A beginner's guide to split keyboards(justinmklam.com) |
A beginner's guide to split keyboards(justinmklam.com) |
Sorry, I'll go get my coffee now :)
I had been using for many years Microsoft ergonomic keyboards and it was still much more comfortable than with a classic keyboard.
A few years ago I have switched to a really split keyboard (Kinesis Freestyle), which was an improvement over Microsoft, but not a so great improvement as Microsoft was over a standard keyboard.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has first discontinued their cheapest ergonomic keyboards, which had almost the same price as standard keyboards. Then the remaining more expensive models have been sold to Incase in 2024, so they can now be found "Incase Designed by Microsoft" products, but at significantly higher prices than when they were made by Microsoft. Even so, they might be the cheapest ergonomic keyboards of decent quality. Microsoft still sells a "Microsoft Surface Ergonomic Keyboard".
Old stock cheaper Microsoft ergonomic keyboards may still be found at certain shops.
On eBay and the like a lot of old and very cheap Microsoft ergonomic keyboards can be found, but buying a "pre-owned" keyboard is risky, as you do not know how worn out it is. Moreover the wireless MS keyboards used proprietary USB dongles paired with the keyboard. If an old wireless keyboard is sold without the dongle, it cannot be used unless it also has a wired connection.
For someone who types all day, there is a great difference in comfort and fatigue between a classic keyboard and a good ergonomic keyboard. Young people typically do not care much about the quality of their keyboards, pointing devices and monitors, but after decades of using computers every day many of them regret their negligence, which could have avoided unpleasant health problems.
There's also a perspective bias that most mechanical keyboard content you see is not made by people who found a keyboard that made the wrists stop hurting and then went on with their life. The people enthusiastic enough to make content are also the people that have a bunch of tricked out keyboards.
I haven't turned it into a hobby, it's just a tool that solves a problem.
I did not realize this when I switched from one split keyboard to another. It’s fine, but it was a difficult adjustment.
A 2KH sin wave sampling at 1000 Hz reconstructs to 1000 Hz.
In general, for my moonlander I would have the first layer with all the normal alpha numerics and a few symbols like <>?
But the second layer would contain most symbols, arranged/grouped in a manner which was natural for programming - e.g. grouping keys together like (), [], {},
Hitting ALT+F1 in intellij is gymnastics for my hands. alt is super low, modifier for F keys is on the left edge of the right keyboard, and then I need to hit "1" as well.
And there's lots of other little cuts like the ones above with the moonlander. I still enjoy coming back to my MX Master mechanical from logitech for that reason every now and then.
These switches don't require much force to activate, and I retrained myself to type lightly. This made the palm issue go away. For my elbows, physical therapy and foam rolling made the pain go away. I keep it away by ensuring proper posture when sitting: bending my elbows without turning my forearms inside (like the person pictured on the right in the article) and tilting the keyboard to minimize wrist rotation. I believe this helps minimize tension in the ulnar nerve. If you want to feel that tension then try a few reps of ulnar nerve flossing!
I optimized my typing further with a custom keyboard layout (see https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez/layouts/60Q7r/pjzqDd/0):
1. Colemak as middle ground between QWERTY and Dvorak.
2. Command, Shift, Alt, and Control keys on both sides of the keyboard. I'm Polish and a standard keyboard layout forces you to use the right alt + letter to type diacritical characters (for example ą is Right Alt + a). This prevents you from typing with proper technique, but having two equivalent Alts solved the problem.
3. Hyper (Command + Shift + Alt + Control) and Meh (Shift + Alt + Control) on both sides of the keyboard. I use Hyper for system-level shortcuts (e.g. Hyper + A is Sublime Text; Hyper + Q is Sublime Merge; Hyper + Z is Ghostty) and Meh for application-level shortcuts (e.g. Meh + 2 is a two column layout in Sublime).
4. I have dedicated keys for (), [], and _, so that I can type them without modifiers.
5. There's a function layer with function keys from F1 to F24 - useful for switching panes in tmux!
6. A dedicated mouse layer helps me reduce my mouse use.
If you want to improve your workplace ergonomics I suggest taking an iterative approach and making full use of customization abilities in the software and hardware you own.
I also made a special belt for my keyboard: each half had it's holster and I was able to type standing with my arms and wrists completely straight. This helped a lot with alleviating elbow pain.
I found it wasn't for me (too big, uncomfortable, keys too far apart, harder to type without looking IIRC) and the company (in Canada) refused to issue a refund and I was SOL.
I've had steroid injections into the tendon sheaths of my fingers a couple of times, which hurts like a bugger when it's done but definitely improves things after a few days. It isn't a cure, though, and my hand doctor thinks I'm going to need surgery eventually.
I have to assume that a split keyboard won't help this. Is there anything that might, short of a voice interface?
As for the tendinitis, have you tried physical therapy for your fingers? Whenever I've had a stupid day of overusing the thumb with my phone, I wrap the smallest possible elastic band around my thumb, and do some curls. Slow and controlled. The mixture of force, movement and stretching feels great, and the issue is gone.
Here is an example band https://www.decathlon.es/es/p/banda-elastica-5-kg-cross-trai... the important part is that it's really thin and light. It should look like a string, not a flat band.
Here's an example of what that might look like: https://kinesis-ergo.com/wp-content/uploads/KB360-GBR_FRONT-... (though in the default configuration, shift is still on your pinky; you can customize this on most keyboards, or on OS level).
The rabbit hole goes very deep. Another option is home row mods: https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods. A combination of thumb clusters and home row mods can reduce your finger strain a lot.
https://kinesis-ergo.com/products/#keyboards
(They used to have low-force options; perhaps all are low-force now?)
There are some styles of "chording" keyboards that might help too, and some that would be way worse. Chording keyboard are also wildly different to regular keyboards, totally alien by comparison to just splitting a keyboard.
Using a thumb key for Enter, would definitely help with your pinky.
I'm probably going to end up building a custom board with the features I want (gentle curve, ISO layout, nice switches) since what I want doesn't seem to be available off-the-peg. (The X-Bows keyboards are quite nice, but ANSI-only - I've done enough programming to have learned that I'm not prepared to compromise on the position of "\"!)
But I have one big question -- why aren't the "middle" keys replicated on both sides of the keyboard? That is, for example, why not have two 'g' and 'h' keys? There are always times when you have to adapt; when you're holding down a tricky combination of alt-ctrl-shift keys or something where on a flat keyboard one would just reach with the "wrong" hand to hit a middle key; why not just replicate them?
But it would be a bit of a problem for keycap sets, some come with extra Bs to accomodate Alice keyboards, but none that I'm aware of have extra G/H/T/Y. That would mean you'd be into buying two sets or using weird keys, so it's probably unlikely to be a popular choice.
That said, there's so many custom keyboards out there, and it's easier than you think to design and build your own - if you feel strongly about it go for it.
I did have that problem a little when learning to type on a split, but I very quickly corrected after hitting the table a few times haha. I actually think it's arguably easier to learn to type on a split as it'll quickly force you to break some bad habits.
Since settling in our new home, though, I've been kinda pining for another one. The disadvantage of the KA though is that it's huge on the desk. The 360 seems like it might be a BIT more space efficient, but I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet.
Main reason for my switch is that I felt that my shoulders have a wider stance than before. I don't know if it's because of an improvement in fitness (I do a lot of shoulder and back work), or maybe with age I lost a bit of shoulder internal rotation mobility.
Either way, the learning curve was like a few minutes for me. Guess it's a perk of experience and the habit of touch typing.
Also, unfortunately for the high price point it's too hard to actually try those out somewhere. Maybe works if you have friends, but I'm not going to spend hundreds on sth only to find out it doesn't work for me after half an hour. There's probably an option to send sth back, but even that is going to be a nightmare with small vendors.
If I was coming back to a smaller keyboard, I doubt I would even know where to find punctuation.
There’s also features like chordal hold and flow tap which have improved the home/bottom row mod behaviour.
Any key caps for ortholinears I could find at all smooth.
Saw this in a YouTube video of an old tech TV program episode. It was a failed product. Maybe single-handed keyboards could come back as an inspiration for modern versions?
Any suggestions of simple split mechanical keyboards with standard (row staggered) layouts that aren't a small fortune?
Same principle as slow practice for music instruments.
My proper desk set up is just so much better than anything portable (not just keyboard, but also monitors, trackball, lighting, etc.) that it's not really worth doing any "real" work on the go - so while I have a number of portable devices, they're effectively just for doing stuff that can't reasonably wait until back at my desk.
(For that matter, I've effectively ditched all of my "work-capable" portable devices - my largest-screen portable devices are a Chromebook and a 13" cell-connected iPad w/ Magic Keyboard. They're both very capable devices in their own rights, but I'm not going to try to do <day job work> on them.)
https://github.com/davidphilipbarr/Sweep
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Waterproof-5-5x3-5x1-0inch-Acce...
I quite like it because it gives me a bit of flexibility on where I put them, and gives me a bit of extra room in the middle. Great for a small airport table or whatever, can even use them rested on your legs
When I gave it a look, the studies were on the side of split keyboards being the hardware equivalent of snake oil.
But whatever.
And maybe then: are keyboards the best input device in 2026?
I use Kinesis Advantage2. I suppose they should be relatively cheap on eBay now. They still have a slight amount of ulnar deviation, but I find it's the best keyboard I've ever owned. I don't use all the macros and foot pedals and whatnot. You don't lose the ability to touch type on a standard keyboard, and it really only takes a day or two to have some proficiency, and maybe 2 weeks to get to full speed on the Kinesis. It helps greatly that all the letter keys are the same; it's just the thumb keys and the arrow keys that take some getting used to.
One massive advantage of the old Advantage2 is that there's a big empty space in the middle (with just the indicator lights). You can use museum wax to stick an Apple trackpad there, and then you hardly move your hands at all. I still have a trackball for large mouse movements or whatever, but most of the fine movements are done on the Apple trackpad at the center of the keyboard.
https://www.reddit.com/r/kinesisadvantage/comments/16994c7/t...
Anyway, after trying a couple of things, Microsoft Natural (the original with backtilt) saved my programming career. I still have "weak" wrists/fingers/forearms, but it's rarely painful enough for me to have to stop working. Adding in some stretches generally makes it so I can survive.
I can type on a normal keyboard for maybe 15 minutes and maybe an hour on a laptop before I just can't anymore. I can generally go most of the day on my Microsoft Natural. Retraining from a regular keyboard layout (took typing in high school - yes, I'm ancient) wasn't hard at all - it's basically the same.
Sure, it's technically not a "split" keyboard - it's still one thing. These days, I buy used examples off ebay, usually 3 at a time, and on some, the typing action is horrible - but I still have a couple of examples that are usable. And I had to find the right ps2->usb adapters for my work setup. If I ever totally run out, my professional coding days are probably done.
They might be a smidgeon further apart than might be ideal, there’s some ugly duplication… which happens to enforce a minimum distance… just get that shoulder opened up and start evaluating. It’s certainly likely to be more optimal than the status quo.
Might need Karabiner on macOS to keep shortcuts working.
My shoulders are pretty wide for my frame. When using most laptop keyboards and many standard keyboards, I have to tuck my shoulders in and twist my wrists. This was causing some serious pain and tension in my neck, shoulders, and wrists, likely leading toward carpal tunnel.
I made two different changes in succession that helped greatly (and I don't remember the order now):
1. With a split keyboard, the halves could be placed so my wrists are straight and my arms hold at shoulder-width, and this rapidly reduced the amount of tension I was experiencing and gradually eased my wrist issues. Tenting the keyboard and getting a vertical mouse helped as well, but I'd rate those as minor improvements, especially since I aim not to drive with the mouse as much.
2. With Colemak layout, I was able to gradually transition from QWERTY (there's a series of AHK scripts I found at the time that basically rotated triples of keys). This helped reduce wrist strain at the hand level.
I was once amused by a friend that had never seen a split keyboard before - they were mostly delighted with having a place to put their coffee...
For many years I have used very cheap Microsoft ergonomic keyboards (discontinued some years ago), which were already much better for the position of the arms than standard keyboards.
Then I switched to a truly split keyboard, which is even better.
I have also switched to Dvorak a few years ago. A couple of months were needed until recovering and then exceeding the previous typing speed, but it was worthwhile, because the comfort of typing has greatly improved. Now I regret that I have not done this earlier.
Eventually I moved to a full split, positioned quite some distance apart (~25cm) and found that even more comfortable.
Always hard to know with stuff like this if you are just imagining it, but for various reasons, I'm pretty convinced it was an improvement for me.
Who cares if it's "better" if it's working better for you?
Anyway, the fact alone that you have less bend in the joints of your hands, if used right, seems to avoid all sorts of carpal-tunnel syndrome?
I have found that my Ergodox allows me to juggle my keyboard halves around the desk at different angles and spaced apart at different widths, and I can put my trackball either to the right of everything or between the halves. It's a single anecdote, obviously, but I have been able to make my ulnar and carpal entrapment issues mostly go away by finding better positions while working and by not staying stuck in one posture or position for too long at a time.
Lead times are long, and Kinesis products are expensive. It gets a little more bearable if you take into account that you're using this tool 8 hours a day for years and years, but still. Cheaper options exist.
But I'm not sitting like a robot in front of it. My office chair is set to sviveling back, which I often do. I'm even exchanging that chair for an inflatable big rubber ball to sit on, from time to time.
https://www.justinmklam.com/posts/2026/02/beginners-guide-sp...
I don't know if it's just me, but I don't use the keyboard like that. I know the illustration is said to be exaggerated, but still. There is no need to squeeze your hands in front of the keyboard. Just naturally bring your hands in front of chest, the same as when you are reading a book or writing notes with a pen. No twisted wrists. No ulnar deviation. The idea that you can't do something with your hand in front of the center of your chest without hurting the wrists seem like a strange supposition.
Admittedly, I've never looked at a significant number of people typing on a non-split keyboard, so I don't have the data to refute the need of this invention. I just feel like the natural posture already doesn't have the problem of ulnar deviation.
This is madness to me. That would wreak havoc on a wrist. Type Z with the ring finger, X with the middle finger, and C and V with the index finger, just like you type M with your right index finger.
I cannot for the life of me understand the claims by ortholinear fans that fingers travel in a straight line as they expand. Mine don't. My fingers are much farther apart when I extend them than when I pull them in, and I think I have a fairly ordinary set of hands.
Homerow centric posture is imho the main cause of keyboard related pain.
I type at 130 - 135 wpm with my fingers on the home row. I don't have a posture anything like that drawing. In fact I have to make a conscious and uncomfortable effort to contort my hands into that position. It's far more natural (for me) to curve my fingers to hit the right keys rather than curving my wrists so that my hands are perpendicular to the keyboard. Like this:
https://p2.piqsels.com/preview/893/842/416/laptop-business-m...
It's even easier than the bent wrist position. Take a look at your hands. What is the shortest finger? Your pinky.
The straight wrist position lets you put your pinkies on the home row without the unnatural stretching that the bent wrist requires.
Try it: Keep your wrists straight and start by placing your index fingers and pinkies on the home row. Then let your middle and ring fingers settle into place.
You may notice that your middle and ring fingers arch higher than the index fingers and pinkies. That's fine!
Then start typing. If you're used to the bent wrists, the keys above and below the home row may not be where your muscle memory is used to. Keep at for a while and your fingers will re-learn where the keys are. Just don't let yourself slip back into the bent wrist position, and you will be back up to speed in no time.
Here's a comment from years ago with some crude ASCII art illustrating the difference:
It doesn't have to. It will depend on the distance to the keyboard, the height difference between you and the keyboard, where on your desk the keyboard is placed. It also depends on the person writing ofc.
For example:
- I have long arms (6'3" fingertip to fingertip)
- I have bad vision (20/40 is best I can get even with glasses)
- B/c of the above I like to have the monitor close to me (or I sit closer to the monitor)
- For a long time (5 years) I worked on a trading floor with a desk with very limited depth so my wrists were often turned inward
So I ended up getting a split keyboard (Kinesis Freestyle) so I could spread my hands farther apart so I didn't get the ulnar deviation.
Anyway, I’ve always hated that diagram because it’s so obviously hyperbolic. I also use standard keyboards on a daily basis, and while there are some posture differences, the bending to make hands perpendicular to the keyboard just does not happen. Comfortably placing your fingers on the home row requires angling your hands a bit because the fingers are all different lengths. Are there some posture differences? Sure. But from what I’ve seen they’re really quite minor.
What I would guess makes more of a difference is tenting. Which is admittedly only possible with a split design. But also, not all split keyboards do tent.
Also, and this one might be specific to my particular problem, moving keys the thumb strikes to a position that it can reach with less stretching has helped a lot. (I suspect that the space bar in particular might have been the source of most of my woes.) And that’s another variable that’s highly correlated with - but still not the same as - the keyboard being split.
The "numeric keypad" hazard also illustrates why I was motivated to switch my Sun mouse to the left-hand side, and I reversed the buttons in my X11 mappings. This was a reliable way to perplex my coworkers.
Our bodies love movement and it's often a recipe for solving all sorts of issues.
For me the best position is to move my non split keyboard fairly deep into the desk and keep my arms relatively straight. In my 40s and no issue with this after decades.
This allows the hands to do more with the keyboard while resting the hands on home row. -- For users comfortable adding a bit of complexity for the benefit of increased expressiveness (e.g. vim users), having extra thumb keys allows bringing the full functionality of the keyboard to within reach of the hands on home row.
For me, I think that these keyboards fix many silly design flaws of the traditional keyboard makes them interesting enough to be worth using.
It is missing some newer designs, but it at least shows that not all split keyboards are tiny things with half the keys removed.
I've been using an ErgoDash for 6 years. I have one at home and another at work. If there had been a similar keyboard with real F-keys in 2019 I would have chosen that instead, but it's only a very minor annoyance.
If I was looking now I think I'd buy the Kinesis Advantage360 (I could keep using the layout I am now used to) or Kinesis Advantage2 (dished, but has fewer keys than I'm used to).
(If anyone keeps up-to-date with split keyboards etc and wants to take over the gallery site, just let me know. I'm happy with the keyboard I have, so I don't spend time researching more.)
Irritatingly, this doesn't work by default on the mac where the meta keys only affect the keys on the keyboard owning the depressed key (IE left shift and right keyboard l will not result in L).
It uses a bit more desk space, but is otherwise a pretty good way to test out "do I want a split keyboard?"
I did that because I was interested in split keyboards but they are all more expensive than what buying another keyboard.
It's an interesting hack, though.
You need some added tools to make it work with macos, as someone else pointed out
These days I just use a single keyboard (the IBM M4-1 keyboard) and get up frequently.
Russian, for example, has 33 letters.
So if you’re someone like that, you really want that ordinary macbook-like number of keys = larger non-symmetrical right half.
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As for the ortholinear keyboards, I spent a few months with the latest kinesis but sold it eventually: not that comfortable.
Just clench your fist and you will see that not all your fingers are moving in straight parallel lines. I don’t buy the ortho logic at all. I would argue that left half of the ordinary keyboard is even more ergonomic in this sense.
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Also don’t bother with dvorak, qwerty is 80/20 pareto stuff. Just isn’t worth it compared to returns.
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Tdlr; split, traditional layout https://uhk.io/ is my best purchase: use it for almost 5(?) years. Modded it for swappable switches, lubed, what have you.
Don’t waste money for uhk riser, not worth it. Small plastic built-in legs are more than enough.
Wooden palm rest is a must though.
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Previously was a big fan of microsoft split ergonomics (2nd gen and sculpt later)
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BTW if you use multiple OS, map the ctrl key on windows/linux to the same place where command is on mac. Shortcuts will be the same physical keys, also it is much more comfortable to have this pressed with a thumb instead of a pinky.
Though you would want to buy a rounded key cap (like a spacebar) of you use a mechanical keyboard — it is painful to press the keycap corner with a thumb if it is not rounded.
I tried multiple split keyboards over the period of 2 years and never grew out of these habits. I always wished, at the least, that some of the middle keys were duplicated between the two halves.
Eventually I received some permission to accept my personal "kinetic signature" (so to speak). Then the chronic wrist pain that led me to try split keyboards in the first place vanished. So I went back to using a normal tenkeyless. This led me to believe that split keyboards were ideal for some people, but that other people (like myself) are predisposed to a sort of perfectionism that entails physical guarding and chronic pain.
I still wish I had a wireless split keyboard for times when I'm supine and need to type, though.
To this day I think this is one of the best pieces of hardware that I bought.
I got one with low-force switches. It's very comfortable to type on, but between the low-force switches and slightly different layout from a regular keyboard (column-staggered, concave, symbols in different locations) I make more mistakes. So I usually type on my laptop instead, especially while coding.
There are a lot of keyboards I'd like to try, but I'm pretty happy with these.
Kinesis Advantage keyboards have been popular for decades and proven ergonomic benefit - mainly because the cup avoids wrist movement and the high-traffic keys are moved to the stronger thumb. Some users prefer the newer split Professional to avoid constraining arm position. These keyboards stopped my RSI cycle decades ago, and improved my speed by roughly half. (Also a US company, with fantastic support.)
I see one instance on this page of a keyboard with double "B" key ("Alice layout"), but not the others.
I've been interested in trying a split keyboard, but I like to type those middle keys with either left or right hand depending on the moment, so all the split keyboards I've tried have ended up somewhat annoying, for that reason.
When I switched to a split keyboard 20 years ago, I realized that I used my right hand to type T and B. But it was a pretty quick transition when I kept slamming my index finger into the gap!
It has too many keys in thumb clusters and bottom row, but you can easily remove them.
That said I used to use a lily58 and for me it was great. I have a lot of papers, notes and books on my desk. A small easily movable keyboard meant that i could have something between the keyboard halves, writing and reading without issue
I had initially thought that it'd be hard to use both kinds of keyboards at once, but my muscle memory for either seems unaffected when I use the other one.
The thing I thought was ergonomic BS was the benefits of columnar/ortho layouts; everyone talked about how your fingers just moved vertically and it was so much better for them, and I rolled my eyes. But dang if it hasn't proved to be meaningfully true for me, too -- when I have to type on a legacy keyboard, I can clearly feel the pain in my fingers. (The disclaimer here is that my fingers are totally screwed up; if you don't feel pain normally, this probably matters less.)
That said, I do believe the change will add a few more good years to my career, so I’m committed to seeing it through. I went with a relatively inexpensive keyboard and a modified Engram 2 layout. The reduced finger travel and more natural arm positioning have already made a noticeable difference.
Give it another year and I expect to reach an acceptable speed as well. All in all, I’m happy with the switch.
It's split in two so you can position them at shoulder width. It's angled so your wrists are in more natural positioning (reduced pronation), and curved to prevent finger overstretching (finger joints have arc-shaped range of motion). It's injection molded and hot-swappable.
I've been working on this since 2022 and am getting close to launch. It's gotten very good feedback from beta testers.
Logitech's ergo k860 is affordable, has a palm rest (most mechanical keebs don't), and has an excellent ergonomical shape. And works right out of the box, with Bluetooth enabled.
The keys are membrane-based, which some may dislike because they are not mechanical - but it's actually more ergonomic, as they require much less pressure and travel length to achieve an input, meaning less wear on your fingers.
About travel distance, this is also something you can adjust, with the low profile switches having less than 3mm travel distance.
Heck, even HE keyboards can set their actuation down to 0.1mm, if that's your thing.
As I said, it's a hobby - I built one myself, it's nice, but the whole "ergo" aspect seems more a consumerist justification than a real concern honestly.
I use the Model 100 from Keyboardio. I have two. https://shop.keyboard.io/products/model-100
When I travel I use either their version of the Atreus https://shop.keyboard.io/products/keyboardio-atreus or their version of the Preonic, which I think was only a crowdfunded model.
Keyboardio is run by a programmer who developed debilitating RSI and his wife. He tried a bunch of keyboards, then designed his own. Lots of people asked where to get one, so they refined it into a product and started the company. That was the Model 01, and I have two of those.
Having the function button located for the base of the thumb is really comfortable and useful. The swappable bases (flat linked, tented, and the separate stands) are nice to have. The link between the two halves of the models 01 and 100 uses an Ethernet cable. The stands use a standard camera tripod threaded connector, so building your own mount for a chair or armature is simple enough.
I had a warranty issue with one of my Model 01 boards. One keyswitch didn’t work reliably. Instead of sending the whole thing back, Jesse sent me four or five spare switches, some stickers, a personal note, and a page explaining I could desolder and solder the switch without voiding the warranty (as long as I didn’t damage anything in the process of course). The Model 100 is socketed.
The hardware design and the firmware are open source.
Five years later, I have no regrets. It's easily the best thing I've done for productivity, ever. My fingers are my BCI. Effortless.
I keep the two halves far apart: wider than my shoulders so my arms are angled outwards and my chest is up and I'm sitting up straight. And I modified the keymap to work just the way I intuitively expect it to.
I can still type ~60wpm on qwerty on a standard keyboard. My phone is qwerty and I have no issues typing on it. Muscle memory of my posture and arm position makes this possible.
I switched to Dvorak at the same time that I switched from row staggered keyboards (so five years ago), and I must say, if you're thinking about switching layouts like that, there is no better time than when switching to a wildly different keyboard. My Dvorak muscle memory is entirely tied to typing on a split, columnar keyboard, and my QWERTY muscle memory is entirely tied to row staggered keyboards. I have never used Dvorak on a row staggered keyboard, and I have never used QWERTY on my Moonlander or Voyager. I think that's helped with maintaining my ability to use standard QWERTY keyboards after not using them regularly for years.
It is hilarious when others try type on it, if they can manage to get their head around the split they still have no idea how to 'use' it due to my custom layers and bindings.
It seems to have this issue (or maybe Macbooks do? I don't know..) where, waking my computer from sleep, the right side of the keyboard doesn't work. It's quickly fixed by unplugging and replugging the right side of the keyboard into the left, or unplugging and replugging the entire keyboard into the computer.. it's a shame that I have to do that sometimes, though.
Been using split ergo since original ergoxdox drop. Currently using lily58.
If someone wants to go down this rabbit hole (I did because I had pain from writing my first book), I think the Voyager is the best option.
One thing I hate about the lily58 is the lack of decent cases. The plates are too flexible. I have a 3D printed case from etsy and the keys continually pop out of it or get finicky about seating and registering a click.
However, these days I'm typing much less. Voice recognition is so good that I generally press a button to start recording, press it again to transcribe. Then press another button to paste, press it again to hit enter.
Most of the time keys popping out means your plate is too thick or the switch holes aren't a good fit. You can often improve it (and the sound) with some foam between the plate and the pcb - you can buy laser cut neoprene plate foam for lily58s, or you can always freehand it with a knife and a sheet of 2-3mm foam (it's not that hard and doesn't have to be perfect).
I think I would just buy a voyager at this point...
Mine are tab, esc, space, backspace... plus layer shenanigans (https://configure.zsa.io/planck-ez/layouts/jDnba/latest/0)
Switching to split or ortholinear takes time. Doing both together is a significant and slightly annoying adjustment and takes a few weeks to feel normal. The payoff is when you lean into it. Home row mods so the home keys become ctrl shift alt meta when held, plus a thumb layer for navigation so you get vim-style movement everywhere, and a symbols layer for the stuff not on the top row.
Two thumb keys per side works well. Layer on both sides, enter on one thumb, space on the other. About 6x4 per side is the sweet spot for me. A function row on things like the Advantage 2 or Glove80 can be handy.
If you want to try it in steps, the Kinesis mWave is a decent bridge. Split but not ortholinear, full keyset so you don’t have to relearn everything at once, mechanical, runs ZMK, and in US pricing it’s very cheap for what it is, roughly $120.
I wouldn't specifically recommend other people learn Dvorak, but I switched to it when I was in my early teens (~25 years ago) and I feel pretty great about the returns I got from that.
My kid sure isn't getting qwerty as their default keyboard.
I also swap ctrl+caps. That caps key real estate is just too good.
It's pretty wild, I can _ONLY_ touch type dvorak. I couldn't tell you which keys are which looking down at the keyboard. And I'm fast. I'm so fast I don't even need to vibecode.
They almost certainly will at school, though.
It's not so much about speed, as about comfort.
Some people claim that they went from 60 WPM on Qwerty to over 100 WPM on some other newly designed layout, but my experience is clear: if you do it for the speed you will be disappointed.
Even french and german need layers (shift or right alt) for all the stuff like ß or adding accents like é è ê ë
Also It's nice to have a 10-key at home row (5 goes with k).
> Russian, for example, has 33 letters.
Ironically, the biggest enthusiast of these splits I know in real life (he owns a kinesis) is a slavic guy, speaks both Ukranian and Russian, but I suppose he's typing in English for most of the day at his job, however I know he uses layering for the cyrillic.
You can get used to it, but why suffer. Especially if one also uses a laptop.
Other thing that I don’t like in all these small custom keyboards is that most rely on a single spacebar on one half. I learned to use either thumb depending on which next key is: press space with left thumb if next key is on the right half and vice-versa.
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Also I would urge you to buy a keyboard with arrows keys and extra stuff like home/end
I use uhk 40 and it is fine most of the time since I use vim-motions in my IDEs. But sometimes I just wish they were there.
For example alt-right on mac is to expand all folders recursively in the Finders list view. Just becomes an effing piano if you need to add caps-l to have an arrow in addition to all the alts and shifts.
You can mitigate this with stuff like caps + ; for alt + right arrow (ctrl + right arrow for win), but again, when you need to add shift or not only left/right it gets cumbersome once you are not in the vim-like environment (chats, word, what have you).
tldr; buy uhk 80 nowadays. And an external bluetooth numpad for those days when you need to enter a lot of numbers. Why external? Shorter distance between a keyboard and a mouse — more comfortable and takes less space.
Though I use ctrl right next to spacebar on windows so it is the same as mac
win, alt, ctrl, spacebar, ctrl, alt
Using thumb for ctrl is even better than pinkey
how's the build quality? I got a split keyboard a while ago from a small producer, and the case was completely built out of 3d printed plastic which caused it to be pretty flimsy and kept sliding around due to the light weight.
Though there is not much space inside, in case you want to add foam for noise isolation and what have you
The macro language has really developed nicely too. When I bought the uhk ~5 years ago, I didn’t plan on really using any advanced features. But things change :) I’ve got numerous little QoL things configured now. As well as this fancy flourish (which, admittedly, is a little “extra”): https://www.cgl.sh/blog/posts/wnl.html
It kinda mystifies me that they’re not more popular. Sure, expensive. But so is the ZSA Voyager, and you see tons of those! Although maybe it’s because ZSA was already known for the Ergo Dox.
Anyhow, love my uhk, AMA.
Every time I used wireless keyboards (microsoft sculpt, latest kinesis advantage), I had issues from time to time.
Come to think of it, only apple magic keyboard never failed me. Though I don’t have many hours with it.
The elephant in the room with the 'ergonomics' argument for split keyboards is that you get a marginal improvement using the keyboard this way and ten times the effect by just getting up and going for a five minute walk every hour or so.
The same goes for mousephobia, which overlaps with split layout users. I still use neovim every day, but the quickest cure for the CTS symptoms that 'ergonomic' keyboard purist vim users seem to get much more than their IDE coworkers is just moving your hand to do something other than type in the exact same position for hours on end - something like grabbing a mouse. I strongly suspect that CTS in software engineers will go down in the next coming years as coding agents become more common and SWEs pick their hands up more (or just physically type less).
The same goes for back pain, if you're otherwise ablebodied enough to start resistance training it's infinitely more beneficial than whatever chair you're looking at.
I recently switched to a split columnar layout but not for solely for ergonomics sake - I do the same things as you but with my right hand handling b, g, t, and my left hand moving over to accommodate (with "incorrect" fingering for c, and variable fingering for the whole of the left side).
My choice to move to a split was primarily motivated by a need to reset my typing style and a hatred for where the escape key sits on a keyboard (not forgetting the waste of space that is the spacebar.)
It would be neat if someone would make a zmk / qmk keyboard with five thumb keys where the space bar is. Might be the sweet spot for most.
However, I feel very strongly that if your body is telling you that something hurts or it is in pain, you should take action rather than right through it.
Gives each split space bar a bonus U1 key in the middle too
The F-lock nonsense isn't too awful, you get all of the keys, the layout is pretty standard, you can buy ANSI layout ones in the UK, and there's a full set of meta keys that are usefully symmetrical enough. Also: connects to PC with a wire. No batteries required. (The wonders of modern technology!)
Haven't tried the brown switches.
The red switches are quite light touch with a nice positive action. Very nice to type on for text, where my fingers can get into a good rhythm, but it's a bit too easy to hit the wrong key if I'm going for an arbitrary keyboard shortcut.
The blue switches go click, which feels great to type on, and I've found it does help a bit with the problem of hitting the wrong key (something about the more obvious multimodal feedback gets my subconscious on the job I suppose) - but I never quite got on with the slightly heavier key action.
I used to use the MS Ergo 4000, and I've found this a good replacement. The keyboard layout is very similar, as is the reverse tilt angle, and the palm rest is fine, even if it's IMO inferior to the MS 4000. (But: the MS 4000's reverse tilt stand, a single piece of solid plastic, is significantly more solid than the Perixx's little fold out things. Worth bearing in mind if you're in the habit of resting your elbows on the palm rest when in thought.)
Official name now : Incase Designed By Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless TKL Keyboard
https://www.incase.com/products/sculpt-ergonomic-keyboard
(In Canada, only available at Bestbuy)
But mileage varies.
Left hand: control, meta, command, hyper, super, backspace
Right hand: space, enter, command, hyper, super, del
Advantages over the Ergodox:
1. No pointless layer of "inner" keys that you never use 2. The thumb keys are closer to the main keyboard, so more of them are in a natural reach, rather than being a big stretch (this is the biggest one in usage) 3. Uses all 1u keys, so greater keycap compatibility (any ortho kit will work) 4. If you're comparing to the Ergodox EZ, construction is better, with a metal case instead of plastic 5. Takes up less desk space
And it's still QMK, still hotswappable, still has the columnar layout. I don't think the Ergodox offers anything over it.
Start small. Don’t feel pressured to dive straight into the $300 keyboards. I have a fancy custom mechanical keyboard myself, but that’s because a few years back I decided it would be fun to get into using a more hackable keyboard. For a very long time I was more than content with the (sadly now discontinued) Microsoft Sculpt keyboard, which was one of the least expensive options.
I don't think losing a few letters or context switching is a big concern to him anymore lol. He doesn't even type QWERTY in English, he's a colemak guy haha.
Or learn to mouse with your left hand. ;)
I used an MS ergo keyboard at my office for years with left-handed mousing since that puts the keys in the middle, mouse on the left and numpad on the right.
This is obviously not an exact science and I’m sure you manage to type just fine. However, if given a choice of regular and split, I don’t see how one could argue that they’re just the same. For me personally, I used to type with a lot of wrist movement and had trouble learning true touch typing for decades, but learned it on a split in a few weeks.
Also, just to be clear, I wasn't arguing that regular and split are the same. I have both types of keyboards and I'm planning to switch to split once I've mastered a new keyboard layout. My point was only in support of the original comment; namely, that that drawing is misleading.
This would at least help me make sense of people's wrist problems. Holy cow. Never mind how much it would slow somebody down. None of my fingers is ever stationary long enough to bring it back to a specific place typing 135 wpm.
From the preferences:
- Unlock a next key only when the previous keys are also above the target speed. (This will force you to practice keys that are problematic in context, it's frustrating but very helpful for reinforcement learning. For example, I struggle with B, C, V on my split because I don't use the “correct” fingers for those keys on a standard keyboard.)
- Add capital letters
- Add punctuation characters
- Add words to lessons (move it to the max)
Regarding getting much worse in the real world; IMO this isn't discussed enough. When you're relearning muscle memory, it's a very different beast to copy what you see (focused only on where your fingers are) as opposed to focusing on your thought and your fingers just “go there”. I, too, have found my speed plummet at first; at some point I decided to just go cold turkey and suffer being rather slow – trading it for eventual mastery.
In my case, because I was such a phenomenally sloppy typist, sometimes what felt slow was likely just as quick as a result of making fewer mistakes on the new split layout where my behaviour was forced to be better.
Had you asked me how often I use those keys, I would have said hardly ever. Now that I have to suffer that layout, I have realized they are crucial for my typing/usage patterns.
I'd love to try one of these for a while.
