A Beginner’s Guide to Split Keyboards
10 points by wa008
10 points by wa008
That was a wonderful read. It is extremely well-researched and helpful.
As someone who experimented quite a bit with keyboards, I would say one thing that the article misses is KVM switches. KVM switches are an absolute life changer, especially if you WFH. With a lot/most wireless keyboards, using KVM switches is far from trivial.
Also, I also experimented a bit with using software remapping, but at least on Linux, my experience was slightly painful. If you implement things like home row mods on the keyboard itself, it's much easier to avoid issues with timing thresholds - and the experience will be consistent across devices.
I was going to post that these row-staggered split recommendations always miss Goldtouch for some reason, but then checked goldtouch.com and saw they no longer make the GTN 0099. Oh well, you can still find them on ebay for thirty bucks. A very solid keyboard, I've had mine for five years after blowing through several microsoft sculpt models (terrible build quality). The only real downside is you can be assured the GTN 0099 won't die on you and give you an excuse to really plop down cash on a kinesis something-or-other.
I have 3 keyboards that could be considered split: Silakka 54, Periboard 335 and Keychron K11 Max, the last two are unibody. And I've owned a Glove 80, but I sold it. Right now I'm using the K11 Max. In the end there's a lot of personal preference with this kind of thing. The scientific arguments around most things in ergonomics are quite shaky. You will want something that is comfortable over long periods of time, but knowing the combination that works for each person is difficult. You need to try many different things and requires time and money to do so.
I do think that some of the ideas of split keyboards are good, so if you have a friend which happens to own a keyboard with some of the characteristics of a split keyboard, ask to try it!
Yeah I agree with this.
I've been switching between a Keychron Q11 and Glove 80. I want to like the Glove 80, but I keep going back to the Keychron. I don't know if I would say the glove 80 is bad, but it just doesn't quite sit quite well in my hands.
What I ultimately want is to be able to physically separate the keyboard halves as I have pretty broad shoulders, and the Q11 does that but not much else. Which is I guess enough for me.
I'm looking for a wireless split keyboard with low profile keys to use on the go with my phone. Not that easy to find something nice and affordable.
Moving to a split keyboard 100% saved my wrists - I won't go back if I can possibly avoid it.
I started with an Ergodox Infinity and still generally prefer the more-"maximalist" end of the spectrum. My Infinity is still in use for my personal desktop, and I like being able to toggle to a "mostly one-handed" setup for gaming with my other hand on the mouse.
I wanted wireless next, so I used an ErgoBlue for a while before swapping to my current Redox W, shrinking the thumb clusters slightly. I really like the Redox's approach of using smaller MCUs on the keyboard halves that just do low-powered wireless to the receiver, which actually has the Arduino with the keyboard firmware.
The upgrades I'm considering next are a) chair arm mounts for the halves so they follow me as I pivot to look at other monitors, and b) a pointing device, probably a trackpoint - though I've seen they're pretty bad for battery life.