Using two keyboards at once for pain relief

> I tried a few of those Kinesis split keyboards. Too squishy for me. Not far enough apart. The CherryMX Kinesis split keyboard was is too clickey for calls and screenshares. Muscle memory made it difficult to switch.

This is a really cool hack, and I’m happy that the author found a solution for their pain that works for them, but this bit confused me.

Kinesis are keyboards with separated key clusters, but not split keyboards. When one says split keyboard I think they are normally talking about things like the Ergodox EZ/Moonlander which have two physically separate bodies, one for each hand. There are many different models of these with various shapes and sizes, and you can separate them as much as you like. The normal advice is to set them up around shoulder width apart so you aren’t rounding your back to bring your arms together.

Most of these kinds of keyboards also support whatever key switches you prefer, and there are plenty of options that are sufficiently quiet for zoom (pretty much anything linear should do the trick)

I have been using a Moonlander for a couple of years now, and an EZ before that. They are expensive at around $400 but I don’t think I can ever go back. Most of these split keyboards also run QMK so you can setup binds, layers, and generally configure them however you like.

I find it really odd that the OP is staring down the barrel of an RSI that's going to inexorably lock them (presumably) out of their career and passion, but the learning curve for a proper ergonomic keyboard seemed to high. I was up to an acceptable 40WPM on the Ergodox a week after switching, and his complaints about "the Cherry MX" switches fall a little flat since there's about a dozen different kinds, all with different noise and tactile characteristics.

I just can't fathom all that unused space on my desk (two halves of two keyboards, going totally unused!) when the investment in some natural-feeling typing infrastructure was relatively small given how much pain I've avoided, and will continue to avoid.

Edit: clearer word order

Either this person has incredibly broad shoulders or they have their arms splayed out or something. I can't imagine the 20 inches of separation available on the Kinesis Freestyle is "Not far enough apart" to "keep the shoulders in a natural, pulled-back position" for all but the most extreme outliers. I have a Kinesis keyboard and the only possible complaint I have is no numpad.

An extra benefit of doing this is that both hands still have access to the full key set. It would be useful to re-assign the extra keys to other functions, but this seems non-trivial to do cross platform in software. Would be a nice project to make a little hardware box to combine two keyboards into one, with a little OLED screen for setting shortcuts.

I just got one, but I'm still using my old SteelSeries Apex M500 for work though because I'm just too slow to do my job effectively using it still. The learning curve is higher than I thought, even after remapping most of the keys to my preferences - just need to give it some time!