Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
aposymbiont.github.io
aposymbiont.github.io
This makes me wonder if the author is concerned about ergonomics and functionality or just quirkiness. The fact that he dumps all “mass market” keyboards (ie the majority of those people actually use) into one bucket in order to highlight a half dozen impractical lookalikes where someone basically just took a keyboard and cut it in half was the first thing that had me scratching my head.
An interesting collection of oddities but not a sound product guide IMO.
http://xahlee.info/kbd/microsoft_ergonomic_keyboard.html
Every time I change job I bring my own with me, or persuade the company to buy me one. I did experiment with an actually-split keyboard back in the late 90s; two pieces joined by a short cable, but it was really difficult to use and so I gave up on it almost immediately. My memory was that there was only a short/stubby space-bar on the left-half of the keyboard too.
(I'm a touch typist, and I definitely use both thumbs for pressing the space bar. Albeit I use my dominant hand most of the time.)
These days I'm WFH forever and can use whatever the hell I want (work issues a stipend for hardware).
The Ergo 4000 is such a large part of my computing experience that I have a stockpile of new in box units as a hedge against their eventual discontinuation.
I've yet to have one die though, I wear the letters off fairly quickly but otherwise they are tough little beasts and easy enough to take apart and clean.
Then my strategic keyboard reserve is about to be useful.
Based on current MTBF I'll be buying USB-K adapters for these in my senility.
Goldtouch GTP-0044 Go!2 Mobile Keyboard, Portable Foldable Travel Keyboard with USB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DT73FVM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
I used a goldtouch for years to manage some early RSI symptoms. In the beginning it helped a lot, but later my symptoms changed a bit and it stopped helping. Elevating my wrists to reach the tenting position was causing more problems then the keyboard was helping. I switched over to a Kinesis and it has helped me tremendously.
It probably still works for some people! I know we have some Microsoft ergonomic keyboard fans on this site, so maybe the author shouldn't poo-poo so many of these.
And I assumed having the mass-market ones grouped was mostly intended to let you filter the other ones out (assuming you're trying to buy one, and not just read about wacky historical curiousities). At least how I used it when recently exploring this market (in the end I decided to stick with my Kinesis Advantage, though I did buy some new keys and o-rings to reduce noise slightly)
edit: after looking for the Goldtouch review, I now understand what you mean. It's grouped under the the list of standard options that he has reviews for, not called out on it's own. But if it is basically just an inferior version of anothere near identical product, then I guess that's fair enough.
It’s not perfect and as I say I’m sure there’s something better, but the kenesis is not it if you like your hands closer to neutral (less rotated) as you type.
Again separate purchase which would need to be taken into account, but given my experience with their other products, it still sounds like a superset of the Goldtouch in many ways, I'm guessing it has a wider community for mods etc as well.
At the bottom it lists the 3 different tenting kits:
5, 10, 15 degrees 5, 10, 15 degrees with wrist rests 20 - 90 degrees
https://kinesis-ergo.com/keyboards/freestyle2-keyboard/
https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/freestyle2-v3-accessory/
https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/freestyle2-vip3-accessory/
https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/freestyle2-ascent-accessory/
The first two addons are available for the Freestyle Pro, but not the 20-90 degree tenting, which is incompatible with that and the bluetooth version of the Freestyle 2 (due to the metal plate interfering with the signal)
FWIW, I absolutely love the kinesis. I have 2 pairs and the older one is 4+ years old.
It helped me hugely with RSI around my wrist and fingers.
The other thing which really helped was classic strength training at a gym :-)
A search for "best ergonomic keyboard" or similar returns articles from the New York Times, Forbes, etc [3]. These usually cover mass-produced rubber-dome ergonomic keyboards – the Microsoft Sculpt, Goldtouch, and so on. I didn't feel any need to duplicate this, though I will reconsider.
This site shows mechanical split keyboards. Some of these are under the "mass produced" filter: the Kinesis and Ergodox etc. The intention is to show options your IT department should be willing to buy. It's not in any way intended to demean these products!
[1] https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards
[2] http://xahlee.info/kbd/goldtouch_adjustable_keyboard.html
[3a] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2020/07...
[3b] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/comfortable-ergo-...
But the goldtouch involves So. Much. Chording. I have the v1, which makes it worse. The windows key is way the fuck to the left, making constant stretches necessary. Plus the fact that the thumb keys can only press space is a major ergonomic negative. It's also a membrane keyboard, meaning bottoming out all the time is required.
It's a decent keyboard, and I'm glad it works well for you, but it isn't really god's gift to humanity either.
I'm very happy with the advantage 2. I'm curious about boards with smaller keys, more compact layout, or extra keys in the same space.
The advantage 2 gives you easy access to the arrow keys with no loss of access to other keys. Eliminates the whole efficient arrow usage problem, or gives you more keys for commands if you use hjkl.
The advantage 2 is not a be all end all fix for hand / wrist pain. Consider starting a hand/wrist exercise regime if you have pain first. It could help enough to not need to buy a board.
The old Advantage has served me well, but it's USB implementation seems to interact really badly with some modern laptops.
I really liked the arrow key placement though. They are badly placed on mainstream keyboards for touch typists.
With this extra space there's no problem putting all 4 arrow keys, \|, Delete, `~, and Esc all within home row reach.
What I'd love to see is a "106% keyboard", where a couple columns are duplicated on both the left/right side. Does anybody make such a keyboard?
And /r/ErgoMechKeyboards on Reddit is a great community for understanding what you're trying to achieve.
Building a keyboard is tedious, but not particularly difficult.
(I built my first keyboard about 7 years ago as my first foray into 3D modeling and printing. It went well enough that I used it as my main driver until I got a Keyboardio Model 1 years later.)
Is made on wood, to being on the style of MS Ergo but not curved (yet I think it feel nice as is).
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/9wjpg0...
The more straightforward approach to get a full extra column would be to just grab a keyboard that already has 7+ columns per side (ie the chimera[1]) and repurpose those to be duplicate keys.
It's not about distance but about logic. If the right index finger does y,h,n and u,j,m then the left index finger does r,f,v and t,g,b. Otherwise your left index only does five letters while your right index does 7.
Depending on how "badly" a staggered keyboard is staggered, some keys can be closer to one hand or another, but it doesn't change what the correct way to touch-type is.
If in doubt, look at where the keys are placed on ergonomic split ortholinear keyboard: the people designing these things tend to know what they're doing.
Which, if you're right-handed, makes some amount of sense.
If they and a majority of their customers learned to type Z with the left little finger, X with the ring finger, etc., that does not magically make that a better way to type than typing Z with the ring finger and X with the middle one.
Quite the contrary: If you bring your hands together naturally in front of you, they form an inverted V. In order to type the bottom row with the little finger on Z, you have to cock your wrist significantly, which is clearly worse from an ergonomics perspective.
If you bring your hands together like hands naturally come together, on the type of staggered keyboard virtually everyone learns to type on, an ortholinear one with be entirely wrong for you on the whole bottom row.
Designing around bad training may be a type of "knowing what they're doing," but it doesn't make it "correct," or even better.
Alt doesn't seem to work though.
I'm using one "TKL" Apple USB keyboard per hand when I feel like opening my shoulders a bit. Took me all of two minutes to get used to, at a fraction of the cost for enthusiast keyboards. I wonder if there are any ergonomic advantages I'm missing out on.
(Karabiner Elements is a great tool, anyway; I've been using it for a long time to map Caps Lock to something useful for programming.)
I now feel less guilty for having two 60% mechanical keyboards. :)
I've seen some where the '6' is present on both the left and right-hand side of a split keyboard but '6' is really the one and only key on which there can be a disagreement as to where is the correct placement.
On non-staggered keyboard the '6' is, of course, on the right hand side of the keyboard but on staggered split keyboard it is, very often, on the left hand side.
Most split keyboards in that gallery that do have a numbers row (ie 60% of more, not 40%) do have the '6' correctly located on the right hand side.
Yet most (not all) split-staggered keyboard have the '6' located on the left hand side of the keyboard.
People who learned to touch-type using the "6 with left hand" school have a very hard time adapting to an ortholinear split keyboard. While those who learned to touch-type using the "6 with the right hand" have a much easier time adapting to an ortholinear split keyboard.
I would say that as a daily Advantage user for right about 20 years, it's not a keyboard to play games with and it's not a keyboard to use for a very heavy kb+mouse software situation (like cad or photoshop). In those situations you often keep your dominant hand on your mouse at all times and your non-dominant glued to the keyboard. For those situations I have a fairly standard 65% board on my desk. But for coding, emails, etc. That all happens on the advantage.
For about a week I was smashing the blank space between the halves but then it just suddenly clicked and I’ve been fine since.
For Nethack and games in general, I have a cheap 'normal' keyboard.
One wrinkle is the keyboard - it rests on my upper thighs, and I find I'm rolling my shoulders forward to type which is less than ideal. I experimented with split keyboards but haven't found an ideal solution yet. A major problem is switching from the trackball back to the keyboard. Also needing to keep the trackball out wide to allow space for the split keyboard on my right side.
A similar position might work for you?
I use a standing desk to be in a similar (but upright) position, because sitting is also bad for me.
Hers was a rather more professional looking job. The trackball was about 8 cm in diameter and sunk right in.
(She also hacked up the kernel driver to make horizontal rotation be interpreted as the scroll wheel.)
I have a keyboardio model 01(this: https://shop.keyboard.io/collections/model-01-keycaps/produc...)
And even this feels like I'm having to function dive into weird chords of keys to get some of the functionality that I want (arrow keys, mostly).
Are people just not actually writing code with these ultra minimalist things?
Space cadet hold/tap shifts details here, from a soft remap I used to use: https://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#s17...
I use a 40% layout on a custom board with palm keys for coding and writing in LaTeX mainly (like the Model 01 with 3x6 alphas 3 thumbs 1 palm on each side). It took some effort to re-train, but I'll never go back to a keyboard without palm keys now, I love the setup. They palm keys are perfect for activating the layers for arrows/navigation or numpad. But typing style plays a role too, it's definitely probably not everyone!
I eventually settled on a kinesis ergo edge, which I really like.
One thing I thought I hated about the Ergodox was how inaccessible the small keys on the thumb cluster were, and I thought I would like 3 big keys better. It turns out not to be the case... those keys are useless, but there are a lot of useless keys that are nice to have around (arrows, delete/insert, home/end, pgup/pgdn). I mostly do everything in Emacs and so don't use those keys, but when I'm using non-Emacs software, I do miss them.
(I ultimately decided on Backspace, Alt, Up; Space, Enter, Down as what I use the big thumb keys for. Not sure I love this. This transitioned my backspace key from my right pointer finger to my left thumb, and it broke my muscle memory. I still forget that you can control backspace words to kill them outside of Emacs (where I use C-w for that, which closes your window in every other program).)
TL;DR: it's fine! But still not perfect.
I did eventually get parts for both sides. One of the flexible arm clamp tripod mount thingies was not stiff enough to hold the keyboard up, but the other one was great. Since they were both the same part from the same order... it's kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not it will work. But I will continue to experiment.
Honestly, I measured the hole spacing as 19.5mm but it is definitely not quite right because it is tough to get all 4 screws in. I don't have gauge pins to measure it correctly, and the accuracy suffers. But you can get two screws in which was enough for my use.
I uploaded the Fusion 360 file so you can easily correct this.
I would also print it upside down from how it displays on Thingiverse. That way the mount <-> keyboard interface is as smooth as possible. (Well, if you have a smooth print plate, I guess.)
And how did you bolt those things on? Are there screw holes on the back?
Here is a Thingiverse link: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4769961
There are caveats mentioned on the Thing page. I measured the screw spacing imprecisely and you will have to pick your favorite diagonal to put 2 of the 4 screws in ;) You'll also have to mirror the file to print one for the other hand.
I love the customizability - I started with a layout that was influenced by 3 or 4 other programming layouts I found but have made a dozen or so minor tweaks to it over the last few months into something I (mostly) love.
For coding, it's fantastic and I have no complaints (once I found a system for getting to the bracket keys that work for me, at least). For gaming, however, the tap/hold pairing just doesn't work for me. I had Alt and Esc bound to the same key and could not reliably Alt+Tab or hit Esc in a game for the life of me. I split those out earlier this week and now Esc is better, but Alt is still combined with PgDn which is problematic.....I'm probably going to give up and make it a dedicated Alt key and move PgUp/PgDn to another layer.
I have larger hands, so I wonder if I should have just got the Ergodox and had more thumb keys, but now that I'm used to the Moonlander I have no intention of switching.
The lowermost of the three thumb keys and the red keys are a bit of a stretch to reach and I already have rather large hands.
The two keys on the bottom row closest to the center are quite comfortable to reach with my thumbs and I use them for extra modifiers. I hardly use the other keys on that row.
I prefer not to use the number row, I have mapped a numpad to another layer instead.
I'm looking into Kyria as an alternative.
My personal must-haves for a split keyboard:
- Concave/curved design.
- Thumb clusters.
- Vertical arranged key columns.
- Palm support.
- Fully customizable layout.
- Mechanical switches or anything similar with proper feedback for better typing, and also decent travel distance so it doesn't feel that you're knocking your fingertips on hard plastic all the time.
But they are (almost) only available with those bulky, loud, (imho) hard to use, "clicky" mechanical keys.
It's a pity nobody is building such a thing like https://github.com/JesusFreke/lalboard with keys like https://www.r-go-tools.com/products/ergonomic-keyboards/r-go...
As someone who has used what is probably considered a mass market ergo split keyboard for a long time (10+ years), what would be a reasonable new one to try?
This is definitely better than a straight, standard keyboard for me, but it is not really good. The keys require too much activation force. I still have to bend my wrists a lot. Some keys are hard to reach.
What else can I try? I do not have RSI that I know of. I don't have pain. It is just not very good.
Anyway, I don't know if this is enough info for a recommendation.
First with a MD600 and now the MD770. I only upgraded because I liked the 770 has a full row of function keys and arrows keys making me less reliant on function keys for those extra key presses.
If the keys are too hard to press, you need to get switches that have lower actuation force (I use MX Browns), if you are having issue bending wrists I think you need to find a keyboard that tents well.
Even though it is absolutely enormous.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_ergonomic_keyboards#...
The original is notable just for how enormous it is.
I am so intrigued by some of these minimalist keyboards. I tried to use a 60% keyboard but I found using the extra layers to be difficult to adjust to. On paper it sounds good, move your fingers less, just use a layer. But in practice it got old fast.
I never realized how often I needed to press the ` key until I started using a 60% keyboard.
After drooling over the idea of this for years, I finally pulled the trigger and bought one. But, my order was cancelled because Apple had just bought the company to work on gesture tech for the original iPhone.
I switched recently to a Keychron K4 (with about half the switches swapped out) and am now just being more conscientious about keeping my wrists at a natural angle than I am about hitting keys with the right fingers. The result: no more freezing, my wrists are happier than ever, and I feel like my typing has gained 10wpm. I do miss the extra macro keys, though—might have to get a macro pad at some point...
Have you seen any keyboard with a similar layout to Kinesis Edge but with attachments similar to those that UHK has (https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/product/keycluster).
Those more fancy, niche keyboards like Moonlander and UHK seem to offer great configurability, but simply have too few keys for me. My wrists like separate arrows, home, end, page up & down keys and not needing to change layers or press and hold four-key combinations :)
As far as it goes they are postponing tease of the modules on every release date.
I am looking forward to the trackball and the key luster. Although now I am considering waiting for a bunch of reviews to come out before paying for those two modules.
The end result is that I have a strange typing pattern and I use the "wrong" fingers for keys.
(I also hit 'a' with my left thumb...)
My pinkies are completely unused, except for right pinky on enter.
No idea how well I'd adapt to 'proper' typing!
(After all these years, my left thumb is notably more flexible than my right!)
Still, I think having a split keyboard has overall been a benefit to my typing experience and type faster on it than I could on a normal keyboard.
I'm personally thinking of getting a split keyboard soon, but I'm so split on what I want. Currently using a Preonic and find the ortholinear/compact layout fairly pleasant, so I might just want to get something like the Let's Split. Still, I can't decide if I'd prefer a board with thumb clusters and/or staggered rows (like the Ergodox).
I'd honestly be fine going back to a more traditional layout on a split keyboard (not ortholinear, punctuation keys in normal places, all that stuff), but I've been really unimpressed by what I've seen of those in terms of features. I really want QMK, and I'd also like boards that are flat/don't have a strong tilt since those tend to be a bad ergonomically (in fact, I'd ideally like optional negative tilting). I also want something that's relatively low profile, which is also tricky to find in my experience.
I love it. I added some tilt but it doesn't come with any, and it can be easily flashed with QMK. I just stuck some bumpers on it for the tilt so you could easily go negative. I don't even have mine in a case, so it is very low profile.
Since it does not have a standard function key row, the esc key is not where you would expect it to be (mine is on the extra left bit with the function keys) but otherwise the keys are more or less where you would expect them to be. If you want a dedicated function row there is also this: https://keeb.io/collections/sinc/products/sinc-split-stagger...
I love the split layout and especially the split spacebar, as I made the left spacebar the macro key for my first layer. The rotary encoders are fun too.
I got me a split keyboard so that I would never have to look at it. For me this is achieved by not moving the wrist, only moving the fingers. Then my hands do not slip and do not need vision-guided repositioning.
(My current keyboard is an Ergodox EZ, all black, no lights. It's fine enough, and thr ortholinear layout is very helpful, but the thumb cluster is clumsy, and the pinky columns are not staggered enough, so typing P or Q needs a wrist shift. I have 60g switches in the home row, so that fingers can rest on them without clicking, and 30g switches everywhere else. My plan is to build a Kyria which has a better geometry / ergonomics, so I made a Kyria-compatible layout to get used to it.)
I agree on the pinky column not being staggered enough.
https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards
It was also featured in HN here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25922698
It appears to have extra keyboards.
However several are not properly tagged because they were missing when I used the filters.
This initially made me think the gallery was incomplete before I realized it is a fork of the other gallery.
It seems you've got some property/binary/numeric filters already in there and if you could load the data from a js/json file, this UI could be entirely open source and customizable. I’d just fork and put my own data, set my own sliders and good to go.
Just a thought if you ever wanted to open source it. It would be a superb experience for many developers.
I need the full keyboard. All of it and accessibility of (some) keys to both hands would be great.
Most split keyboard and minimal keyboards make no sense anyway outside English environments.
Not sure what you mean by this. I've been using an Ergodox EZ for almost 2 years and I don't live in an English-speaking country. It's no different from using the US-INTL layout in any other keyboard.
Use for programming and occasional game.
Amazing help for my inner shoulder pain. Highly recommend.
Keys are squishy and I loath them. Error rate is much higher. Regret brown keys.
Arrow keys are oddly mashed in and unpleasant to use. VIM reduces need, but still.
Going back to non split makes my shoulders tense up again.
Took about about a week to get used to keyboard.
Absolutely recommend split keyboard if you have broad shoulders. I will try a different model on the next one.
I wouldn't mind a split with a thumb cluster mounted 'electric eraser' either.. It would be so nice not to have to reach for a mouse/trackball all the time...
It did not take me long to adjust. I'm now as fast on the Advantage as on any mechanical standard.
I’m used to flying through editors by muscle memory so it feels quite painful to stumble on the new keyboard. Half the time I have to look at the old keyboard just to figure out what the actual keys I wanted are.
Any suggestions to get over the hump? I’ve tried some typing games like Epistory but they normally focus on normal keys. I haven’t see one for these special keys.
Remap CapsLock to Windows/Super. Mirror Ctrl and Alt from the left thumb cluster onto the right thumb cluster, so you have Ctrl and Alt in reach of each thumb.
Don't be afraid to customize special keys and punctuation. Especially that big Delete key under your left thumb. That's prime real estate.
If you have larger hands, buy some of the stick-on palm rest pads. They'll help bring your wrists to the right angles.
The Dactyl looks tempting now...
I think people take pictures with Qwerty to make them more approachable.
QMK is a wonderful piece of software.
Here's a set with a homing kit. https://novelkeys.xyz/products/kam-superuser-gb?variant=3789... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/3099/8088/products/homing_...
It has even more keycaps than usual!
I am not sure why it is so difficult to find one like that :-(
I have a wireless mouse (G Pro Wireless) that is good enough but charging it is pretty annoying.
[1] https://www.slicemk.com/pages/ergodox-wireless
[2] https://xudongz.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=2e46b2d0347...
For the planned low end version, assembly will just be installing switches/keycaps (no soldering). A similar assembly service will be available for people who just want to receive a complete keyboard.
I wish I could just buy something similar!
Of course making a lalboard from scratch might end up being cheaper in the end.
Is there somewhere to buy it, or is it discontinued / one off group buy? I've linked it to here for the moment: https://www.taehatypes.com/alice