Kinesis Advantage 360

There's also the MoErgo Glove80 coming soon [1]

[1] https://www.moergo.com

I've used both the Ergodox and Moonlander. In general, I think both keyboards have poor thumb clusters. The Moonlander has the big red buttons that you can't press while keeping your hands in normal typing position. The Ergodox has the 4 1U keys that are also hard to press.

The Ergodox has 1.5U keys between the hands (like to the right of T,G,B, and to the left of Y,H,N), while the moonlander just has 1U keys next to T,G and Y,H. I found the 1.5U keys much easier to press than the 1U keys. (Try typing "RGB" on a QWERTY keyboard; it's really not that easy to make your pointer finger responsible for 12 equally-sized keys.) As a result, I moved backspace from the 1.5U key next to H,N to a thumb key. The thumb isn't as fast for rapid motions as the pointer finger is, so I notice backspace being a little more cumbersome than necessary. But, I don't really think about it anymore, so it's not a big deal. (I do see my usage of the 1U keys falling off, though. I used have _- and =+ on them, and I find myself going for shift-= instead of the dedicated + key. I think that's because my Ergodox didn't have a + key, that was backspace, and I never learned it.)

Both the Ergodox EZ and Moonlander have godawful tenting. But the Moonlander lets you fix it because it has an array of threaded inserts on the back that you can screw a proper tent to. I use this thing https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4769961 and love it.

Generally the Moonlander is quite appealing. I use it every day and it's great. (I did replace the switches with Zilents. I always use weird switches on my keyboards.) But I'm looking at the Advantage 360 and think they've done a really job, so it's definitely a third option to consider.

Finally, I've experimented with other designs. I made a 107 key keyboard (I call it the Ergorocks 107) that is Ergodox-like, but has 3 1U switches for the thumb clusters, a number pad in the middle, and F keys above the number keys. I fucked up the angle of the thumb keys, and found the numpad in the middle hard to use. I made it take a standard keyset, though, so you don't have to hunt for "Ergo" keysets. You can use any normal keyset! If this is interesting to anyone, I might make a second iteration with the bugs fixed. (It's entirely 3D printed. Don't let people tell you 3D printed keyboards are bad, they're great. PLA is honestly a great keyboard material; very rigid and pretty quiet.)

I must be the only person on HN that dislikes my Kinesis Advantage 2. I bought one in 2021 after the ZSA Moonlander didnt quite meet my expectations. While the keywell idea is amazing, i found that the two halves of the keyboard weren't angled towards each other enough and I still had very painful ulnar deviation.

This wasn't helped by it being so far off the keyboard tray. I don't understand how someone can use the Advantage 2 without a standing desk. Even with a keyboard tray I am unable to sit my feet flat on the ground without my thighs and knees smashing into the tray the whole time.

I ended up buying a custom board for it to run QMK, as well as replacement thumb cluster keys to try lower their height as they also caused pain. These both helped a bit but thanks to their store being closed due to Covid, I had to buy off a distributor in NZ that charged the equivelent of 500USD, before spending even more on the mods done. Unfortunately ive gone back to the Moonlander as I can at least angle the boards more after wasting around $1000 NZD.

While this will solve the positioning of the keys, the height looks like it will still be an issue for me.

Unfortunately their store was closed thoughout most of 2021 due to COVID. I orded a Advantage 2 from the sole NZ distributor who do not honour that deal. Cost 500USD only to discover it was very uncomfortable for an "ergonomic" keyboard. I dont think my shoulders are particularly far apart but I still had massive pain due to the ulnar deviation caused by the keywells not sitting at an angle that suited by shoulders.

Another few hundred dollars in mods to get QMK and lower thumb keys and while some other issues were resolved, I cannot type on it for more than a minute without intense pain in my left wrist.

I switch between tons of tools and computers throughout the day. No way I want to customize all of them.

Sure, yes I do have a huge bashrc on my main workstation and yes I do add macros and other combos for repetitive tasks. But some fundamental things, like rebuild file, I really don’t want to be the weirdo unique guy who can’t operate someone else’s keyboard and vice versa. Missing F keys is just not a professional programmers keyboard.