Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

I've been getting deep into the home office ergonomics hole now that I'll be working from home indefinitely. There's a real danger here - I generally pride myself as someone who is conscientious of consumerist tendencies, but it's become clear that my drive for better ergonomics is no longer about the actual facilitation of work or avoidance of injury. I have spent more time researching ergonomic setups than could ever be saved by marginal improvements in productivity, and my poor posture is by far the greatest risk for injury.

It's become about completing myself. Filling the void. Materialism: the belief that acquisition of something outside myself will finally bring me permanent satisfaction. But if you'll excuse the metaphor, the void we try to fill is a black hole of the cosmic variety: its pull grows as it is fed. Shoveling in expensive ergonomic equipment is little different from shoes or bags or guns or radios or funko pops.

Anyway, this next $250 I spend on an endlessly-adjustible retractable keyboard tray & fancy ergonomic keyboard will surely address all my complaints...

> Shoveling in expensive ergonomic equipment is little different from shoes or bags or guns or radios or funko pops.

It is and it isn't. It depends if/when you stop. I just got $250 keyboard. My last one was also in that range. Though it lasted me around 10 years.

I don't think its evil wanting to have nice things. Its problem when 'you life to buy things, not buy things to live.'

I have never spent more than 30 € on a keyboard and mouse combo, and that's over the span of the last 10 years...

I have never peeked over the price wall into the higher end stuff because it genuinely has never occurred to me that my current keyboard+mouse were hindering my productivity.

High contrast screen? Sure, squinting hurts. Office-cancelling headphones? Sure, loud noises ruin my concentration

But keyboard and mouse have never been am issue... When did you start to suspect that you needed to get a better keyboard?

For me, it was about 2 weeks ago. My left wrist is just a _little_ sore, but constantly. I've noticed that if I rotate my keyboard towards my left hand, the pain gets better, so now I'm starting to think that it's something that I'll need to actually get better hardware to prevent getting worse.

I've indulged in a nicer keyboard once before, but only because I was intrigued by the novelty of mechanical keycaps. Now I'm thinking that I'll need to take the plunge and get something more ergonomic, because I've still got a lot of career left.

If you don't have repetitive stress problems already, then ergonomic keyboards aren't necessarily about improving your productivity right now. They're about preventing a serious reduction in your productivity years from now.

(However, after buying a mech keyboard to deal with finger joint pain, and training myself to type without bottoming out much, I discovered I was typing faster.)

The three most impactful things you can do to avoid wrist injuries are:

(1) Ensuring your chair, desk, and keyboard are set up so your wrists are straight when typing

(2) Using a split/tilted keyboard so your wrists do not need to rotate as much when you type

(3) Using a vertical mouse so your wrist does not need to rotate as much when mousing

You can accomplish all of this for very cheap. A bit more than you're spending, but not an order of magnitude more (unless your desk or chair are very bad). Once you get into mechanical keyswitches or exotic keyboard layouts you're just messing around imo. Membrane keyboards are fine. They're fine! And very quiet.

Which cheap split keyboard do you use?

Currently I use the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, an enormous dinosaur which can reliably be bought for $20 used. I had the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard for a few years before that, which I liked, but the build quality was very bad and I had two break on me.

I'm going to switch to either a goldtouch or kinesis freestyle soon, since I don't like the number pad. Those are $80-$120 but I hope the build quality will pay off in the long run.

Thanks! I'll check those out.

I have the Kenesis Freestyle2 and I find it unusable without retraining much of my muscle memory.

1. The extra 2 columns of keys on the left edge somehow reliably disorients me.

2. the lack of an extra (potentially redundant) row of keys on the inner edges throws me off b/c I tend to reach across the middle from either side, e.g. press B with my right hand.

While I have an ergodox, I completely agree with this. I'm still suffering from some RSI, but following this has helped me tremendously. I also want to add, just as you're suppose to turn away from the monitor every once in a while, make sure you stretch out your hands/arms and return it into the neutral position.

For those looking for a cheap split keyboard, a used microsoft sculpt can be found around $40 on eBay.

I second the Microsoft Sculpt as one of the most comfortable keyboards I have ever found. Unfortunately, I seem to destroy one in about two years.

I'd add (or even put on top): Work out. There's nothing better than working your muscles to prevent injuries. Even hand grippers help already.

Yes, this has also helped me (at one point my wrists were bad enough I had to start mousing with my non-dominant hand). It seems like pulling exercises such as deadlifts or pull-ups or just rock climbing in general help the most.

I bought a keyboard.io model 01 recently, because I was desperate (and I'd been intrigued by its programmability for a while). I bought a vertical mouse (cheap Anker) at the same time.

I've had RSI issues in the past, but this spring (when I bought those two), I was in intense pain for days at a time, even when not at my desk. Otherwise good ergonomic setup: external monitor, adjustable desk and good chair, etc.

I'd suggest you at least take small steps to improve/optimize your ergonomics before you have a problem. It really does suck to be in pain like that, especially when doing your work, which you have to do to pay the bills, makes it worse. I was looking forward to weekends just for some relief.

For what it's worth, having a programmable keyboard is super cool even without the ergonomic benefits. It's just fun to tinker and optimize your layout, macros, etc.

When I couldn’t sleep at night because of how much pain my wrists were in :(

I wish I cared more earlier. The injury in my left thumb may never go away fully, and it’s taken me a really long time to come to peace with that.

The best keyboard I can think of is one that tells me to get my butt out of the chair and go for a walk every two hours.

Hook up a cattleprod on a timer?

Or, maybe better, glue on a stopwatch.

You can probably make that happen with the QMK firmware: make the whole thing stop two hours after being plugged in. Or have a key sequence to restart the timer. (so that you don't have to unplug and plug it all the time)

That'd be an interesting feature honestly.

And also negate your ability to by-pass it since oops your keyboard doesn't work any more.

The keyboard in the submitted post comes with a buzzer built-in. I think they had one in the Planck that beeped when it turned on or connected to bluetooth or something. So you could program QMK to do this almost certainly! :)

Why not both? :-)

https://www.workwhilewalking.com/do-treadmill-desks-actually...

> this next $250 I spend

The price seems irrelevant based on the rest of your post (I mean, assuming spending $250 doesn't put you at financial risks). The only question that you should ask yourself (but I'm sure you already know) is if you need a new and better keyboard or not.

overly hyperbolic. though there's something good to be said about abstaining from _needless_ things, what you need is a matter of taste and personal experience.

there's more to keyboards. why do i have a nice one? to enjoy the typing experience - feedback + sound + appearance.

nothing wrong with nice things that make your life better. i spend an obscene amount of time with a keyboard. i want the experience to be as perfected as possible.

specific to this keyboard: i want an ergo layout, but would not buy this keyboard unless there was a switch-less and cap-less option - 365 (plus fees + taxes + shipping/whatever) is a lot to pay and then also buy switches and keycaps

FWIW, the keyboard is 360$, not 250$.

Isn't that what Fight Club was about.

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