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Comment by notus | Hacker News Reader

Most engineers with jobs aren't making compromises on the price when their goal is comfort and usability.

You're right. I bought a $250 Leopold FC660C to combat repetitive strain injury, because my doctor said to minimize the distance between the home row and my mouse pad. But most less-expensive 60% ("ten key-less") boards either lack arrow keys or have obnoxious, loud switches. These weren't feasible because I use arrow keys all the time for Visual Studio and I work in open-office hell. The Leopold has quiet Topre switches.

I'd buy a $15 keyboard in a heartbeat if it wouldn't hurt my wrists. But for me, the Leopold is a medical device. I would have paid twice as much for it, which has nothing to do with the key switches at all.

In fact, I did pay 2x for it because I bought one for my home system as well.

Both my Microsoft and Logitech ergonomic keyboards are wearing out, so I spent some time last week looking for a replacement. Logitech seem no longer to make one, and Microsoft's has laptop keys, which I find very uncomfortable.

This site [1] has a quick gallery, and this[2] Github page a lot more (including many niche or kit ones). The Kinesis Freestyle <whatever> looked like a good option, but I decided to try one of the nerdy ones, so I've ordered a VE.A clone from AliExpress.

I found both of these pages through the /r/MechanicalKeyboards wiki [3]. That community has a lot of posts and comments of people showing off gamer/geek/nerd stuff, but also seems to give reasonable advice to "normal" people wanting advice.

[1] http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards_index.html

[2] https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards/blob/mas...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/buying_gui...

I have a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard and it's probably the best keyboard I've used in a long time. The hand position is really comfortable and the keys have a nice response that isn't too laptopy (I prefer low travel keys). My only complaints are:

- No caps lock indicator - Fn keys are a bit small, and I prefer a Fn button as opposed to a switch - Uses a proprietary dongle instead of Bluetooth

Maybe one day I'll get an ErgoDox, but I need to figure out what switches I like first...

A colleague uses a Sculpt, so I did try it, but the key travel is such a long way from my (wearing out) Logitech Cordless Desktop Pro: that's from about 2004, and has tall keys [1].

Perhaps you could use a tiny widget that shows the caps lock status next to the clock?

I ordered Cherry MX Browns, which seemed like a fairly standard choice — red for gamers, brown for typists. I just hope they're not too loud.

[1] http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/8/d/logitech-cor...

I don't mean to intrude or otherwise question you but have you looked into weightlifting as a solution? I used to get RSI pretty bad, and had back problems until about four years ago when I did heavy (two-hours a day, six days a week) weightlifting for a few months. Haven't had it since.

Thank you for mentioning this. That's a great data point and I will look into this further.

Bikram yoga (likely any yoga also) helps as well quite quickly.

I think yoga complements any strength training program really well. Flexibility is very important for weight lifting if you want to avoid long term injuries.

For what it's worth there are many cheaper options that would work for you.

For anyone else looking to reduce the distance between mousepad and keyboard, this size is usually called 84-key, 75%, or 80%. They have all of the keys that a tenkeyless has but laid out in such a way that the keyboard is significantly less wide.

this one is relatively cheap (they used to sell an even cheaper one that I currently own, which has off brand switched instead of cherry mx)

https://www.amazon.com/DREVO-Excalibur-Mechanical-Keyboard-S...

Thank you for this. I haven't scanned the market lately so I entirely missed this new crop of smaller boards.

Nomenclature was the big hurdle I had to clear when searching for a keyboard. I didn't know what these boards were called until a fellow engineer introduced me.

I'm sure "84-key" will be a helpful keyword to someone else reading this thread.

I had rsi as well, so bad I couldn't shake anyone's hand. I thought my wrist was broken. What fixed it for me was to drop the keyboard down onto my lap using a lapdesk. It took me forever to find this out, and there is research behind the ergonomics:

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ergoguide.html

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/AHTutorials/typingposture.html

In my opionion, it's worth a good read-through. I also switched to an Evoluent vertical mouse and a Goldtouch split/angled keyboard w/o the numeric pad to minimize back-and-forth. Now I use lapdesk+apple magic keyboard+Evoluent vertical mouse, and don't really have any problems.

Have you looked into the VSVim extension? It's a bit of extra effort to learn vim, but you'll never have to reach for the arrow keys again.

You'll also need to map your escape key to Caps Lock. You can use AutoHotkey for this with this script:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6t9sj3fygtre6h/AutoHotKey.ahk

Vim basically allows you to trade mental effort for hand movement. Over time, the mental effort goes away, but the saved movement lasts forever.

vim is my default text editor. And there is a dip switch on my Leopold FC660C that swaps ESC and CAPSLOCK (it even ships with alternative key caps to match this change).

But VS has so many shortcut "chords" that depend on HJKL that I can't juggle both paradigms at once. When my brain is in "vim-mode", I'm constant hitting ESC -> ':' to trigger commands.

I had the same issue with Atom, Sublime, and VSCode extensions that mimic vim too.

As a user of the New Poker II 60% and other 60% keyboards, arrow keys are usually one dip switch/macro away. I also use brown dampened switches and they’re not noisy.

I really like the wasd "ten-keyless" keyboards:

http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/mechanical-k...

Red switches are quiet.

I think a 75% keyboard like the Vortex Race 3 would suit your needs:

https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_lis...

Speaking of engineers and jobs, it's part of an engineer's job description to make compromises on cost.

I've never seen a mechanical keyboard that wasn't loud; let alone silent. (The thread topic is noise, not comfort or usability.)

That doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe if I rubbed shoulders more with the high society, I might get access to some invitation-only showroom for exotic keyboards where $14K will get you a whisper-silent unit.

I do have one almost absolutely silent keyboard. It's quite awful to type on. Basically it's one of those flexible rubber keyboards for industrial environments, where there are spill and dust hazards. I use it at night, not to disturb anyone. I optimized for sound at the cost of comfort.

You can buy silent switches, they cost about the same as non-silent ones. There's really nothing that special about them.

I want to walk into a store, try some keyboards, and walk out with a silent one.

Well that's obviously not going to happen unless you live in a super high population area. There isn't enough people to support a niche market like that. But you can buy them online.

Such a store would have so few customers that it would cost $14k for such a keyboard. That same keyboard will go for $100 - $200 online.

Look in to Cherry MX Silent Red switches. I got a custom board made with those switches for ~$300. You can find cheaper ones but this is a specialty one. The keys are quieter than my mouse buttons and are comfortable to type on.

"I got a custom board made ..."

That's a complete non-starter. I'm not making a custom board for anything not related to guitar. :)

The general market of computer keyboard users is not going to build their own hardware for hundreds of dollars in parts if they just want a silent keyboard; that's practically the same as admitting these things are not available.

Just buy a Leopold then. They cost $150-200 shipped from Korea, a bit less if you find a local reseller.

The secret is to buy mid-90's NOS IBM keyboards.

Most silent mechanical keyboards are about the same cost as clicky ones.

Great; I'm in Vancouver, Canada; where can I walk into a brick-and-mortar store to try one?

Try memoryexpress, it looks like they stock some silent cherry mx switched keyboards.

Memory Express has a pretty good selection, I'd try there.

I was at a ME not long ago; I tried my hands on everything on display; they all make a sound. Some are good about not making a sound when the switch goes down, but the key makes a sound when bouncing back up, if your finger is completely off it. Space bar keys are particularly bad. A keyboard isn't silent if the space bar isn't.

You seem determined to be disappointed so I don't think I can help you. People in the mechanical keyboard community obsess over the sound; what you're asking for is like asking car enthusiasts for a silent car.

Is there a specific reason you need to buy in person? If you need to get a feel for the switches beforehand, many online retailers have switch samplers for about $15 USD. That being said, those don't cover spacebars.

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