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Comment by piinecone | Hacker News Reader

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been using a Kinesis Advantage and a Mistel Barocco (when traveling) for years. I recently switched to the Moonlander and I love it.

Coming from the Kinesis Advantage the adaptation period is short, and since the moonlander is so easy to program I didn’t really have to adjust my habits. If anything, I’m trying to learn that I can use its programmability to my advantage to make my life easier.

I’m also very happy that it’s hot swappable, so I can start experimenting with different switches.

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Why would you switch to the moonlander from the Kinesis? The curved design of the kinesis is way better for reducing strain than the flat style of the moonlander/ergodox. If the only factor is programmability, then I think that factor may be overexaggerated in how important it is. Know that anyone who wants to riposte that last point should realize that I'm not a novice to making my own keyboards or programming them. While layers seem like a good idea, it's very difficult to actually come up with enough usecases to find them more useful than just the ability to remap keys and record macros, both of which the Kinesis Advantage 2 can already do.

I also find having two separate pieces a bit annoying since I'll tend to want to fidget with them instead.

> Why would you switch to the moonlander from the Kinesis?

QMK. I think QMK is a bit like Excel in that everybody has that subset of functionality they use. I like layers and the leader key.

Open source firmware. I have a last gen Advantage I can't use because there's a bug in the firmware that causes modifier keys to stick and there's nobody left at Kinesis that remembers how to work on it. That will never happen with QMK.

Hot swappable switches.

Edit: I do miss the curve though. I'm using SA Profile keycaps [0] and while they're nice it's not quite the same.

[0] https://imgur.com/EZgGBdg

My https://github.com/kinx-project/kint project is a replacement keyboard controller for the Kinesis Advantage keyboards, which allows you to use QMK :)

Nice, thank you! :)

Yeah this is what I was going to say. There are a few projects which allow one to swap out the firmware for a custom one on Advantage Kinesis keyboards. There's one with a teensy, one with a custom controller. It's not exactly trivial to do, but I think it is the ultimate if you want to go that route. The hardware design of the Kinesis is top tier, but the software is a bit weak.

The kinesis is great in my opinion, but the two sides are not far enough apart. A little is better than nothing, but you still have to position your hands forward, stretched out in front of you.

I gave up on three Kinesis Advantage keyboards in 2006, after they all started dropping key-up events on modifier keys. I then took one apart. Primitive, dated USB hardware, and nothing about the company read that they were eager to modernize. (The ergo keyboard market abounds with never-updated designs.)

Has there been a generational improvement in their circuit quality?

I would also be weary. They had similar fanposts before.

Unless there is evidence that the quality did improve, I'll wait.

Is that what's happening? My kinesis advantage (plugged into a Mac) sometimes gets stuck modifier keys and only unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes it. Seems worse than just dropping some keyup events, because it doesn't get unstuck if I hit the modifier key again.

The original ones had some problems that were never fixed (IIRC, the original firmware was outsourced to a company that went under), but the Advantage 2 was a redesign and works great (at least for me).

I had the same bug and it irritated me to no end too. I was about to make my own custom controller when I found out that they made a version 2 which fixed the issues. I have 2 of the version 2 and have been using it for a few years now with no problems. I'd say it was improved.

If you email them, they might give you a discount or some kind of trade-in if you tell them about your previous problems. I've found their customer service to generally be pretty chill.

Not Advantage, but my Kinesys Freestyle Edge has great firmware and customize app (Swing) that works flawlessly. The firmware is better in some features than QMK, but worse in some features. (I want LT key on QMK for Kinesis)

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