The ergonomic Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 60: v2
ultimatehackingkeyboard.com
ultimatehackingkeyboard.com
The staggered layout is a remnant of typewriters, since there was no other way to create room for the bars that connect the key to the hammers.
Computer keyboards don't have this restriction.
Switching from a staggered to ortholinear keyboard took me all of a day to adapt-to, and I still regularly use a staggered keyboard on a regular basis with no hardship (when I take my laptop from my desk)
A standard row-staggered keyboard is terribly asymmetric. With your hands on home row, the distances to the modifier keys are different for left/right; but even the distances to the inner columns of keys aren't symmetric. That asymmetry makes it uncomfortable to use the right-hand modifier keys; and more awkward to type, in general.
It's fairly hard to accurately touch-type the number-row with a standard row-staggered keyboard; but this is more accessible with an ortholinear keyboard.
Moreover, ortholinear keyboards (because they're so niche) tend to have firmware customisation, which allows for some improvements. (e.g. allowing different keyboard 'layers').
The Moonlander I really _want_ to get along with. It has an almost but not quite perfect setup for Emacs, for example, with natural places for Ctrl and Alt, and the software and configurability is excellent. I’ll likely give it a few more months but honestly if you haven’t got pain to deal with I don’t think these fancy layouts are useful, and even then I’m not sure my joints are any happier.
Only downside is the palm rest is huge, so you need a fair amount of desk space to use it.
Split keyboards allow users to free themselves from arbitrary constraints on shoulder/elbow/wrist movement.
Keyboard layout config just affects how your fingers move.
Being forced to spend hours with your wrists held together no matter how broad your shoulders are, and bending your hands outward, has more impact on your well-being than how many millimeters your fingers move to hit a key.
If I were to do this again, I would go for a wired split staggered keyboard. I never take it anywhere so I don't need the portability, and I'd avoid all the issues with latency and low battery.
EDIT: Row stagger explained here: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Staggering
I haven't tried a symmetrical stagger keyboard yet, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that those are the one exception to my personal "no row stagger" rule.
Perfection is the enemy of good. A $40 staggered split layout like the Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 that's affordable to most users will do far more benefit than a $300 mechanical ortholinear device that most people will never have.
> I have seen no research suggesting that staggering is as important as wrist angle/position - or even statistically relevant for that matter
That's because there's been very little, if any, research done in this area at all, so we'll have to rely on other things - namely, the combination of (1) the culturally well-known "Emacs pinkie" that results exclusively from lateral finger movement and (2) the facts that (a) RSI is much more likely to result from weak muscle motions and (b) lateral finger movements are weak muscle motions relative to medial finger movements. Together, these show that ortholinearity is better than staggered rows - so unless you have a scientific paper or higher-priority first-principles arguments that contradict this, then you're obligated to accept this conclusion.
> Perfection is the enemy of good.
This has nothing to do with "perfection". Ortholinearity is an extremely easy and extremely cheap keyboard design choice. There's absolutely no extra hardware you have to add to your design - all you do is move the keys around a tiny bit. It's strictly superior to staggered rows, and there's absolutely no reason to choose staggered rows unless you're concerned with scaring consumers away from the design.
> A $40 staggered split layout like the Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 that's affordable to most users will do far more benefit than a $300 mechanical ortholinear device that most people will never have.
Please leave your utilitarian value ethics out of this - this has nothing to do with "the most good" and everything to do with "whether the keyboard design is ergonomic or not".
Finally, as stated above, ortholinearity is extremely inexpensive to add to a design, and could just as easily be grafted onto a cheap $40 keyboard as to an expensive build like this one. Pretending that the choice of ortholinearity vs. staggered rows has anything to do with cost is crazy.
Anything different means that you have to switch layouts whenever you go to some other device - whether that means your laptop or someone else's machine or whatever. It requires relearning some bit of mental memory, and even if it can be done it's absolutely daunting to users and not something to be dismissed. If it's confusing, that is a risk to sales.
I have a Moonlander on preorder and will see if it's better than my current staggered split keyboards, but to claim that staggered keyboards aren't ergonomic isn't just controversial - it's flat out wrong.
> even if it can be done
It can very obviously be done, as indicated by other commenters in this thread stating that they did.
> If it's confusing, that is a risk to sales.
As I've already stated once before, I'm only discussing how ergonomic the keyboard has - I'm not making any claims about mass-market appeal, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up.
Genuinely curious is there any evidence that non staggered keyboards are more "ergonomic"?
How much does having the sides separate help?
> How much does having the sides separate help?
I'm currently on my second Matias Ergo Pro [1]. I love the thing, it is one of my favorite tools I've used in any industry. I put it up there with VIM, the hydraulic press, and Snap-On ratchets. I'll be honest, I prefer Cherry keys to these Alps clones, and the build quality is absolutely excellent in some aspects yet atrocious in other aspects. But a split keyboard with actual F* keys (used heavily in Jetbrains IDEs, plus I've got a bunch of KDE features on them) has become a necessary tool for me.
I'm now considering a Raise keyboard, which like the UHK is missing the F* keys. I'm right now prototyping some F* keypads, not unlike an independent numpad, but in truth I doubt that I will approach the level of comfort as the Matias boards.
I'm happy to answer any questions you have about mechanical or split boards. I've had quite a few )).
I know everyone makes a big deal over key switches, but that's not something I've ever felt strongly about.
I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad. It would be great if the sides were fully separated, but that's less important to me. I've been using the MS Sculpt for a couple years now, and even after all that time I find my muscle memory is still calibrated to the old MS natural.
> I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad.
I actually sawed off the end, and folded the membrane underneath. The rest I filled in with Sugru I believe. I really don't remember if that was before or after I saw someone on Geekhack do the same. Those were terrific keyboards, I still have at least one (modified, but in a different way) in storage.
The Matias has volume keys, but they are on the F10, F11, and F12 keys when pressed with the Fn key. But the new version of the Matias can be reprogrammed, so the otherwise useless Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste keys can be made into volume keys.
The lack of tenting is about the only thing giving me pause. There's also no Home, End or Insert keys[2] but that is not a deal breaker for me.
[1] https://x-bows.com/products/x-bows-knight-ergonomic-mechanic...
[2] Can possibly deal with that via function layers.
ly going to be making errors like this. If you can get your hands on one to evaluate first I’d recommend that. For normal text typing though it’s probably fine.
I have a gallery of mechanical split keyboards, but I don't think what you want exists there either. You could design a PCB yourself.
The "Natural Ergonomic Keyboard, Type A", an open-source, mechanical reconstruction of MS Natural.
As for moving it, I don't move the keyboard that often, and even if so, the halves can lock together.
I'd wager you're setup really is more ergonomic.
A fixed keyboard forces you to find an appropriate position and stick with it, whereas I spent too much time constantly fiddling with the spacing and positioning of the split halves.
To make matters worse, the particular model I had didn't stay put, as each half was only half the weight of a single unit, and thus prone to being nudged out of alignment when I got up / sat down / moved about (I am not the most graceful of people).
In the end, I used a little plastic hinge to keep them together (while still allowing some room to open / close the angle they met at), and gave up on it entirely when the plastic hinge broke.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that unlike most split keyboards, this one snaps together such that you wouldn’t even know it is split. This is useful when you do want to pick it up or when you let someone else type on it
Also, I'm missing a lambda key.
Sarcams aside (I'm referring to `:imap jj <Esc>`), I would say that sticking to staggering is the real sin here.
It also has a mouse layer. I don’t like it for fine mouse movements, but it’s great for doing a quick mouse click (middle click to paste, left click to activate a window, etc) without moving your hands off the keyboard.
I got the UHK since I was suffering from an increasingly troublesome shoulder impingement syndrome after working on laptop for years. The UHK was the best split keyboard alternative I could find which didn't require too much change from the laptop keyboard. Getting the keyboard and raising the laptop screen with a nice stand fixed my posture and the shoulder problems have been reduced a lot (together with physical training).
Now I'm feeling discomfort in my back/neck if I have to work on my laptop for a few hours, and I don't see myself going back to a non-split keyboard. Adding a vertical mouse to the mix has also been an ergonomical improvement for me.
Like the parent comment, I don't miss the arrow keys since navigation is quicker with the mod layer. I also use the Fn layer for controlling spotify many times per day. The agent software shipped with the keyboard is also great for customization, you can see how it works online here: https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.github.io/agent/
Disclaimer: I'm just a happy customer. The UHK is also the first enthusiast keyboard I've tried, so I don't know how it compare to others. I'd like to try the other types of layouts (like the columnar layout of the Moonlander), but it's hard to "risk" paying the price + shipment cost for those in case I don't like it, and living in the EU I need the ISO layout.
I mean you're basically forcing everyone else to either use stickers or a blank keyboard.
All it would take would be to throw a handful of extra keys in a bag on the side for each language and you'd have all latin keyboard layouts covered. (increasing the target market several times over)
I definitely prefer the absence of backlighting and completely blank keycaps.
And you can disable the backlight on any keyboard.
> And you can disable the backlight on any keyboard.
[1] https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_det...
I don't want to have to disable an useless backlight. I want the backlight to bring in functionality that makes it worth keeping.
Per key RGB led? Great! Have a daemon learn my typing to make suggestions by lighting up the keys I'm the most likely to use in a context dependent operation.
ex: if using Firefox, after I type the L-I-N-U key, I want X to be shining. if using Excel, after typing (-[A-Z]-[0-9], I want : to be shining.
I wouldn’t think those two markets have a lot of overlap.
You like color for looks? I like color for function.
For me, backlit keys are useful to set my hands in the right place, and then I stop looking at them. When I have them change color, it's a reminder of which keys in my fn-layer are bound to other functions like volume up/down and previous/play+pause/next.
I use a laptop and both the screen and keyboard are in my field of vision. If the most probably key was highlighted, I believe I could consciously (or subconsciously?) take advantage of that information
> When I have them change color, it's a reminder of which keys in my fn-layer are bound to other functions
so you are using the backlight as a whole, instead of the invidual key backlights - to match what you were saying, nothing that a popup couldn't display on the screen ("CONTROL_DOWN"...)
It has 8 layers and is completely programmable including the backlight. I set different colors on different keys for a layer so I can visually verify which layer I’m on.
Not quite the flexibility of what you mentioned, but it might be possible, as the firmware and programmer are open. Kind of like what apple had in mind with their absurd touchbar, but with physical keys.
I honestly don't understand why only laptop keyboards can have nice pointing devices that let you keep your hands on the keyboard.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/keyboa...
The new Bluetooth version (model 4Y40X49493) is more versatile (though make sure you get the "Keyboard II" rather than the previous model).
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/new-ar...
That's much more relaxing to use in my lap.
Are there any still-manufactured laptop-like keyboards that have either a built-in stick or trackpad, positioned like a laptop rather than off to the side, with mouse buttons and a palmrest?
My problem with it was that it wasn't as convenient as a good ergonomic keyboard.
And I don't see arrow keys, strange, how does one use such keyboard?
And where is the Esc key?
It's not mentioned in this blog post but it is in their shop [0].
You might find the Sinc, Wheatfield Split 75% or Core Mechanics Project 0001 close to what you want.
gah.
The idea of a palm rest is valid. but it should not be a hard surface and it should not conduct heat away from your body.