I may never understand why people are willing to depart from the form factor of a keyboard, but still adhere to the staggered (as opposed to ortholinear) layout of the keys themselves. Both modifications will require retraining some muscle memory.
The staggered layout is a remnant of typewriters, since there was no other way to create room for the bars that connect the key to the hammers.
Computer keyboards don't have this restriction.
Switching from a staggered to ortholinear keyboard took me all of a day to adapt-to, and I still regularly use a staggered keyboard on a regular basis with no hardship (when I take my laptop from my desk)
I’ve got one of these and while I’m impressed I think I will still likely go back a normal layout as I’m just not seeing speed and accuracy I’m happy with. Previous to this I have tried other split layouts, including the X-Bows which I think is just a disaster.
The Moonlander I really _want_ to get along with. It has an almost but not quite perfect setup for Emacs, for example, with natural places for Ctrl and Alt, and the software and configurability is excellent. I’ll likely give it a few more months but honestly if you haven’t got pain to deal with I don’t think these fancy layouts are useful, and even then I’m not sure my joints are any happier.
I just received my Moonlander a couple days ago, after using an Ergodox Ez for a year. It's a joy to use. It's slim, has a good palm rest, can tent, and having the thumb cluster take an angle when tenting the keyboard is a killer feature, it makes it much easier to reach all keys of the cluster without strain.
Only downside is the palm rest is huge, so you need a fair amount of desk space to use it.
I have a wireless split ortholinear and while I love the "split" part, I hate the "ortholinear" part. It forced me to completely relearn how to type, and I still am not back to my 100 WPM, with no benefit.
If I were to do this again, I would go for a wired split staggered keyboard. I never take it anywhere so I don't need the portability, and I'd avoid all the issues with latency and low battery.
I’ve spent the best part of a year trying to get on with split and ortholinear layouts and frankly I hate them. I think it’s a design that only works for very orthodox typists, and I don’t find that efficient for me (e.g. I would never ever want to use the same finger for two different keys in succession, that feels maddeningly slow).
On the Moonlander I think I’m back up to about 80 with at least 95% accuracy (at lot of those issues are me trying to combine space and shift in a multifunction key). That’s on normal text. Previously I was reliably above 100WPM, but I’ll keep at it. Honestly it’s less that so much as the sense of flinching whenever I open up a terminal and have to do something complex. Much of that is muscle memory obviously, but for example the X-Bows I just think is irreparably bad for coding or terminal use. There’s just too much for a programmer’s right pinkie to do in many of these layouts, I find. I will admit my previous style probably wasn’t great, in that I’d mostly use pinkies for just shift, enter and caps-as-ctrl, thumbs for space and alt, and the remaining six free ranging as you would on a piano. Acknowledging this might not be good for long term joint health was part of the reason to evaluate something new, but I didn’t have any specific issues beyond bad alt placement.
> I may never understand why people are willing to depart from the form factor of a keyboard, but still adhere to the staggered (as opposed to ortholinear) layout of the keys themselves.
Split keyboards allow users to free themselves from arbitrary constraints on shoulder/elbow/wrist movement.
Keyboard layout config just affects how your fingers move.
Being forced to spend hours with your wrists held together no matter how broad your shoulders are, and bending your hands outward, has more impact on your well-being than how many millimeters your fingers move to hit a key.
Purely medial movement of the fingers (which is more ergonomic) as opposed to the lateral motions that fingers have to make for a staggered-row keyboard.
I don't understand this. My fingers don't move straight away from my wrist unless I've got them squeezed together, which doesn't seem like a useful way to type.
Replace "purely" with "mostly", if you want to be pedantic. Even if ortholinear keyboards don't completely eliminate lateral motion, there's still a rather large reduction in it - which is what matters.
A standard row-staggered keyboard is terribly asymmetric. With your hands on home row, the distances to the modifier keys are different for left/right; but even the distances to the inner columns of keys aren't symmetric. That asymmetry makes it uncomfortable to use the right-hand modifier keys; and more awkward to type, in general.
It's fairly hard to accurately touch-type the number-row with a standard row-staggered keyboard; but this is more accessible with an ortholinear keyboard.
Moreover, ortholinear keyboards (because they're so niche) tend to have firmware customisation, which allows for some improvements. (e.g. allowing different keyboard 'layers').
That's an absurd statement. There are degrees of everything, and I have seen no research suggesting that staggering is as important as wrist angle/position - or even statistically relevant for that matter.
Perfection is the enemy of good. A $40 staggered split layout like the Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 that's affordable to most users will do far more benefit than a $300 mechanical ortholinear device that most people will never have.
Alright, my statement was too broad. Let me be more precise: "Ortholinearity is an important ergonomic feature that any keyboard that claims to be both "ultimate" and "ergonomic" absolutely must have."
> I have seen no research suggesting that staggering is as important as wrist angle/position - or even statistically relevant for that matter
That's because there's been very little, if any, research done in this area at all, so we'll have to rely on other things - namely, the combination of (1) the culturally well-known "Emacs pinkie" that results exclusively from lateral finger movement and (2) the facts that (a) RSI is much more likely to result from weak muscle motions and (b) lateral finger movements are weak muscle motions relative to medial finger movements. Together, these show that ortholinearity is better than staggered rows - so unless you have a scientific paper or higher-priority first-principles arguments that contradict this, then you're obligated to accept this conclusion.
> Perfection is the enemy of good.
This has nothing to do with "perfection". Ortholinearity is an extremely easy and extremely cheap keyboard design choice. There's absolutely no extra hardware you have to add to your design - all you do is move the keys around a tiny bit. It's strictly superior to staggered rows, and there's absolutely no reason to choose staggered rows unless you're concerned with scaring consumers away from the design.
> A $40 staggered split layout like the Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 that's affordable to most users will do far more benefit than a $300 mechanical ortholinear device that most people will never have.
Please leave your utilitarian value ethics out of this - this has nothing to do with "the most good" and everything to do with "whether the keyboard design is ergonomic or not".
Finally, as stated above, ortholinearity is extremely inexpensive to add to a design, and could just as easily be grafted onto a cheap $40 keyboard as to an expensive build like this one. Pretending that the choice of ortholinearity vs. staggered rows has anything to do with cost is crazy.
"Ergonomic" is not a boolean value. Is an ortholinear keyboard 1% more ergonomic than a staggered keyboard? 10%? Is there even one universal scale? For me, and for all of the people I know who have tried many keyboards, a split layout is a HUGE improvement over a standard layout. Ortholinear is far less obvious - the few people I know who have tried one (such as the Kinesis Advantage) have given it up and gone back.
Anything different means that you have to switch layouts whenever you go to some other device - whether that means your laptop or someone else's machine or whatever. It requires relearning some bit of mental memory, and even if it can be done it's absolutely daunting to users and not something to be dismissed. If it's confusing, that is a risk to sales.
I have a Moonlander on preorder and will see if it's better than my current staggered split keyboards, but to claim that staggered keyboards aren't ergonomic isn't just controversial - it's flat out wrong.
Please actually read my comment before responding to it - I relaxed my statement to not claim that "ergonomic" was a Boolean value, so I'm not sure why you're still acting as though I am holding that position.
> even if it can be done
It can very obviously be done, as indicated by other commenters in this thread stating that they did.
> If it's confusing, that is a risk to sales.
As I've already stated once before, I'm only discussing how ergonomic the keyboard has - I'm not making any claims about mass-market appeal, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up.
I haven't tried a symmetrical stagger keyboard yet, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that those are the one exception to my personal "no row stagger" rule.
I've been using natural keyboards forever (currently an MS Sculpt), but they've always had the two sides fixed to each other. I can see how being able to orient each side separately might be nice, and it's infinitely adjustable, but I worry that I'd get annoyed that I can't move the keyboard as a unit, and I'm happy enough with the default split-key layout (though I might prefer slightly more tenting).
I'm currently on my second Matias Ergo Pro [1]. I love the thing, it is one of my favorite tools I've used in any industry. I put it up there with VIM, the hydraulic press, and Snap-On ratchets. I'll be honest, I prefer Cherry keys to these Alps clones, and the build quality is absolutely excellent in some aspects yet atrocious in other aspects. But a split keyboard with actual F* keys (used heavily in Jetbrains IDEs, plus I've got a bunch of KDE features on them) has become a necessary tool for me.
I'm now considering a Raise keyboard, which like the UHK is missing the F* keys. I'm right now prototyping some F* keypads, not unlike an independent numpad, but in truth I doubt that I will approach the level of comfort as the Matias boards.
I'm happy to answer any questions you have about mechanical or split boards. I've had quite a few )).
It seems like every ergo keyboard I've looked at has something about the layout that turns me off. The keyboard mentioned in this post has no arrow keys. The keyboard you linked to seems to lack volume keys but has dedicated cut, paste, copy keys.
I know everyone makes a big deal over key switches, but that's not something I've ever felt strongly about.
I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad. It would be great if the sides were fully separated, but that's less important to me. I've been using the MS Sculpt for a couple years now, and even after all that time I find my muscle memory is still calibrated to the old MS natural.
> I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad.
I had one!
I actually sawed off the end, and folded the membrane underneath. The rest I filled in with Sugru I believe. I really don't remember if that was before or after I saw someone on Geekhack do the same. Those were terrific keyboards, I still have at least one (modified, but in a different way) in storage.
The Matias has volume keys, but they are on the F10, F11, and F12 keys when pressed with the Fn key. But the new version of the Matias can be reprogrammed, so the otherwise useless Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste keys can be made into volume keys.
I had one of these and I cannot caution you against it strongly enough if you’re a programmer. Your right pinkie has so much to do, and the central enter and backspace mean you’re constant
ly going to be making errors like this. If you can get your hands on one to evaluate first I’d recommend that. For normal text typing though it’s probably fine.
Seconded. It's almost painless split keyboard for normal user but also has great software and some advanced features. Kinesis Freestyle Pro is almost same.
Xah-Lee's list of mass-market ergonomic keyboards has a Fujitsu KBPC E, which is the only one I see that keeps the inverted-T of arrow keys, but dispenses with the numpad.
I have a gallery of mechanical split keyboards, but I don't think what you want exists there either. You could design a PCB yourself.
I noticed a pull request to my gallery of split, mechanical keyboards, and it might be just what you're looking for -- although it's a 100% DIY solution.
The "Natural Ergonomic Keyboard, Type A", an open-source, mechanical reconstruction of MS Natural.
To add a counter point to the sibling comments, I found the separate halves to be really annoying.
A fixed keyboard forces you to find an appropriate position and stick with it, whereas I spent too much time constantly fiddling with the spacing and positioning of the split halves.
To make matters worse, the particular model I had didn't stay put, as each half was only half the weight of a single unit, and thus prone to being nudged out of alignment when I got up / sat down / moved about (I am not the most graceful of people).
In the end, I used a little plastic hinge to keep them together (while still allowing some room to open / close the angle they met at), and gave up on it entirely when the plastic hinge broke.
It allows you to move them really far apart if you want. I actually put my mouse (that I use a lot less than the keyboard) in between the two halves.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that unlike most split keyboards, this one snaps together such that you wouldn’t even know it is split. This is useful when you do want to pick it up or when you let someone else type on it
I keep the halves almost shoulder width apart (the connecting cable is almost maxed out). I also have the halves tented. I think it's a much more ergonomic position that way, vs forearms pointing in.
As for moving it, I don't move the keyboard that often, and even if so, the halves can lock together.
Enjoying my moonlander [1] which I bought after reading about it on HN. I went the whole hog and switched to a colemak variant as well. Typing speed is still far from my peak but feel I'm on track to a longer term pay off. The configuration software is pretty impressive too.
How long until pay off? I spent a week on their previous model and then returned it and am now happily using an earlier version of the Kinesis Freestyle Edge.
Happy UHK owner here. I’m seeing a few comments about missing function keys and arrow keys. Yes, this is a compact layout. Since it has two space bars, you can map the FN key to the one space bar you never use, and then you get function keys and arrow keys when you hold down space. Even better, the arrow keys are right under your fingers.
It also has a mouse layer. I don’t like it for fine mouse movements, but it’s great for doing a quick mouse click (middle click to paste, left click to activate a window, etc) without moving your hands off the keyboard.
I got the UHK since I was suffering from an increasingly troublesome shoulder impingement syndrome after working on laptop for years. The UHK was the best split keyboard alternative I could find which didn't require too much change from the laptop keyboard. Getting the keyboard and raising the laptop screen with a nice stand fixed my posture and the shoulder problems have been reduced a lot (together with physical training).
Now I'm feeling discomfort in my back/neck if I have to work on my laptop for a few hours, and I don't see myself going back to a non-split keyboard. Adding a vertical mouse to the mix has also been an ergonomical improvement for me.
Like the parent comment, I don't miss the arrow keys since navigation is quicker with the mod layer. I also use the Fn layer for controlling spotify many times per day. The agent software shipped with the keyboard is also great for customization, you can see how it works online here: https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.github.io/agent/
Disclaimer: I'm just a happy customer. The UHK is also the first enthusiast keyboard I've tried, so I don't know how it compare to others. I'd like to try the other types of layouts (like the columnar layout of the Moonlander), but it's hard to "risk" paying the price + shipment cost for those in case I don't like it, and living in the EU I need the ISO layout.
Personally if I was selling overpriced keyboards, I would market to more than just English speaking countries.
I mean you're basically forcing everyone else to either use stickers or a blank keyboard.
All it would take would be to throw a handful of extra keys in a bag on the side for each language and you'd have all latin keyboard layouts covered. (increasing the target market several times over)
> For the UHK 60 v2, you can select English US (ANSI), English UK (ISO), Blank ANSI, or Blank ISO. Being a backlit keyboard, we implemented the blank option by placing small translucent dots on every keycap. All these keycap options are made of double-shot PBT.
And you can disable the backlight on any keyboard.
> And you can disable the backlight on any keyboard.
That's not the same as no backlighting. Just this week, I had to open the Cherry switch on a Race keyboard [1] to modify the spring a bit. On a normal cherry, four small flathead screwdrivers can be used to pry the top off to access the switch internals after just popping off the keycap. With backlighting, though, the keyboard case needs to be opened and the LED needs to be desoldered before the top of the key comes off. The actually soldering it back in place is a pain as the leads just barely make it out of the hole, and that hole had better be clear of solder. Most modern boards are also ROHS compliant, so they're using high-temp leadless solder, which is more of a pain to solder, requires a high-temp soldering iron, and has a higher chance of causing thermal damage if you don't get the parts together quickly.
> And you can disable the backlight on any keyboard.
I don't want to have to disable an useless backlight. I want the backlight to bring in functionality that makes it worth keeping.
Per key RGB led? Great! Have a daemon learn my typing to make suggestions by lighting up the keys I'm the most likely to use in a context dependent operation.
ex: if using Firefox, after I type the L-I-N-U key, I want X to be shining. if using Excel, after typing (-[A-Z]-[0-9], I want : to be shining.
The dogma raise https://dygma.com/ that i recently obtained is the first backlit keyboard that I’ve seen that uses per key rgb backlighting in a useful manner.
It has 8 layers and is completely programmable including the backlight. I set different colors on different keys for a layer so I can visually verify which layer I’m on.
Not quite the flexibility of what you mentioned, but it might be possible, as the firmware and programmer are open. Kind of like what apple had in mind with their absurd touchbar, but with physical keys.
Still, if one must have pre-typing spelling assistance instead of just spelling it wrong and correcting it afterward, seems like something you'd be better off putting on-screen where you're actually looking, rather than displaying it on the keyboard where you typically not looking. Even if you do look down you'd need to move your hands out of the way to see which key is glowing.
For me, backlit keys are useful to set my hands in the right place, and then I stop looking at them. When I have them change color, it's a reminder of which keys in my fn-layer are bound to other functions like volume up/down and previous/play+pause/next.
> rather than displaying it on the keyboard where you typically not looking
I use a laptop and both the screen and keyboard are in my field of vision. If the most probably key was highlighted, I believe I could consciously (or subconsciously?) take advantage of that information
> When I have them change color, it's a reminder of which keys in my fn-layer are bound to other functions
so you are using the backlight as a whole, instead of the invidual key backlights - to match what you were saying, nothing that a popup couldn't display on the screen ("CONTROL_DOWN"...)
Are there any still-manufactured laptop-like keyboards that have either a built-in stick or trackpad, positioned like a laptop rather than off to the side, with mouse buttons and a palmrest?
I've been using the v1 Bluetooth keyboard as my daily driver for almost 2 years. Solid construction and very portable, but lately I've been plagued with frequent disconnects and input lag. Has anyone had experience with the v2 on Linux?
Arrow keys, escape, are controlled via a modifier key. In theory this seems like a horrible job idea, but in practice it allows me to largely keep my right hand on the home row which is great. it took me a few days to get used to the layout and now when I'm not using my UHK I truly miss this feature.
This is close to what I’ve been searching for - split, TKL mechanical keyboard. But it’s missing the esc and function keys. I find it weird that I haven’t seen such a keyboard yet.
The staggered layout is a remnant of typewriters, since there was no other way to create room for the bars that connect the key to the hammers.
Computer keyboards don't have this restriction.
Switching from a staggered to ortholinear keyboard took me all of a day to adapt-to, and I still regularly use a staggered keyboard on a regular basis with no hardship (when I take my laptop from my desk)