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Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

danieldk.eu

1–10 of 229 posts

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#2
I haven't been following ergonomic keyboards for awhile, but went pretty deep a few years ago back when the Dactyl Manuform and Kinesis were the only names in town.

So seeing the Glove80, I was excited to see a new "mass-manufactured" entrant in the space, since dactyl manuforms have to be 3d-printed and handwired, thus meaning they're hard to come by and quite expensive.

The glove80 looks interesting, however at $400 it's not much cheaper than handmade dactyls (https://bastardkb.com/product/scylla-prebuilt-preorder-2/). So if I were purchasing another one, I'd probably still go for a dactyl, as there's more community history/support, and hand-built build quality might be higher.

If an injection molded + flexible PCB mass manufacturer for these curved keywell ergonomic keyboards could release something for around $200, then the space might really heat up!

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#3
It looks neat, though it always seems strange to me when an ergonomic setup involves picking up one of your hands and moving it to the side often to use a separate mouse or keyboard. Is there not a better place to put it, integrated or slightly above or in the middle etc, to avoid having to change hand position all the time?

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#4
I was looking forward to the Kinesis Advantage360 Pro, since it solves some of the issues with the Advantage2. It supports three different tenting angles and is a truly split keyboard. However, the Advantage360 Pro was quite a disappointment. The keyboard, which is a hefty 650 Euro, was plagued with Bluetooth issues, the Gateron Brown switches were tiring for me, and Kinesis didn’t improve the thumb cluster. I switched back to my Advantage2 after a while and the 360 Pro was collecting dust.

I got a Kinesis Advantage 360 through Upgrade Keyboards: https://upgradekeyboards.com/collections/kinesis-advantage36... with Box White switches, and it's been great. Expensive, yes, but great. I got the wired version for the usual reasons ("he who knows wireless, chooses wired"). YMMV. I also like the brown switches but like speed switches or box whites better.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#6
I've really been liking my Glove80.

I had an Ergodox before and I like finally having function rows back, and the thumb cluster on this is at a nicer angle than both the Ergodox and Moonlander.

The wells are pretty easy to get used to and in general I think it’s just a really well made product.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#7

I haven't been following ergonomic keyboards for awhile, but went pretty deep a few years ago back when the Dactyl Manuform and Kinesis were the only names in town. So seeing the Glove80, I was excited to see a new "mass-manufactured" entrant in the space, since dactyl manuforms have to be 3d-printed and handwired, thus meaning they're hard to come by and quite expensive. The glove80 looks interesting, however at $40…

I have it. The community is active in Discord. They also have a section for buying/selling Glove80's from users and getting mods done. The firmware is ZMK and lots of configuration options. I was glad to have bought this over any Dactyl. The physical key layout is amazing. The Red Pro switches even better than I expected coming from C MX Reds. The low profile is also great and I prefer it over standard height keys. It met my expectation. Checkout Ben Frain on YouTube since he has the Glove80, Moonlander, Kinesis Advantage 360 and a Dactyl. A customized to your hand Dactyl w/ low profile low force linear switches would be enticing.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#8
post #3

It looks neat, though it always seems strange to me when an ergonomic setup involves picking up one of your hands and moving it to the side often to use a separate mouse or keyboard. Is there not a better place to put it, integrated or slightly above or in the middle etc, to avoid having to change hand position all the time?

That's the exact idea behind the Charybdis and Dilemma keyboard (kits) from Bastard Keyboards [0]

[0] https://bastardkb.com/

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#9
post #4

I was looking forward to the Kinesis Advantage360 Pro, since it solves some of the issues with the Advantage2. It supports three different tenting angles and is a truly split keyboard. However, the Advantage360 Pro was quite a disappointment. The keyboard, which is a hefty 650 Euro, was plagued with Bluetooth issues, the Gateron Brown switches were tiring for me, and Kinesis didn’t improve the thumb cluster. I switch…

The bluetooth issues are sort of resolved with the 3.0 firmware, but the previous firmware versions were pretty awful in scenarios where you turn the keyboards off and the pairing between halves becomes an absolute nightmare.

With that being said, while Kinesis' own firmware for their keyboards (SmartSet) has gotten a lot better over the years, it still doesn't really come close to ZMK or QMK. To me the functionality of the firmware trumps the occasional reliability issues of the bluetooth.

I just hate that they pushed all customization to a third party. I got another set of blank PCBs for my Kinesis Advantage 2 by emailing Kinesis support (which is fantastic, by the way) and paying roughly 100 bucks for them. Now they send you to upgradekeyboards who are expensive and have massive lead times when I just want some PCBs so I can replace the gateron browns in my keyboard without having to desolder everything.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#10
I bought moonlander some time ago and found the learning process far too frustrating. What's more, I noticed that the more I switched to the new layout, the more I was struggling with more classic ones (primarily laptops and my trusty MS NEK 4000). That was enough for me to shelve the moonlander for now.

How long it takes to fully and comfortably switch, including all the punctuation characters? Did you also struggle with other keyboards?

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