thehaikuza

If you ever find yourself in Tokyo, there’s a store called Yusha Kobo that has many split keyboards on display to try out. Otherwise there may be a local keyboard meetup in your area for a similar experience.

I had a much better experience shifting them down a row so they’re “bottom row mods”, since those keys (if using QWERTY) are much less frequently used.

There’s also features like chordal hold and flow tap which have improved the home/bottom row mod behaviour.

I included ZSA's other boards (Moonlander and Voyager) since they seemed to have superseded the Ergodox in popularity. But yes, it definitely was one of the first to come out. ZSA is still a company paving ways though!

Thanks for mentioning it, I included the Kinesis Freestyle (traditional split) but I think it's worth including the Advantage. Added!

I'm deep in the rabbit hole of ergonomic keyboards and working on the design of a wireless, 36-key keyboard that can be used as a unibody or split. This came about because while I enjoy using a split when I'm at a desk, I found it cumbersome to use when I'm moving around at a coworking space or cafe, or even while working on a couch, where a unibody keyboard is more convenient (albeit with less ideal ergonomics).

Normally, split keyboards use two microcontrollers and batteries (one for each half), but this design uses a single microcontroller and a GPIO expander to bridge the two halves together via a magnetic 4-pin connector. It also features a reversible PCB to further keep the overall costs low.

Just finished bringing up the PCBs and putting the ZMK firmware together. Still designing the case for it, but all the files are open-source and on GitHub!

https://github.com/justinmklam/dabao