It's a rather unusual layout. Matias makes an even more expensive one handed keyboard that's essentially half a keyboard and then holding space lets you type the other half. I'm not sure why it's still so damn expensive.
Randall Munroe has a write-up on a mirrored layout where Caps Lock is the modifier key for the right half: https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-ke...
Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
31–40 of 47 posts
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#32Is this product strictly for people missing a hand? I can’t see any other market. Sure it looks and feels cooler to type with one hand, but that is not nearly enough benefit to cut your typing speed in half.
For example in an electronic music context.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#33I 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.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#34It's a rather unusual layout. Matias makes an even more expensive one handed keyboard that's essentially half a keyboard and then holding space lets you type the other half. I'm not sure why it's still so damn expensive.
Randall Munroe has a write-up on a mirrored layout where Caps Lock is the modifier key for the right half: https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-ke...
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.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#35It's really tricky to find an audience of people willing to spend a lot of money and spend the time to relearn typing. 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…
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#36It's really tricky to find an audience of people willing to spend a lot of money and spend the time to relearn typing. 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…
I would say that the thriving of the (mechanical) keyboard community is exactly a counterexample of the problem you pose. There's clearly a sizeable and well funded market segment for all kinds of keyboards, both traditional and unorthodox.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#37I did some patent research on alternative keyboards about 30 years ago. Frankly, even then, there was an unusual density of innovation in this technology. To be clear, there was about 5X more variants on the keyboard than I would have expected prior to my deep research. 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. Ba…
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.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#38I did some patent research on alternative keyboards about 30 years ago. Frankly, even then, there was an unusual density of innovation in this technology. To be clear, there was about 5X more variants on the keyboard than I would have expected prior to my deep research. 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. Ba…
> You have to break a lot of ingrained 'finger memory' 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 gi…
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#39I did some patent research on alternative keyboards about 30 years ago. Frankly, even then, there was an unusual density of innovation in this technology. To be clear, there was about 5X more variants on the keyboard than I would have expected prior to my deep research. 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. Ba…
> You have to break a lot of ingrained 'finger memory' 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 gi…
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.
Re: Tipy – One Hand Keyboard
#40350 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