Breeze Keyboard | Hacker News Reader

Breeze Keyboard

afternoonlabs.com

79 pointsniedzielski69 comments

Also see the split keyboard gallery here: https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/

Love this site!! Thanks for linking! I considered making one like this but never had time. Always found it so hard to know whats been done in the mech keyboard area with so many home grown and low volume boards.

Thanks, and to the GP for posting it! It's my site.

I try and pay some attention to Reddit for new things, but it's more difficult to keep up with keyboards only available for a short time / no longer available.

Thanks for making that, I spent a fair bit of time checking them all out before settling on a Dactyl Mini - https://github.com/bstiq/dactyl-manuform-mini-keyboard

Just about got one half all wired up... a hell of a project to jump into when you can't solder to save yourself :D

Awesome site. Well done.

With the numpad, where do you put the mouse (or touchpad)??

Ergonomic keyboards often dont have a numpad for a reason - I find that its the mouse that is more detrimental to my arm than the keyboard. By far.

The numpad is just a distance that I have to travel over when going from keyboard to mouse and vice versa.

Numpads are useless to me.

A good design puts the Numpad on the left (if right handed)

Primarily, this is because the mouse arm doesn't like being hyperextended to the right, resulting in shoulder issues down the line.

A quick look at this keeb immediately brings a few complaints to me. Primarily, the removal of the function key row always sticks out to me as an annoyance. Vertical space is most definitely not at a premium, as far as ergonomics go.

> A good design puts the Numpad on the left (if right handed)

Even better is to mirror it so you can use your right hand's already cultivated muscle memory.

Not quite. The main issue here is the keyboard width and what it does to the angle of your mouse hand. Use of the mouse at angles too far from the forward axis of the body may result in shoulder issues down the line (At least that's what I've read, experienced, and was told by my physical therapist)

I bought a detached num pad so I could place it out of the way of my normal typing.

It's a DIY kit too assemble. The build guide suggests you can have the numpad on the left side, if you prefer. Or neither, or both.

I would use neither side, to allow tenting the two halves.

The only tricky bit is I think you would need a custom enclosure. Perhaps down the line they will have a slim right enclosure/plate

I dont use a mouse nor trackpad. Sounds like a great keyboard for me :-)

Whereas I prefer the numpad for entering numbers. Horses for courses.

The best solution I've seen personally is my keyboard has a foot pedal, that when held changes some of the normal keys into a numpad. It's a kind of a mode switch. So no need to stretch extra distance or anything.

It's a bit much in terms of...someone had to implement this nonsense, and I had to buy the optional foot pedal. But if I'm honest, it's really nice.

I have this implemented on my current keyboard but via a thumb key.

Same, when I hold a thumb key my right hand turns into the numpad and my left hand is on a set of arrow keys, where s, d, f correspond to <-, \/, ->, and a, q, caps, tab change to control, alt, control+shift, alt+shift, respectively. I've tried to pick up Vim with this setup and always feel like my keyboard makes it irrelevant.

My solution to this problem...

I put my trackball to the left despite being right handed. Didn't take too long to adjust.

I also do this. I put a trackpad on the left, so I can let my right arm rest. Every few days I switch which hand is the trackpad hand. Track pads are easy to use left handed especially since programming is mostly scrolling and a few rare taps.

This sounds like an exercise in masochism to me.

It's a split, so putting the mouse / touchpad in the center is an option.

I agree, remove the numpad. Looking at the images with the numpad attached on the right gave my right shoulder a haunting feeling from past pains.

I have a separate numpad with a usb connection so I can put it wherever. Worth the $20.

Layers are much better. I try to set everything up to avoid hand movement at all.

Put arrows and numbers on a layer and then you can just hold a modifier to access that layer without moving your hand.

Why not just put the mouse between the halves?

This thing seems so silly. If you're going to drop down to something like a Lily58, why is the nav cluster the thing you cling to? Why not add an extra row to bring in the f keys, and make it a full 75% board?

Agreed. Once you're used to arrow keys on the homerow you never want to go back to dedicated arrow keys.

Disagree strongly. I spent about 6 months traveling with a 60% in my bag (1st gen touchbar keyboard is the absolute worst). I had it configured fairly typically (split spacebar but no arrow cluster). I had arrow clusters mapped to layer+wasd and layer+ijkl. It never became comfortable. My travel keyboard got upgraded to a 65%. Still use a kinesis advantage at home (it's just too big to pack for short trips). I've built a dactyl, I may start traveling with it instead (if I every have to go back to travel).

To be fair I'm a Vim user and so hjkl feels natural to me. I just also have to hold my right thumb down.

Not sure how others do it, but on standard keyboards I've always struggled with accurately moving my hands; for example one journey to the arrow cluster and back meant my right hand usually landed on the wrong row or column if I wasn't looking. All issues of that kind just disappeared when I started using a keyboard actually designed for human hands and reduced hand/wrist movement.

But the reason custom keyboards exist is exactly because different people want different things, and that's fine.

> Not sure how others do it, but on standard keyboards I've always struggled with accurately moving my hands

To the best of my memory, I just accurately moved my hands even as far as the \| or =/+ keys. Using arrow keys would've required quickly feeling for the arrow-key cluster before using it.

Now that I'm on a split keyboard with a reduced number of keys, I think people vastly discount how difficult/awkward it is to accurately use the standard keyboard layout for programming without looking at the keyboard.

what keyboard do you use? And do you feel it's optimized for Vim?

If you want a split keyboard for ergonomic reasons, a fantastic resource is [1]. It lets you compare sizes and shapes, and print out full-size paper mockups so you can try them on your hands.

I did this and it turned out the keyboard I thought I wanted was too large. I'm now planning to build a Kyria.

1. https://jhelvy.shinyapps.io/splitkbcompare/

I just built a Kyria! Wonderful device.

Kyria was on my list to try before I went down the route of building a Dactyl Mini. Might have to build that next :D

No F1-F12 keys? Maybe it is just a software I use all day (IntelliJ), but I think others also make some use of functional keys (for instance I like Windows convention that F2 is rename, whatever it means in a given context).

Your keyboard also doesn't have keys for {}, (), ?, ~ etc., yet you still manage to type them with a shift key.

Same thing here. This isn't even a very extreme case, 40% keyboards also don't have a numrow. Still just as quick to type on if you're used to it, with less hand movement. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, though.

The issue I see with this is that the {} keys are usually just shift + []. Whereas the Fx keys are often pressed together with some combination of ctrl / alt / shift. So not having the row, that would add another key to the combo. Or make it a two-step process.

I actually have the same frustration as GP. I usually want a 75% keyboard so that I can have my mouse close to it, and since I don't ever use the numpad, that works out great.

But I don't care about the keyboard being actually small, so I would absolutely love some of those "macro keys" like on the gaming keyboards and also direct access to media keys.

Yes, I know you can have layers and combinations, and it might not even be that much slower (or at all) with one of those compact keyboards, but I find it much more comfortable to be able to only push one key with one finger.

I sometimes use my keyboards while doing something else besides "full-on typing" with both hands on the keys. Granted, in those cases I wouldn't be bothered by a full-width keyboard, but having two keyboards is just not something I'd consider practical.

I compromised with a similar keyboard without an F-row.

I configured it so pressing 1 and Q together¹ sends F1. I use this far more often than Fn+1, since I can do 1Q singlehanded/singlefingered.

¹ Actually 1 and ", because Dvorak.

F-Row on those layouts us mapped onto a layer at the number-row. It's good for blind-typing from homerow, but pretty poor for casual typing. I'm not always on homerow, in those moments typing an F-key is cumbersome with layers. It's also missing out on a full row of keys I could use for more exotic mappings, forcing me to use more complicated layers.

Yeah, F12 to bring up the terminal. Doesn't conflict with anything else, is a single key and physically the easiest to move to from the home row.

I like Q-Dir's take on F2, cycles through highlighting just the file name, then just the extension, and then both.

mapped to a layer with a modifier key

An ergonomic keyboard can be more comfortable to type on.

If you are just looking for additional keys or thumb modifiers I would go with a Japanese keyboard[1]. They are cheaper and very standardized.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/ELECOM-Japanese-Wireless-Conformity-T...

I want to try a good one-handed chorded keyboard for everyday use, is there any product like that? Couldn't find anything

Most of these split ergo boards will work with only one half. You have to make your own chords in qmk though.

I've built a similar keyboard myself but found the hardest part was to get the wrist rest and shape correctly. I went back to using an MS sculpt which isn't perfect, just more relaxing.

Think I might try a Keyboardio 100 when it comes out as it seems to have everything.

Cool idea, I appreciate the effort to make it affordable, and the wider spacing around the arrow keys. I do wonder why the shift key is regular key sized -- I find hitting it with the little finger requires more target space.

It looks almost perfect: a trackball placed under one of the thumbs would make it possible to not have to use any mouse. Maybe add some foot pedals too.

It looks like an interesting concept, and I was actually thinking about trying out a split keyboard... but absolutely everything is sold out.

If you aren't afraid of DIY, there's plenty of pcbs around.

You can always get something mass-produced from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kinesis-Freestyle2-Keyboard-Standard-...

I've built my own keyboard but turns out I'm quite happy with the above Kinesis Freestyle.

Can second this. I was having quite bad wrist pain, and wanted to try a split keyboard but didn't want to 'break the bank' in-case it didn't' work.

I bought the optional VIP kit to add some tenting ability and I'm really happy with it for the price.

a caveat about Freestyle2 - it is not ortholinear, meaning keys are staggered like most regular keyboards. Kinesis Advantage 2 on the other hand is split, concave, and ortholiner - highly recommend.

Correct me if I’m wrong but the Kinesis is not mechanical like the Breeze?

Indeed, not mechanical. The only thing it has in common with the article is that it’s split.

The Kinesis Freestyle Pro is mechanical, and otherwise (I think) identical to the Freestyle 2.

https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/freestyle-pro/

ZSA Moonlander is made to order, try that one.

It looks to be much more expensive unfortunately...

I’d love an ultimate hacking keyboard, but honestly, the BT Mist Barroco MD770 is fine. And I guess I’d want larger market for consumer ergo keyboards and not just these specialised items that many people can’t afford.

I have been trying to find split keyboards with function keys but it seems that most manufacturers don’t consider them important to add.

Same - it's bonkers how they're always skipped. Rather keep shortcut finger gymnastics to a minimum.

The typical mapping is much like a macbook these days. layer+numrow. It's a pretty easy one to digest (f11 under 0, f12 under -).

I don't go for '40' keyboards though. It's just too much overhead for too many keys, especially for software dev work. I wouldn't go smaller than '60' and don't myself go smaller than '65'.

Nice. I'd like to see the numpad in the center.

I would like to see no numpad ;-)

As you snap it off one half, I am guessing the keyboard will work if you snap it off both halves?

For rare occassions where a numpad is desired you could use a dedicated one. There is even an IPv6 calculator numpad. Which also works great for MAC addresses. There is no reason why you cannot have specific keybinds or maps for such a purpose though, except muscle memory / learning curve.

Too bad its all sold out. I like the idea.

Man, those choks look really pretty

I also appreciate how the microcontrollers are not on the bottom, and clearly visible. It's pretty and it probably makes for a flatter keyboard.

There's a logo on there. I wonder if it's a sticker, or a custom package or something.

That's pretty common on these split boards (the mcu being visible). Commonly people will also put oleds on top.

The logo on the MCU is the https://deskthority.net/wiki/Elite-C and it's silk screened on.

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