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My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

jackevansevo.github.io

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Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#181

Post by flamwenco »

chrisco255 wrote: post #135
namrog84 wrote: post #134

Hey keyboard and computer enthusiast! I need your help! Any other keyboard I've ever tried hurts my wrists, arm, and back, and causes me pain except the "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000". However they were discontinued years ago. :( I've been buying up used ones and learning how to disassemble and repair the ones I have the best I can, but my skills are limited. If anyone has any (unopened) ones or knows of…

This is what I personally use: https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/ . The angle and pitch are totally customizable. Fantastic highly modifiable keyboard.

As someone who used to daily a Microsoft Sculpt and has tried the Moonlander... I would say it is much much more specific in who it is good for out of the box. If you want tenting but also don't have giant hands, it's not a good fit imo.

I don't think my hands are tiny, but because the thumb cluster is used as the tenting leg, in order to achieve a comfortable tenting angle, I had to give up using most of the thumb cluster because I simply couldn't reach it without moving my hand, which defeats the point. There are solutions to work around this (namely the tripod pucks or printing additional tenting legs), but it feels like a fundamental design flaw with the moonlander that should not be there given the premium price.

Also as an aside, I hate that they went with rattly as hell costar stabs for the red thumb keys, they're awful on a keyboard in this price bracket.

I'd really recommend something like the lily58 (there is a variant called the lulu that has tenting legs available) or if you're feeling daring with going smaller, the corne over the moonlander.

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#182

Post by someplaceguy »

peepee1982 wrote: post #167
someplaceguy wrote: post #146

My unhealthy relationship with keyboards came to an end as soon as I bought my first Keychron keyboard with a knob (Q-series). After using this keyboard, I can't imagine ever buying another keyboard without a knob. It's really great to control your audio volume with an appropriate hardware control rather than pressing the same key 15 times in a row like an idiot or fiddling around with the mouse. You can configure th…

Can you configure the knob to hold down the left mouse button when you turn it and move either up/right or down/left diagonally? If yes, it would be great for adjusting parameters in Audio Workstations. If not, well ... I guess I'm out, sadly.

I believe so, but I'm not 100% sure as I haven't tried that specific configuration.

See this URL and search for "Programmable Knob":

https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q6-qmk-custom-mec...

If you go down a bit, you'll see you can program a knob rotation (in one direction or the other) to perform a macro, including key combinations. I'm pretty sure there are also key designations for mouse movements.

That said, you might not be able to adjust the granularity of the mouse movement very well (not sure, really).

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#183

Post by bdcravens »

I've played around with so many keyboards, but I'm at a point now where workflow is more important to me. Personally I find the MX Keys to be the best keyboard I've ever put my hands on, but I really like the fingerprint reader in the Apple keyboards. (One day I may take on the project of extracting the fingerprint reader: https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/standalone-touch-id-for-your...)

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#184

Post by gainda »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #156
gainda wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i use the gmmk pro myself and i really enjoy the knob. i ended up buying a second one just for work bc they weigh a ton and i wasn't going to constantly lug it around

I liked Glorious, and bought 2 of their keyboards. But I feel REALLY burned by the original GMMK. * The metal shell has very sharp edges, which has damaged every surface it's been on. * The quality of the cord is very low, and is terribly frayed now * The silver accents on the edges appear to be very thin, and have worn off and made the whole thing look dingy I don't think I'll buy another of their products. Maybe th…

totally understandable and if that happened to me i would also be very averse to trying the pro (but this is my first product with them). thankfully the quality hasn't let me down so far. my only mistake was trying a pre-lubed option on one just for the heck of it and it was def over-lubed.

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#185

Post by kedean »

pr0zac wrote: post #115
frameset wrote: post #16

I really don't understand the numpad-less trend of fashionable keyboards. Doing any kind of number entry beyond one or two digits is very annoying without one. They also don't take up that much space really. If your keyboard is a portable one you pack with you on trips, I get it. If it lives on a desk, why not splash out the small amount extra to make number entry much easier.

Do you not know how to touch type without looking at the keyboard at all or have you just not learned where the numbers are? Shouldn't you take the time to learn to type correctly instead of relying on moving your entire hand just to type a number? I truly do not mean to be insulting or anything, but I read comments like this a lot and they really confuse me. I don't need a numpad because I know how to touch type and…

For me personally, the number row is far enough away from the home row that my fingers become inaccurate. It's not unlikely that when I reach for 7 I'll hit 6 instead. That's easy enough to correct in normal operation, less so for entering lots of numbers.

Another issue is when doing data entry or 2fa codes, one hand tends to be busy holding something. The number row is basically unusable one-handed as far as I'm concerned.

And for me, mouse distance from the keyboard has never been an issue, because I use them in different scenarios. It's not often that I'm dual wielding them to the point shoulder angles are a concern. If I'm spending hours coding, the amount of mouse usage is going to be minimal.

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#186

Post by philote »

jseliger wrote: post #117
EtienneK wrote: post #56

I was expecting to see 10s of keyboards as you'd see from most in r/MechanicalKeyboards and was disappointed to only find 5. Not an unhealthy relationship at all!

I eventually wound up with Kinesis ergo keyboards and stopped being much "into" keyboards; they are a means to an end: https://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-on-the-k... . Now I have an Advantage 3 with Box White switches, after admittedly talking to an Upgrade Keyboards key switch sommelier, which I admit somewhat undercuts my first sentence in this comment.

I love my Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard, it's saved my hands/wrists. How's the 3 in comparison?

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#187

Post by someplaceguy »

hilbert42 wrote: post #178
someplaceguy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keychron also has many keyboards with Bluetooth + USB-C cable -- the ones with "Pro" in the name, I think. I am personally a fan of the "Q" or "Q Pro" series (because of the knob), but there are other lines. I think all of them have hot-swappable keys and many of them even have hot-swappable mechanical switches, I think. In most of their keyboards, all the keys (and key combinations) are fully configurable at the har…

Ah, thanks for that. Just had a quick look at the site, seems I've much reading to do.

Oh, based on your previous comment, I should also say that the one I have is really heavy, which is not great for carrying around everywhere. Apart from that I really like it.

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#188

Post by philote »

pr0zac wrote: post #115
frameset wrote: post #16

I really don't understand the numpad-less trend of fashionable keyboards. Doing any kind of number entry beyond one or two digits is very annoying without one. They also don't take up that much space really. If your keyboard is a portable one you pack with you on trips, I get it. If it lives on a desk, why not splash out the small amount extra to make number entry much easier.

Do you not know how to touch type without looking at the keyboard at all or have you just not learned where the numbers are? Shouldn't you take the time to learn to type correctly instead of relying on moving your entire hand just to type a number? I truly do not mean to be insulting or anything, but I read comments like this a lot and they really confuse me. I don't need a numpad because I know how to touch type and…

I'm with you on this, but wasn't until a few years ago. I used to prefer number pad and, though I'm pretty good a typing, didn't really learn to use the number row effectively. Now I see no reason to use a number pad unless I'm just doing a ton of numerical entry because I prefer leaving my hands in one place. It's actually annoying me right now that I have to use my mouse to submit this comment :)

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#189

Post by pxc »

oooyay wrote: post #129

> Because it's compatible with multiple OS's I use it for work on my company issued Macbook and personal usage on my own Linux machine. Underrated line in the article. I have such a problem selecting keyboards because I use MacOS and Linux. I have the same problem with KVMs as the two use two different ways of outputting a screen. I exclusively use Keychrons at this point for both gaming and work.

?

Just use any normal keyboard. Do nothing at all to configure the layout on Linux, and on Mac, configure the OS to swap the command and option keys for that keyboard.

Re: My Unhealthy Relationship with Keyboards

#190

Post by HighNunChicken »

hilbert42 wrote: post #161

FYI, there's a somewhat related topic at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37630804 concerning the difficulties of editing text on a mobile under the heading Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem. As is my usual wont, I had a long rave about such matters but one of the points I raised that may interest those here was the lack of Bluetooth keyboards, especially the more portable types with good mechanical s…

I bought into NuPhy with their original release, the NUTYPE F1, and had a terrible experience with them—both the product and customer service was defective.

The keyboard I received had many quality issues, and others online reported the same. When contacting support, they required many back and forth emails, asking for more photos and videos each time. After weeks of this, I got this from support, “Sorry for the inconvenience. Follow the return process, customers need to return the products to us firstly and pay for the return freight. We'll give you refund when we got your return goods after checked,there's really with quality problem.”

This is after sending both photos/videos of the obvious defects and quality issues… and return shipping would be back to Hong Kong.

In the end, I just took this as a learning experience to never back a “kickstarter” product again.

Some additional insight:

-preordered keyboard: 8/2020

-received keyboard: 11/2020

-20% discount offer on new purchases: 11/2020

-keycap update and new product promoted: 12/2020

In summary, I waited 3 months to get charged an extra 20% for an inferior product that got discontinued a month later. I cannot recommend NuPhy.

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