I get that these are expensive... But they might be a career saver. Listen to your body. If your fingers and wrists are telling you something, take action. It doesn't have to be an expensive split. (I have an ergodox with the Norman keyboard layout with other firmware goodies as well as running AutoHotKeys to give me emacs bindings all over the place.)
Some of them aren't even expensive, I have the cheap R-Go Split mentioned in the list and it's been great for me, someone with wider shoulders and long arms. I finally feel like I can type in a natural position.
Completely agree though, it took me too long and too much complaining to start looking into this area.
I recently was gifted -- very, very generously! -- a Moonlander Mark I split, ortholinear keyboard [0] (made by the same company that previously made the Ergodox). It's genuinely fantastic, and I can't ever see myself going back to either a non-split or a non-ortholinear board as my desktop's input. It's a huge improvement ergonomically -- (0) no hunched shoulders, with the halves at shoulder width (1) the ortholinea…
> It's a huge improvement ergonomically But what if you need to use a mouse? Then what I've found best ergonomically is to use a "rollermouse". But I don't feel that works well with a split keyboard, and then I prioritize the mouse. (For me my elbow is the biggest issue)
I found what caused my RSI was going from keyboard to mouse over and over. Getting a keyboard with a trackpoint so I could keep my hands static fixed it. I would eventually like to get a split keyboard with the thumb trackpoint.
All I want is a low profile, wireless ergodox, with an aluminum chassis. I would willingly pay $500+ for such a keyboard, but it just doesn’t exist.
I'm also looking for a low profile/travel, wireless ergodox. It also has to include QMK or a similar FW that is completely customizable. Unfortunately it is difficult to find a combination to DIY such a keyboard as well.
> But they might be a career saver. Seriously. I'll also plug vertical mice. They look goofy, but it's a better wrist position.
I picked a trackball with scroll wheel, which I'll briefly pitch: - It's always in the same place, so reaching the mouse is completely muscle memory - I can put it as close as possible to my keyboard - No elbow motion except to get from keyboard to trackball - Scrolling is a bit more than half of my 'mousing' and is easy, just spin a large wheel clockwise I got one with two buttons, my only regret; Kensington makes o…
> - No elbow motion except to get from keyboard to trackball
But it's still some motion. When I hurt my elbow, a "rollermouse" was my savior. It's absolutely no movement of my elbow. My fingers are resting on the keyboard, I move the bar using my thumbs, or if more precision is needed I bring down one index finger. But my palms don't move at all. (Not like their press photos where they have moved their whole hand..)
I use a split keyboard which not only doesn’t have a row of F-keys, it doesn’t even have a number row; it’s three by six keys on each half. I use chorded keystrokes for F-keys. I have a layer key (named “Lower”, and located where the ‘Windows’ key is on normal keyboards); hold that down with your left thumb and the middle row of keys on the left split (caps lock -> g, under a qwerty layout) become F1->F6. And the bot…
I see, thanks for the reply. I think I can't really judge if I never tried it, but I think that adding an additional key to achieve the shortcuts might make it a little bit awkward. A lot of shortcuts I'm using already need three fingers(shift + cmd + some F-Key) I agree that the usage of the F-Keys is a little bit complicated, especially if you have small fingers.
If you have a number of key combos you normally use, you just put that in a layer. You could make Mod2 + Home row = shift + cmd + F-keys, Mod3 + Home row = F-keys, Mod4 + Home row = cmd + F-keys, and so on. It would require some work to program the kb and adapt your workflow, but you will thank not having to do those contortions. IMO, a control flow that requires a lot of shortcuts that involve key combos like shift + cmd + F-keys is an ergonomic nightmare, don't adapt your hardware to that.
I'm curious why none of these split designs ever feature a trackball on the right half integrated into the board somehow. There are plenty of FOSS trackball designs, it seems like it would just make sense, especially for ergonomic designs, to have a trackball set up where you don't have to move your hand over to move a cursor. Also I don't understand why they're always missing function keys.
The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard supports a trackball or trackpad attached to the right half. The expansion modules just recently became available though so it may be hard to find reviews or people with hands on experience.
I have the UHK v1 and waiting to see some reviews for the trackpad and the key modules before I order them
I love the split layouts, I'm using a Redox Wireless as my daily driver :) Though I wonder, DIY keyboards usually focus on stuff like nice mechanical keyboard action, which to be honest I don't really care about that much. I would kill for a fully wireless Redox-like layout keyboard that has enough keys so you don't need to memorize weird chords to do things, just used normal chiclet keys, is as small and light as po…
>fully wireless
One idea is to pick a DIY kit as close to what you want as possible and to use the nice!nano[0] for the controller in place of a pro micro/elite-c. It's a drop-in replacement but also has bluetooth and can have a small battery connected.
>chiclet
While not chiclet, there are the kailh choc[1] switches which are lower profile than the mx switches that are more commonly used. A note that not all boards are compatible with them, so look for choc support as you look at PCBs.
Has anyone tried a split keyboard with an old cell phone or other display (perhaps propped up a bit) in between? There ought to be some end-of-life app(s) for all the obsolete-or-insecure Android models out there, rather than have billions of them go to landfills. We need uses-cases and options. It might not be some new kbd/display/other-hid co-design, but but might be.
I'm an Android developer and I have stands for 2 phones between my split keyboard (the Kinesis Gaming model, used to have the Advantage which I also love). I keep the phones between my keyboard to focus on during development which doesn't address the more interesting part of your question. I have many old phones around now, some that can't even be updated to support the minimum OS of the app I am building. So I have…
Thanks. Maybe the app "IP Webcam" needs a time-lapse or N-frames-per-second mode to save on battery draw (use-case permitting).