Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
tipykeyboard.com
tipykeyboard.com
I didn't find this device appealing.
As a former patent attorney, working in various industries, a good rule of thumb is that only 1 in 3 inventions ever get implemented commercially. Back in the 1990's, in the keyboard field, it was about 1 in 10. The chief problem with keyboard innovations, even ones that are demonstrably more efficient, is that its a little like asking people to reverse driving on the right-hand-side (here in N. America), and go to left-side-of-the-road driving. You have to break a lot of ingrained 'finger memory' -- and, to some extent, be sure that your peers are doing the same.
I think, then, for that reason, such keyboards never amounted, as a whole, to be more than 1-2% of the entire market. Literally, 100 different keyboards (than QWERTTY) are outsold, by a factor of 100X by QWERTY
That means the only people who are getting novel designs to use are those who can both afford one in the first place, and are motivated enough to spend roughly 10-200 times the usual keyboard cost.
This is especially prohibitive for children, who are the group most likely to accommodate the learning curve of a novel design.
That seems obvious but it's not true:
Your brain can easily learn different habits. For example, look at musicians playing and switching on various similar music instruments (between keyboards, different guitars like banjos or bass, kalimba (Thumb-Pianos) with 8 or 12 keys and different tuning, etc.).
Don't forget also that you can learn something fast when it gives you a quick benefit. For example, learning the french alternative keyboard layout "Bépo", takes only 2 or 3 weeks, because after one or two hours of exercises you are already typing frequent words easier and faster. I learned at the same time, the ergonomic Typematrix keyboard, and frankly the ergonomic part of the layout was easy to learn. Of course I didn't forget the other layouts, and I can type on classical Azerty or Qwerty keyboards without much thinking.
Human brain plasticity is very high.
The two things i've seen that prevent people is, first, an expectation of instant success, which just isn't realistic. It'll take a few days, but once you've done it once it's quite trivial to swap back and forth as needed.
Second, there's a shocking amount of people who just cannot touch type? Even in IT/Dev environments I've seen hunt and peck or other strange forms. Not blaming them but I really think it's a major failure on our society that with tech so integral we don't do a better job teaching these skills.
I'm a full ten finger touch typist, having learnt it in high school. In November last year I accidentally nicked the tip of my left index finger with a power saw - which then required a lot of swearing and a minor surgery to repair the nail bed.
All to say while the finger was out of commission due to being heavily bandaged or too painful to type with, I quickly became adept as a nine finger touch typist. Wasn't as fast but had to pay less attention to my typing than I thought I would have to.
(Finger is mostly pretty good now, if a little lop-sided. Still some numbness in the very end but overall I was very lucky.)
- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9Smm_od1hHU - https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=q4OEKKMPH48
350 EUR???? WTF ????
Excluding VAT and shipping ??
Who the fuck would want to fork 500 EUR for a damn keyboard ?
What size is the market at that price ? This is ridiculous.
Is there any cheaper alternative to this ?
No fucking way that I spend that much cash for an unproven keyboard
By going for a one-handed design, you constrain your audience even farther.
This problem is then exasperated by the thriving community of keyboard design enthusiasts that have recently had a huge burst of productivity, thanks to cheap accessible 3D printing.
I wish this company the best of luck. They have a step hill ahead of them. Even so, I'm always excited to see new companies expanding the keyboard market. The more novel designs that exist generally, the more likely it is that we can overcome the hurdle that is status quo.
The overwhelming majority of people I have talked to aren't interested in using a non-standard keyboard design, even if they are interested in the ergonomic benefits.
There are definitely a lot of us who want more esoteric designs, but we are a relative minority.
Unfortunately, my hand hurts just looking at the example in the promotional video I found. I don't see how you could hold your hand up at that angle like that and not end up straining it. However, I'd love to be wrong.
In terms of raw typing speed, I don't think that it can ever come close to the performance of someone using a machine-optimized keyboard layout with two hands, but I very much like the idea of not needing my right hand to dance back and forth between the mouse and the right side of my keyboard.
For example in an electronic music context.
I am doing it so I don't have to move the right hand off the mouse, or put the coffee cup down or just feel like supporting my chin with the right hand while I am reading.
What I did so far that helped with productivity was:
1. Map the Capslock to activate 2nd layer when held.
On the second layer then:
2. Use the 1-6 number buttons on the second layer so I can type in all 0-9 numbers with just one hand
3. Map the QWSADE (along with HIJKL which is at this point a given) to arrows and PgUp/Down/Backspace
4. Map Z to Enter/Return (So Capslock + Z) is Enter/Return.
I was toying with an idea to map the right side letters to the left side, but that learning that may be more trouble than it's worth. If I need to type more than 1 word it's usually worth using both hands.
On a separate note I am continuously surprised there isn't enough advancement yet by means of AI to make a rock-solid autocorrect for typos.
There's a video here showing someone typing using this keyboard. It feels a bit slow?
I recently started trying to learn a one handed layout to give my injured right wrist some rest and have been reasonably happy with the space bar doing double duty. (Tap is space and hold is flip.) Though this isn't something that most keyboards can be configured to do.
So far I'd say the flip style is OKish to learn, but I'm still at a tiny fraction of my normal speed. It will take a lot of dedicated practice for me to be anywhere near as fast.
As an aside, doesn’t sound like Bluetooth work well with Mac:
> TiPY is not automatically connected to my Apple MAC or MAC Books after I switch it off and on again?
> With a connected USB C cable, TiPY is always recognized.
> Third-party keyboards only connected to Bluetooth are never recognized by Apple after being switched off and must be reconnected.
What do you see as the benefit for a two-handed person using a computer in a normal desk job? Honest question, it's just not clear to me.
- Trackpad between split keyboard. Difficult to use because of edge rejection; had to move hands too much to reach the live zone.
- Bluetooth ring mouse - tiny trackpad mounted on a finger or thumb wring. Surprisingly usable, but lacks fine controls for text selection/drawing, or takes too much effort to move around the screen. Not enough surface area for acceleration to kick in.
- Finger mouse - like strapping a desktop optical mouse sensor to the index finger. Too weird, still needs the hand to move to a mousepad away from the keyboard.
- Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard with trackpoint - decent, but keyboard not ergonomic enough. Missed mechanical keys
- tenkeyless mechanical keyboard with trackpoint - good, but not fantastic. Still not ergonomic enough. One or two keys needed re-soldering, and then another few started to fail later. Annoying.
Eventually I decided to commit to Kenisis advantage for typing input, and a normal mouse for pointing. But I still think about this sort of thing.
I never got around to trying a foot mouse or pedals though.
Or left handed keyboard plus a Wacom tablet, joystick, or other peripheral.
FrogPad[1] was another example from recent history.