I bought when they stopped being made).
I've found myself adaptable to the action of many keyboards, but there's some layout features I'm very particular about.
Logitech still makes some keyboards with that distinctive large delete key, but I'm in the US, so I don't know if they have an ISO layout version of it.
I want a keyboard with an extra row of keys (I could use for additional characters in a custom layout) between the letters and the numbers. Is this possible?
Many keyboards have built-in shortcut keys (whether system or not) so yes. Not sure whether they leverage mostly unused codes from the Keyboard Page of USB HID, use non-keyboard pages, or use something else entirely.
I'd expect many if not most "gaming" keyboards to provide "macro key" though their layout may not be what you want. Productivity keyboards also provide such keys sometimes e.g. Microsoft's Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 has a number of programmable shortcut keys sitting above the function keys.
If you don't, choose a keyboard with an appropriate physical arrangement (I happen to have [1], which would work for this), and program it accordingly -- any mechanical keyboard lets you move the key mapping around. Optionally swap the plastic key caps around. (You could also achieve this OS-side on any cheap keyboard.)
If you want an additional row, you'll probably need to make the keyboard yourself. The fashion seems to be to reduce the number of available keys rather than increase it.
Depending what you want it for, an alternative is to add an extra modifier key and use that modifier to get your extra characters, "FN+1" etc.
Programming the keyboard to send arbitrary characters depends on the OS and the keyboard firmware. See [2].
Is it generally reliable to buy such an item from aliexpress? Don't you end up with cheap version of more expensive keyboards?
Asking because I've been looking for a 75% (non-split) keyboard for a long time, and it seems like aliexpress might have what I'm looking for. I'm just worried about ending up with a knock off.
I found many people on Reddit had bought the YMDK "Split 75%" keyboard [1], so I was confident that it was fine. YMDK has several designs on AliExpress. I've also purchased from https://kbdfans.com/.
Yes, it's a cheaper version, but most of the additional cost was for things I don't care about (aluminium case, geek cred) and the small disadvantage (different default firmware that's less programmable) can be fixed by reflashing, if I feel I need it.
Depending where you live, you might be hit with import taxes when buying something direct from China.
From a blogger in China [2]:
> USA is thriving with crowd funded fancy keyboards that will become available in year 3000, or DIY keyboards that take a life-time to build.
> Meanwhile in China, sound ergonomic keyboards, are a dime a dozen, and 5 times cheaper, and you can buy it NOW. Here's one of them.
A cheap solution would be to buy a macropad or a separate numberpad and then remap the keys. Macropads can be remapped on the pad itself, numberpad usually would need to be remapped on OS-level, but is chaper than the macropad.
Numberpads go for around $10 dollar, while macropads are around $50 dollar.
I once had an IBM keyboard with two very long rows of function keys (I think they were labeled PF1, PF2, etc...) above the numbers. There must have been 30 of them.
The keyboard was a beast. Weighed as much as a Fiat and the fat cable terminated in something that looked like a Centronics connector.
Then one day the computer was replaced by a Wang terminal with a svelte, modern keyboard and it felt like the future was finally here.
I use ms natural keyboard 4000 just because of that - extra row of keys that can be programmed to the liking. It's a shame that it does not have a USB hub (previous version had it) and that newer versions lack this row.
you could get a keyboard with the standard function keys and create a custom keymap where the function keys did the numbers and the numbers did whatever you wanted
I have a kinesis advantage. There are some things I don't like about it, but I doubt it would be practical for me to make my own keyboard with a bowl shape like kinesis or maltron keyboards. And even if I could figure it out, they've probably done research into exactly what kind of curvature works well for the average hand, so whatever I made would be marginally less ergonomic.
First of all, if you are happy with the curvature of the Kinesis, the rest of it is pretty hackable. There are various projects around it, one of the more well known is a custom controller and custom software from Michael Stapelberg (of i3 window manager fame)[1]. He gave a Google Tech Talk about the project about a year ago[2].
Now, if you are not happy with the curvature things get more complicated and I'm not aware of any projects that did a custom housing. That being said I think it is not unrealistic. The biggest problem is to create a curved cover with holes for the key switches. All the switches are mounted on flexible PCBs which should adapt to your new case as long as the curvature is not too crazy. So basically all you need to customize is the top part of the housing, the rest can stay the same.
There are 11 bowl-type DIY keyboards shown [1]. They're usually 3D printed and handwired. Some of them are adjustable to vary the offset of each row and the depth etc.
The split orthos are very usable and comfortable after a few hours of acclimatization (I mostly use a commercial Topre board for now, I should finish designing QMK layouts that better serve my needs).
Those look badass! Reminds me of some of the ergo keyboards that I looked at in the past... only a lot more stylish.
The first one [0] reminds me of an old Learjet or Falcon 10 cockpit with the lights lit up (see [1]). I really love the look of the wires you chose, as well, with the knurled connector housing and heavy-duty threading for the cords. The Nyquist Rev. 2.1 [2] looks like its fresh off the Nostromo.
Do you do your own CNC/laser engraving or are the keys OTS?
The keycaps are all from group buys, nothing custom; unfortunately I don't have the equipment to make them (there is no practical way to do double-shot injection molding on a small scale, but dye sublimation on blanks could be possible).
I went for a PCB with underglow leds for the "space cadet" replica keycaps because unlike the others shining a in-switch led thru them wouldn't have looked interesting.
A number of commenters seem to be confused. This link is about computer keyboards, not musical keyboards, as is immediately evident when viewing the link. Please at least click the link before you comment on a Hacker News post.
I've always wanted a mechanical keyboard with the layout of the Apple magic keyboard, couldn't get use to the windows key position and missed the fn key. Always thought about building my own
On an Apple keyboard the right edge of the X key aligns with the right edge of the command key, which makes it easily accessible by your left thumb from a resting position.
Most non-Apple keyboards use a layout where the command/alt key is half a key width to the left. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it makes those keyboards really uncomfortable for me to use.
Are mechanical keyboards that much "better" (I know this is subjective) than normal laptop keyboards (I have a macbook pro). I'm considering buying one but they are quite expensive...
It’s completely and totally subjective. I don’t personally enjoy them as I find them too elevated and uncomfortable. Regardless, I enjoy looking at the keyboards people build over on /r/mechanicalkeyboards
I’d add that subjective also applies to ergonomics. I recognize that the Ergo series is borderline life changing for some people, but I greatly prefer the Apple keyboards and their extremely low profile. To each their own.
I've used many different keyboards over the past 35 years, and I honestly can't say that I prefer one style over the other (except for those ultrathin mbp keyboards they finally ditched - they just sucked). For me, the only thing I care about is how noisy it is.
And this brings us to the only part that really matters with keyboards: office courtesy. If your keyboard is noisy, that's not cool. We had someone in the office with one of those clickity-clack keyboards of old, until enough people complained and he switched to a normal keyboard.
If your keyboard is radically different, or you do something inane like removing the keycap symbols, nobody can collaborate with you on your machine. And now you're "that guy".
There comes a point where you start behaving like audiophiles who swear up and down that their gold-plated $800 ethernet cable to their stereo improves the quality of the sound. And that's fine, as long as you do it at home.
It's the first mechanical keyboard I've consistently used and ever owned and it's better than any other keyboard I've used before. I'm sure there a far superior mechanical keyboards, but this one only cost me $50.
Frankly you can tell where they cut corners, but it doesn't bother me in the least. I knew I what I was getting and I'm very happy with it. It's cheap enough, light enough, and small enough that I'd buy a second one just to use with my laptop.
I would never use the keyboard of my 2012 MBP full time if I didn’t have to. OTOH, the typing class I took in high school used manual typewriters, and I came into computers in an era when keyboards could serve as a blunt weapon. So y’all can keep your squishy little laptop keyboards.
But, as sibling says, it’s subjective. Try and find a buddy to let you try their’s. If you’re anywhere near the Eastside of Seattle, hell, buy me a beer and I’ll loan you a Das Keyboard I’ve got spare.
Mechanical keyboards last for about a decade, probably more. During which time I’ll be at my main computer and typing about 20,000hours. So using a mechanical keyboard less than a penny an hour.
So yeah, if something makes my time a little more comfortable I’d consider it worth that cost.
1) I'm typing this on a laptop now and don't feel the urge to throw up or whatever people say
2) I also have a wireless CherryMX keyboard that I keep in my backpack with me, I enjoy them that much.
There are a couple of reasons that I think other people enjoy mechanical keyboards. First, there's the aesthetic aspect. There are so many options for key caps and bodies and all kinds of other things that can make keyboards genuinely beautiful and a joy to see everyday. Second, many people find satisfaction in the sound and feel of mechanical keys (including myself).
For me it's ergonomics. I'm a pianist and organist as well as a programmer/software engineer/sysadmin/someone who spends a lot of time typing. AS such, I've gain RSI, most notibly tendonitis in my wrist and the finger tendons in my forearms. Before I got a mechanical keyboard, this bothered me a lot more at the keyboard than the piano or organ, because part of classical training is the ergonomics of (piano/organ) keyboard playing. Here's what a neutral posture should be:
> When sitting, your shoulders should be relaxed, your elbows at exactly 90 degrees, a straight plane from the crook of your elbows to the first nuckle (top of the hand flat and level). With your fingers curved down and relaxed, they should be at the bottom of a key press.
Two things to note: First, your wrists are hovering. There's no wrist rest.
Second (and super important) that a bottom of a key press is not the same as bottoming out the key. It's the point at which a key will make a note. A VERY important that you try not to bottom out the key or type "through" the keybed, as this is an impact on your joints and slows you down (as well as stopping motion and other things that important to piano playing but not for typing). This generally is not possible on rubber dome or scissor switches, as bottoming out is the signal. On mechanical keyboards (or at least the types that I use, like MX Blues and the Model M I have at home), however, the \click\ is the keypress, so I don't have to bottom out. Instead I just feel la bunch of springs and a light but definitely actionable feedback.
I will also point out that I have not spent a huge amount of money on mechs. My daily driver at work is a $30 Red Dragon K552[0], which is pretty cheap and has served me well for about 8 months now. I'll also point out that I've heard no noise complaints (and I made sure to ask around after a week) in my open office environment, mostly due to not bottoming out (and because one of my neighbors is a very heavy typer and is much louder, along with the Model M two cubicles over).
You can definitely go much deeper into ergonomics with split keyboards and tilts and all kinds of things, but this works for me.
TL;DR I applied my knowledge of piano playing to typing to alleviate my reoccurring tendonitis and a mechanical keyboard helps with that immensely.
Crazy enough, the loud typer is much louder. It's kind of impressive, honestly. It's just a bog standard default keyboard, the kind that came with the tower.
I just bought a Leopold FC980M mechanical keyboard with brown switches. I was hesitant to buy into the hype for a long time. The keyboard cost $130 after shipping, which is expensive for a keyboard in my opinion. But, I can confidently say it was well worth the money. If you do a lot of typing I would seriously recommend giving a mechanical keyboard, specifically a Leopold, a shot.
I find custom keyboards to be beautiful, but I have a very hard time using a proper mechanical keyboard. I am not a proper touch-typist, and lack the patience or free time to re-learn.
I tried with an Ergodox for some time, but it became so frustrating that it interfered with my appreciation for the engineering and artistry of the thing.
Any suggestions relating to low-profile, short-travel switches/keycaps that will work in kits found from massdrop, et al?
I finally bought an Ergodox EZ just over a month ago, after suspecting a split keyboard could solve some postural issues for a while (its practically impossible to use a split keyboard whilst sitting lopsided).
I was a touch typist (two hands, and completely left handed), but I was "wasd" centred.
Learning to home row type was by far the hardest thing about the keyboard. It took me a week of 8/hr a day coding/writing to get back up to speed. Thankfully I didn't have work commitments so could go all in - but on day 3 I was so very close to quitting.
AFAICT it has completely sorted my tendency to move into a bad posture - and for that I know it is worth it.
But to spend 40hrs getting frustrated and working slowly? I couldn't justify it without the posture problem.
For many years, bordering on a decade, I have entertained the idea of purchasing a keyboard from a particular Maker who partakes [now partook?] in creating gothic, retro, and similar-style keyboards to the tune of several thousand USD.
I have since not dipped in, but the marbles roll around in my mind.
To me, such purchase opportunities inspire both money-spending as well as creative inspirations.
I've been fascinated with mechanical keyboards for a while. Have been thinking of setting up a Slack channel to build a little community of enthusiast to share their builds / questions / stuff that's for sale etc. Anyone interested in joining such channel? Would love to set it up and connect with MK builders. Send me an email if interested.
If you're interested in joining one, there are Discord communities with thousands of active users discussing those very things. One of the more generic ones being MechKeys [1], but once you find some designers you like or more niche communities there are dedicated servers most likely for those as well.
Why not just go to /r/mechanicalkeyboards? There's a big community there already, and if they don't already have a Slack or IRC channel you could create it with them.
I'm currently held back from going into the mechanical keyboard world because I'm hooked on the thinkpad trackpoint stick and mouse buttons below the spacebar - I've got a thinkpad and two usb keyboards with the dot and mouse buttons, and I use them on every computer I touch. Are there mechanical keyboards with built in mouse functionality?
The Unicomp EnduraPro is a Model M with a trackpoint. Unicomp bought the design, and IIRC the molds, for the Model M from IBM and/or Lenovo when they got rid of them.
A word of warning - I haven't found the trackpoint on it to be useful like it was on a thinkpad. It's too jumpy at short distances and too slow at long distances. I've since started using a Logitech M570 instead, as it reminds me of the trackball I used to like before I had a Thinkpad.
I'm not sure why this is downvoted, except perhaps because you linked to the mobile site. Here's the normal site: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=535590071686 (site is in Chinese. This is an open-source design, so there's no problem that a Chinese manufacturer is producing it.)
I don't have room in my apartment to even learn about building physical objects! I'd love to turn my various Arduino doodads into coherent forms but my workspace is a desktop.
You don't need much to start out with. Check and see if there's a makerspace nearby- they generally have A) space and B) people willing to teach and demonstrate how things are done.
Am I the only one who doesn't quite fancy mechanical keys?
For me, Mechanical keyboards cause fatigue as the key travel, regardless of which flavor of the key type, is too much. I prefer using Apple's new magic keyboar with numpad. It has a 1mm or so travel and feels fantastic.
It's not just you. The main benefits are around aesthetics and reliability, and sometimes comfort/feel. I'm a faster typer on chiclet keys than mechanical (after years of practice on both), although I'm not sure I'd agree that the chiclets are better for my hands -- presumably less key travel means more force traveling into your fingertips.
But! There are low-profile switch mechanical keyboards now, and they're very similar to your keyboard. They're still a little hard to find if you want customization (like a preferred switch type).
There are options if you want less travel, I prefer buckling spring, and my second choice is Cherry MX Brown (anything cheap is probably a knockoff and feels different).. You'd probably like a Cherry MX clear with a ring to reduce travel after the trigger/bump.
For me the tactile feel is actually less fatigue as I'm not bottoming out like I am on low travel keyboards, I usually don't bottom out with them. I do know some that hammer on theirs and it gets crazy loud.
There have been a handful of IBM Thinkpad keyboards I didn't hate, but generally don't like laptop and low travel keyboards... I did get used to my ~2010 macbook pro kb eventually, my mid-2014 I don't use much and won't have it anymore at the end of the month.
I used one of those for a long time, and after breaking it, I went to a cheap mechanical keyboard. I prefer the longer travel, tactile bump midway through the travel, and key activation at the midpoint with the mechanical keyboard, but I miss the trackpoint.
I'm considering the Tex Shinobi mechanical trackpoint keyboard.
Yeah, I always scratch my head in wonder about the mechanical hype. I love keyboards with flat keys that are not required to press down a lot. Also I would love to have a keyboard with zero typing sounds.
I've known those who preferred keyboards with much less travel. Personally, I type too hard for that to work. When I type on a mac book keyboard, I bottom out and then some every keystroke.
it's all preference in the end. I enjoy my mechs but I'm partial to shallow keys too. actually low-profile switches are becoming more of a thing - see the kailh chocs. still very niche though.
Interesting. I'd like to build my own keyboard, but my crafting skills are not good enough for it. It's a pity how few tenkeyless mechanical keyboards with a ctrl<->capslock dip switch there are, and most of them don't allow you to install matching custom key caps. I'm currently using a Pok3r, which is okay, but I really wish there were more custom keyboard options on the market.
If you boot several OSes, use ssh connections, and remote desktop connections, this really becomes a hassle. It always breaks at the wrong moment with some kind of OS update. Especially key remapping on Linux is a horrible experience in the long run.
Can you elaborate? This album is about a person who built their own keyboard, but it sounds like you're describing a company. Are you saying that company designs custom keyboards?
I figured it out. The commenter thought keyboard was referring to musical keyboards, which are not the subject of this post. In the future, please click the link before commenting.
I did just that. I hired Darrell Fandrich to build it. He started with a 5'10" case and soundboard built in Guangzhou, China but discarded the soundboard. We chose a scale design by Lothar Schell and a Holy Grail stringing scale by Fandrich with strings custom wound for the scale by Mapes in Kentucky. The stringing scale included special Mapes aluminum strings that cover the first six notes above the point where the overstring section begins—these are designed to better blend the the overstring transition which can otherwise be notchy. A custom soundboard was crafted in Boston from hand-picked straight-grain Siberian spruce and milled to a diaphragmatic shape that mimics Steinway soundboards where the center is about half an inch thick but, to enhance liveness and sustain power, tapers down to about 1/4 inch at the edges where it meets the case. A custom Renner action was added and outfitted with Abel Royal Blue grand hammers. Key weighting and fine voicing conducted in stages over the course of several months finished it off. That was in 1998-99 and it is still the best keyboard I have ever used.
Did you click it? You’re supposed to click the link to view the article before commenting. There’s a very clear picture of the keyboard above-the-fold.
Here is a link to my keyboard layout which you can freely use. It is optimised for Vim and Ubuntu use.
https://github.com/Ganon-M/ergodox-vim-ubuntu