Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

zsa.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 151 posts

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#111

Post by tetraca »

fernandotakai wrote: post #11
kbknapp wrote: post #2

My wife isn't going to be happy about this... I have an ErgoDox EZ at home, and a Moonlander for work. I absolutely love these keyboards. They have played a significant role in reducing pain I experience from arthritis.

how's the moonlander btw? i'm thinking about getting one specifically for work.

I have one. Personally, I prefer the Kinesis Advantage2 when it comes to plain typing, because I find dipping my hands into a well of keys is more a little comfortable than tenting them. The Moonlander has better software, aesthetics, and is more compact (which would be useful for someone else, but not me). The main reason I got it, though is that it supports GeminiPR, which makes it suitable for stenography.

Ortholinear split takes a while to get used to but you really never want to go back to a regular keyboard after you get used to it - it makes you feel like you've been breaking your wrists.

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#112

Post by dotancohen »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #106
dotancohen wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like the Matias Ergo Pro. It is the most comfortable keyboard I've ever typed on, and I've owned literally dozens of mechanical, ergonomic, split, and specialty keyboards. It has all the function keys, and it has these terrific large modifier keys in front. I'm a heavy VIM user, but I still appreciate the terrific arrow cluster on that keyboard. And they've got an additional Ctrl key next to N - I love it.…

You made me remember the Matias keyboards I bought. They are nice indeed, but I'll never buy one again and I'll always recommend against them for what you pointed out: the quality build is horrible. I got one that broke after a month, I got a replacement (still had to pay like 50 euros of tax because they shipped from outside of europe) that also broke after a month. In both cases some keys started typing twice.

Yes, I also had the key-repeating issue, on both types of keys they offer (45 tactile and 35 gram silent if I remember correctly).

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#113

Post by Zambyte »

prometheon1 wrote: post #100
Zambyte wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to add that switching to a drastically different keyboard is the perfect opportunity to simultaneously switch keyboard layouts if thats something you've been considering. I switched from QWERTY to a layout based on Programmer Dvorak when I got my Moonlander. I'm really glad I did.

This was exactly my line of thought when I got the Moonlander (except I thought Colemak). It has been gathering dust in my shelf for almost 2 years now.

What kind of board do you use instead?

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#114

Post by coisale13 »

etra0 wrote: post #8
kbknapp wrote: post #2

My wife isn't going to be happy about this... I have an ErgoDox EZ at home, and a Moonlander for work. I absolutely love these keyboards. They have played a significant role in reducing pain I experience from arthritis.

I can totally relate. I bought my ErgoDox EZ a while ago and I still love it. I changed the switches for some lubed linears, and added some foam and now it even sounds better. It also reduced my wrist pain. I'm debating with myself whether to get the Moonlander or not. I don't actually need it, but it looks so cool (and the USB port of the ErgoDox is quite outdated haha).

I love my ergodox ez. I got the moon lander, and it looks cool but I do not like it. Niether does my friend. The tenting tilts the thumb away which makes it uncomfortable. I wish I just got another ergodox ez (eventually I did).

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#115

Post by [deleted] »

mkozlows wrote: post #46
krzyk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and lack of F1-F12 is a show stopper for me, I use them in my IDE.

Modifier key plus the number row gets you that trivially, and it's no different from having to hit Fn + F-key on a laptop. But even better is that if there are things you use regularly, you can map them up to a more convenient place.

[deleted]

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#116

Post by anotherevan »

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #88
egypturnash wrote: post #65

This is lovely and kind of tempting but, like every keyboard-nerd keyboard, it's made by and for someone who wants the smallest possible number of keys in front of them and a bunch of toggleable modes. I want more keys. I want my dedicated f-keys back so that when I launch an action in Illustrator I don't have to hold down the fn key, along with whatever other modifier key I may be using to distinguish between a coup…

Hey we’ll be releasing an open source keyboard that has an ergonomic layout and is about 75-80% size (arrows + F-row and macro row)

Who are you?

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#117

Post by anotherevan »

egypturnash wrote: post #65

This is lovely and kind of tempting but, like every keyboard-nerd keyboard, it's made by and for someone who wants the smallest possible number of keys in front of them and a bunch of toggleable modes. I want more keys. I want my dedicated f-keys back so that when I launch an action in Illustrator I don't have to hold down the fn key, along with whatever other modifier key I may be using to distinguish between a coup…

Yes! Really want a good 80% keyboard (basically a standard keyboard with the number pad chopped off) with some added thumb keys, but everything else mostly positioned where you expect. QMK for configuring.

I'm a long time user of the Microsoft Ergonomic Natural 4000 but they are hard to find now. Don't like the MS Sculpt that much - spongy escape key and those flat keys in general. I've got one in a drawer as a backup for when the 4000 dies, but I'm not looking forward to it.

I recently got a Keyboardio 100[1] but am really finding it hard to adapt to. Moving things like many symbol keys (e.g. "[]\{}|/+=-_") to different locations or layers is a real pain for programming. I really don't know if I'll persist. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful keyboard, but requires too much adaptation for me.

The closest potential I've found is the X-Bows Knight[2] although the cost of getting one out to the Antipodes makes it a risky proposition if I end up not coping with it.

[1] https://shop.keyboard.io/products/model-100 [2] https://x-bows.com/products/x-bows-knight-ergonomic-mechanic...

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#118

Post by mixmastamyk »

uncletaco wrote: post #27
bsnnkv wrote: post #19

I have quite a few of these sorts of keyboards, including the Ergodox EZ. I think for generalist usage they can be adapted to pretty easily, but as a developer, the lack of dedicated keys for [, ] and ' is an insurmountable obstacle for me. Those keys are in my opinion perfectly placed on regular keyboards and no amount of layering, tap dancing or anything else will ever come close. Please somebody just make a split…

I always swap out the semicolon for the apostrophe because I honestly don’t think that key gets enough play to have its position on the home row.

Nice. Python programmers now want to move semi to the shift state (and colon without) for a while as well. ;-)

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#119

Post by eviks »

hwbehrens wrote: post #44
rgoulter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These small keyboards trade-off the benefit of "bring all the keys within easy reach of the hands" at the cost of a more complicated layout. The intent is "be able to press F1-F12 without having to move hands so far from home row"; it's not "I want a smaller keyboard and don't need F1-F12".

I've been using these types of keyboards for a couple years now, and I find that although the enthusiast community has sort of gravitated towards For example, let's say you need to do Shift-Option-F12. First, you need to hold a modifier to bring your F key layer, possibly a separate or chorded modifier to get you to the F-keys above 10 since you only have have 10 numeric digits. Then, that needs to be compatible with…

you wouldn't use horizontal numbers, but a numpad-like layer, so that'd be just one extra f layer tap / hold

Re: ZSA Voyager: Low profile split keyboard

#120

Post by anotherevan »

tiltowait wrote: post #60
bsnnkv wrote: post #19

I have quite a few of these sorts of keyboards, including the Ergodox EZ. I think for generalist usage they can be adapted to pretty easily, but as a developer, the lack of dedicated keys for [, ] and ' is an insurmountable obstacle for me. Those keys are in my opinion perfectly placed on regular keyboards and no amount of layering, tap dancing or anything else will ever come close. Please somebody just make a split…

YMMV, but I think the Keyboardio Model 01/100 has a pretty great layout for programming. The keys are in a different spot, but they're easily reachable, and the palm layer toggles mean you don't have to contort at all to hit them.

I recently got a Keyboardio 100 but am really finding it hard to adapt to, in large part because too many symbol keys are moved around, making it a pain for programming in particular.

More details on this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37398872

Post reply on HN