The Matias Ergo Pro is almost perfect, but I had two of them and they both failed within one year. I had one of each switch type (low force and regular) - both were missing some button presses and repeating other button presses.
I got the wired option with tactile brown switches and numpad, and I've been happy with this. I was looking for a replacement for MS Sculpt and didn't want one of the wild models, this finally ticked all the boxes.
https://perixx.com/products/periboard-535
I've got one with clicky blue switches, which is fun to type on but a bit loud, and one with silent red switches, which is pleasant to use but the key activation is perhaps a bit too light. I sometimes find myself pressing the keys when I thought I was just hovering my fingers.
The folding stands are a weak point. The MS 4000/Sculpt sort of design, whereby the riser is a solid piece of plastic that the keyboard rests on, is much better.
https://www.keychron.com/collections/split-keyboards
I'm not sure if they're in stock, but it's a lovely keyboard with dead simple programmability.
I have the UHK 60 and I really like it, except as you mentioned no function keys.
The software is pretty good, includes a little DSL and you can do pretty much anything you want.
I popped for the 80 as soon as the shipping times caught up to real time. It's a fantastic keyboard. I haven't gotten any of the clusters for it yet, but I'm very happy with my purchase.
I hope they make a UHK 110 key. I want all the keys.
Right now it's not worth the upgrade to me from the 60 to the 80. but I'd totally upgrade for a 101/110/120 or whatever keys.
Modes and multiple keys to do one thing is fine, but it's not as nice as just having a dedicated key. Which is why I want all the keys.
One is to replace the switches. If they're hot swappable then it's easy. If they're not, it's hard -- but easy if you're willing to spend money on a desoldering iron. Depending upon your feelings here, I would consider it maintenance to keep it going if you love it -- particularly if you use it to prevent RSI.
A quick look shows matias does sell replacement switches -- which is usually the thing to go. Springs, crud, etc end up in the switches. Sometimes you can tear them apart to fix them, sometimes it's easier to toss them and replace them.
The typical desoldering tool for keyboards is something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/ENGINEER-Engineer-Solder-Suction-SS-0...
They also have things like this that are maybe more functional than trying to do it two handed:
https://www.amazon.com/zycllycx-Electric-Automatic-Desolderi...
But the hakko is the gold standard here. If you have keyboards you absolutely love but are soldered, this is the way to go.
https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-FR-301-Portable-Desoldering-Too...
Hahaha who am I kidding? Of course I have a keyboard hobby! I have a practical museum of various split and mechanical keyboards. But I don't want to be soldering them any more.
Then you can configure the buttons however you want.
Or you know... go build your own. It's fun. I built my own keypad and learned a bunch of stuff.
Even hot swap switches prevent more landfill waste as it makes it easy for people to replace bad switches. And if you want a reliable keyboard in the future, that's what you'll need, other wise it will just be more e-waste.
Owning 20 cars and maintaining them is a hobby. Owning 1 car and maintaining it is not -- it's life.
Gel wrist pads?... Not a great implementation. I either need to work up a 3d printed DIY replacement via covering TPU (or something of the like) or order a first party replacement.
I also have a "flat" gelpad on one of my Ergo Pros. Came that way from the factory, but it never really bothered me enough to complain to them. I love the gelpad palm rests (not wrist).
“Here’s a really nice split keyboard. But we’ve removed everything except the alphanumerics”
Whhhyyyy.
“Oh but it’s programmable. And you can have layers. And you can have macros”
Cool. I actually didn’t want any of that. I just wanted a single row of function keys. My Moonlander can somehow make space for a “meh” key, a “caps word” key, 3 keys in 2 variations for “change layer” but a play/pause/ volume keys are simply out of the question.
I don't spend all my time in vim, my job is mostly emails and docs now. Muscle memory decays for all the fancy chords/layers/macros/etc and I don't have infinite time to spend tweaking keyboard layouts.
Personally I have an advantage 360 pro. The only function keys I actually use with frequency are F12 and F2, used for shortcuts in editors. I just put F12 and F2 on thumb keys. Problem solved.
Some people go all in on layers, but I actually use minimal layers at all. I can do everything I need with just the base layer from how I have it setup. I only have a second layer setup that allows using VIM-like navigation (i.e. up, down, left, right, page-down, page-up etc) from the home row in my browser. But technically I also have those on the base layer just in the normal positions.
I actually had a similar mindset, I do not want to have to create tons of layers and combinations, so I optimized my layout around just the base layout but added a layer just for convenience later on.
The author's whole point here is that QMK (or ZMK, which I use) lets you customize it to exactly your own needs!
Just for an example off the top of my head, in JetBrains IDEs the shortcut for hiding all tools is Ctrl-Shift-F12.
But so many keyboards cut that number down so drastically. I use home, end, delete, page up/down, all the time not to mention the number pad as a whole, and all the Fkeys.
1) My space key is right CTRL when held down.
2) I have two keys for "<RET>", one on each thumb cluster, one is Alt when held down, the other is left CTRL.
3) Page up and down have their own keys on one of those clusters because I no longer needed them for the modifiers, and so page up and down are also home and end if they're held down.
4) Auto shift is on, and I've tuned to to eliminate most of the accidental shifts while keeping it relatively quick to type CONSTANT_VALUES (I actually still have shift keys in the usual positions but on the ergodox I have it feels like a big stretch to hit them and type so I use the auto-shift most of the time, but I do admit this is the convenience function I have the most love/hate relationship with)
5) The shift keys themselves give me open parentheses (left shift) and close parentheses (right shift) when double tapped.
The only chording I have to do these days (that isn't normal keyboard shortcuts) is I have a dedicated key to switch to a layer for FN keys when held down. And the reality is I could (and should) probably map the number keys to be FN keys when double tapped since I don't think I ever hold an FN key down.
This[1] isn't my most current layout (missing the home/end on the pageup/down buttons) but it's pretty much what I've landed on after about a year of using one of these. And realistically there are unused keys there I could remap still. The CTRL where the capslock key would be is never used in favor of the thumb cluster versions, the left and right CTRL keys on the tops of the two thumb clusters are leftovers from older layouts and unused right now. I've never used the "Meh" key or the "'" and "Capslock" keys in the lower left. The "Command-enter" and "[" and "]" keys in the lower right are another leftover from an older layout that are also unused now. So lots of room to play around still.
Not saying you should definitely switch, there are still some things that I'm not 100% happy with (those inner symbol keys are a stretch sometimes and depending on what code I'm writing feel like I could move them around) and getting used to the ortholinear layout is a whole thing on its own. But if it's something that interests you, maybe that layout can help you find a good starting point.
[1]: https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez-st/layouts/wzKWq/latest/...
I was in the same boat, doing most text navigation on the keyboard and fully adapted to the quirky arrangement of home/end/pgup/pgdn of the Microsoft natural keyboard elite I’d been coding on for 23 years.
But I do a lot of nomading, so I really wanted a small keyboard. And I’m a tall guy, so I was looking for a full split (I tried the Kinesis Freestyle2 for a while but didn’t love it).
I bought a ZSA Voyager. The first day I went from ~120wpm to 20. I hated it and had buyer’s remorse. Second week, I was still switching to another keyboard in the afternoons because I was making so many typos and felt so tired. I swapped out most of the switches with higher force ones, and that helped a ton. It took about two months before the keyboard disappeared again and there was only me and the work.
The biggest single win is that backspace is under my right thumb next to space bar, which felt life-changing once I got used to it (if I were still using a normal keyboard, I’d probably re-map right alt to backspace). And while word selection with ctrl+shift+arrow took a bit longer to get used to, now I appreciate not having to move my fingers at all to hit the arrow keys.
Nine months later, you can pry the Voyager from my cold dead hands. It’s probably the last keyboard I’ll ever buy. I do wish it had two more keys (haven’t found good homes for Alt and ~) but overall I’m very happy with where I ended up.
Like, I legitimately don't know anymore how you take a screenshot on MacOS, but I know that I hit the modifier key and then this one other key, and that takes a screenshot. Also don't know what you press to move from virtual screen to virtual screen, but mod-m and mod-comma go left and right for me. And in a browser, mod-s and mod-f do ctrl-shift-tab and ctrl-tab.
It's a terrible idea to do this for rarely-used shortcuts, as you'll never remember them; but for ones you use frequently, it's better-than-native, because you can put them on convenient keys that are easy to hit, rather than whatever contortions you'd need to do to hit Ctrl-Shift-F12.
It took me maybe 1 week total after getting used to the keyboard to set it up in a way that worked for me personally, and the keyboard has already lasted a year and still works like new, and looks like new, and many people have had the same ergo-keyboard for years on end.
I like you did not like the idea of having to finnick with it all the time, but in reality those are just the enthusiasts. I set it up in a couple weeks and ever since then I've probably only messed with it a few times more just to try something out of curiosity.
> Not sure where you're getting the idea that you need to replace the keyboard every year.
It makes perfect sense to customize the primary interface to computers.
But if you use your keyboard a lot, keyboard hobbyism can be rewarding to a certain point.