Comment by daggersandscars | Hacker News Reader

Comment by daggersandscars | Hacker News Reader

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daggersandscars

I suffer from wrist and finger pain when typing, sometimes to where I can't type without excruciating pain. Here are my experiences.

I have the Drop version of the Planck, as well as the ErgoDox EZ, the Drop ALT, Logitech G915, two Havit low-profile gaming keyboards (TKL and full), and the AA battery Apple TKL. Previously, I had a Das (Cherry MX Brown).

I have relatively big hands (4" across the knuckles, 9" base to tip) and relatively wide shoulders (20+").

I suffer from wrist and finger pain when typing. Lower-profile is better for me, in general.

The best, overall, is the ErgoDox EZ, but takes up a ton of space and requires serious dedication to learn to type well on. Also, the thumb movements make this a bad keyboard for people who have thumb arthritis.

The Apple is best for finger pain and typing speed but not great for wrist pain.

The low profile mechanicals (Havit, Logitech) are fine. I get some finger pain and some wrist pain, but not a ton. They don't feel great to use.

The Planck is the only standard key switch mechanical keyboard I can type on without hand & wrist pain. In terms of overall pain, it's second only to the ErgoDox EZ. I also retain more typing speed than the ErgoDox EZ. I find the frozen in place hand positioning better than trying to use the Drop ALT in a keyboard tray.

(Edited to add thumb arthritis note.)

For serious ergonomics, splits are the way to go.

I don't recommend the Ergodox EZ just as you note the thumb cluster is pretty terrible in actuality.

https://shop.keyboard.io/

Is my recommended 'out of the box' keyboard.

As you also rightly point out, there's a learning curve with a move to these kinds of keyboards but since you're on an ergodox, the gap should be significantly smaller.

My daily driver is a Diverge 3 (company no longer operating), but the best one so far. Close in, thumb clusters with few, easily accessible keys. The thumb can really only access 3-4 keys easily.

The real one I want to go after is the Dactyl Manuform... but omg there's no nice way to get at that thing. And the cost is so high just to 'try it out'.

I'd just like to chime in to offer a different opinion - around 1.5 year in with my Ergodox EZ, and I have no issues with the thumb keys at all. I use them for space, shift and delete/layer switch on one side, and backspace, layer switch and return on the other. It's been working well for me. There's 3 more thumb cluster keys on each side, but they're unreachable from a typing position; I use them for stuff that isn't related to typing, like closing a window and setting/navigating through bookmarks in my IDE.

Overall I'm a very happy customer. Never had issues and my typing speed on it is by far the highest I have had (though admittedly I haven't tried many others). I also have much higher accuracy than I'd ever had with a standard keyboard. The first 2-4 weeks were pretty painful indeed, but now I wouldn't consider switching for anything else.

One of the problems that I have with the thumb cluster with the ergodox is placement. Given my hand size, I need to have my thumb in further extension to hit the cluster's first key.

When my thumb is relaxed, it's actually sitting in the dead space.

The Diverge 3[0] and the Keyboard.io[1] bring that first/main thumb key ever so slightly closer (i.e. more underneath the "b" and "n").

The next one is the the ergodox's thumbs are stacked columnar. This isn't how the thumb naturally extends, which is an arc. So the Diverge 3 and Keyboard.io both mimic this.

For me, that was the deciding factor over the Ergodox.

This reddit post sums my main concerns[2]

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=diverge+3&rlz=1C5CHFA_enSG89...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=keyboard+io&rlz=1C5CHFA_enSG...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ergodox/comments/e8t6pv/thumb_clust...

I made an open source split ortho keyboard for me (that I should really write about) and gave the thumb keys some thought and measurement. Maybe you'd like to try it out, it's quite easy to build:

https://gitlab.com/stavros/george

It resembles the Ergodox EZ, but with a more convenient thumb cluster.

> There's 3 more thumb cluster keys on each side, but they're unreachable from a typing position; I use them for stuff that isn't related to typing, like closing a window and setting/navigating through bookmarks in my IDE.

I rarely use those smaller keys on the thumb cluster without moving my entire hand (which is generally for alt tabbing, and I should figure out a better way to do that).

The main reason I was interested in the Ergodox was that my Razer Orbweaver was having issues, and I really liked the ortholinear layout for gaming. Now I've got separate layouts for different game types (fps, mmo, rts), and I just move the right half out of the way for more mouse room. Can't go back now, I struggle to type on any normal keyboards.

I have never tried an Ergodox, but my main keyboard right now is a Redox, which is similar in terms of thumb cluster placement. The thumb keys gave me trouble at first, but I replaced the switches with ones that had a much lighter spring (35 cN, I think?) and since then it's been fine.

> For serious ergonomics, splits are the way to go.

That's my experience too. A year ago I switched to Kyria[0] and now I'm baffled why such keyboards aren't much more popular.

[0] https://splitkb.com/

Waiting on my PCB to arrive. I already have the caps and switches...I can't wait.

> For serious ergonomics, splits are the way to go.

As with the shoe industry's atrocious consumer footwear, the keyboard industry could and should do much better to protect the uninformed consumer.

My personal favourite split keyboard is the Goldtouch.[1] I'm a longtime user and very happy customer.

[1] https://www.goldtouch.com/ergonomic-keyboards/

For the Dactyl Manuform there are a few shops that can sell one but yeah, the price is high:

https://dactyl.bigcartel.com/ (under $150)

https://bastardkb.com/ (Above $300)

Otherwise there are some shops on etsy.

You can always lurk on r/mechmarket or ask in the r/ergoMechKeyboard

As a programmer I used to suffer from wrist and thumb pain long ago, tried many different keyboards as well. Eventually, for this and other reasons, I decided I should type _less_, and started to look for a less verbose programming language than C which was my goto language at the time. I settled on a ML-like language for its terseness and performance. The pain went away (alongside my collection of fancy keyboard) and I had even forgotten that I experienced such a pain. Other factors might have helped of course (maybe I started to exercise more? I also tried to learn the guitar at the time, also in an attempt to fight the pain). So, YMMV, but in any case I wanted to let you know that there is no fatality in this.

I've been using the ErgoDox EZ for maybe 3-4 years now, and my experience hasn't matched yours in a few regards:

Thumb arthritis: I've started to develop arthritis in my thumbs when grasping, and the EZ doesn't trigger it at all.

Effort to learn: I wouldn't say "serious dedication", but it did take an effort. I had a few bad habits, namely pressing 'b' with the wrong hand (can't do that on a split), and having to look when typing the numbers. It took me a couple days of feeling like I couldn't type, and maybe two weeks before I felt like I was 100% comfortable with it.

I do agree that the thumb clusters, other than the two primary keys, are basically useless. I have some VERY infrequently used keys mapped to them (pg up/down, alt). It also does take a lot of space to use and to carry.

I use a customized keyboard layout particular to my workflow with i3 and vim. I'm SUPER happy with it.

I've been very tempted to try the Moonlander, but I also really don't want to go back to labeled keys. My current keys are blank. If they had a blank set of caps, I'd have ordered it.

Not sure if it's what you mean by blank (not a big keyboard geek, but I just got a Moonlander), but when you buy it there's an option for all of the keys to have "-" on them, so it's effectively blank?

I may be misunderstanding what you're asking, but the ErgoDox EZ has two different keycap shapes.

The printed keys are all the same shape and can be moved around as one remaps the keys. However, this results in a flat keyboard. You can get the same effect by buying another set of keycaps from a keycap company.

The blank keys are sculpted, so each key is unique to it's position or a set of positions. This makes reaching keys much easier from the default position, but makes learning the keyboard harder.

I had started down the path of trying to buy replacement keys, ideally blank but with some sort of a clear spot so the keyboard lights can shine through. That was rare enough, and I guess maybe in the end I might just want clear keycaps for the lights. But there's a whole set of lingo in the keycaps that I felt like I had to understand to stand a chance of getting the correct set of keycaps. There wasn't just a "Here's a ErgoDox EZ caps set..."

I just tried buying and didn't see an option beyond color and keycaps. I had even mailed them maybe a month ago just to double check, because for my ErgoDox EZ they were able to do a custom order with the lit keys but black keycaps. They had said they are still looking at doing an "all -" blank set, but didn't have it available yet.

How do you like the Moonlander? I really love my ErgoDox, but the Moonlander looks nice.

I have both Ergodox EZ, and ZSA Moonlander

- Even though Moonlander has approximately same layout as Ergodox, the "margins" around the keyboard are a lot smaller, so I noticed it fit a lot better on my desk. Small thing, but I felt it made difference for me.

- The thumb clusters are more ergonomic for me on the Moonlander

- I still often feel that I would like to have an extra row of buttons on the Ergodox/Moonlander, instead of the layer system. Oh, well ...

> I still often feel that I would like to have an extra row of buttons on the Ergodox/Moonlander, instead of the layer system. Oh, well ...

This is one of the things (the other being price) that stop me from jumping on the moonlander.

I really like having direct access to some functions I don't use constantly, like media controls and such. I don't mind having to move my hand to reach those, since I don't use them constantly, but it's practical to be able to operate them with just one finger. Like volume when I'm eating, etc. The Moonlander doesn't even have proper F keys...

More generally, this is a gripe I have with compact keyboards. I would really love to have "macro" keys, either to the top or to the left of the keyboard, but I absolutely hate having a number pad.

For some reason, all the "compact" keyboards seem to want to go "as compact as possible".

I don't carry my keyboard with me and have enough desk space for a big surface keyboard. I just don't want my mouse hand to have to travel far to reach the mouse.

That's good to hear. I'm tempted to get the Moonlander. I have ergodox ez at the moment which I really like.

I've never really got into the layer system. It feels like something that would be great to already be fluent with, but the effort involved in getting there doesn't seem to be worth it.

I get wrist pain typing on normal keyboards, but I've found my main issue is negative wrist angle. I have been using those silicone roll up keyboards [1] for almost two decades now.

At first we got one because our keyboard broke and it was all they had at the Radio Shack in our small town. Then I grew to like it because it is nearly silent to type on. And as I've gotten older, I've found that I don't get wrist pain when using it, unlike every other keyboard I've tried.

I know people go on about the greatness of split ergonomic keyboards, but if you are like me and those just don't really do it for you, I'd suggest giving one of these a try. They are sort of love it or hate it, with a heavy skew towards hate it though.

[1] Not this model, but similar: https://www.newegg.com/p/0GA-03F8-00014

I had the ErgoDox EZ for a while, switched it out for a redox (https://github.com/mattdibi/redox-keyboard) which I find is perfect for me. It is a lot smaller and just removed all the keys I was not using on the EZ anyway and shrunk down some of the others.

That's what I am on, too. The one thing the Redox does that irritates me is the 1.25u keys on the outside. It's gratuitous, and makes them less comfortable to type - I know that technically I only need to reach as far as I would for a 1u key, but the scoop of the keycap means that I naturally tend to reach further so that I can hit the lowest point of the key, which means a fair bit more pinky stretching. Also made finding an appropriate keycap set an unnecessary hassle.

I keep meaning to try swapping the 1u and 1.5u keycaps in the thumb cluster to see if that would make the upper two thumb keys more accessible. As it stands, they're annoying enough to hit that I'm happy to leave them on the default pu/pd/home/end simply because, as a Mac user, I never use those keys anyway. Which seems a bit of a waste of real estate.

Get or give a try to a kinesis advantage. Solved 100% of my carpal tunnel problems about 20 years ago.

Have you looked into Kinesis Advantage?

Quefrency from keeb.io is great - small split keyboard

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