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ErgoMechKeyboards
Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
Rules
Keep it ergo
Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)
i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²
¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid
No Spam
No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.
No Buy/Sell/Trade
This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.
Some useful links
- EMK wiki
- Split keyboard compare tool
- Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
- Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/
That doesn't look very ergonomic
Sure.
One of the neat things about mechanical keyboards (broadly) is that there are all sorts of avenues for creativity that people find interesting. Some people are enthusiastic about making their keyboard look good, or sound good. Some people like designing PCBs.
I saw the FAK firmware was quite constrained.. it's well suited to small keyboards, and it's got a low cost microcontroller. I'm sharing here about an example of a keyboard designed to use that, and some of the firmware using that. I figured some people here might find it useful or interesting.
For the keyboard in the image posted, there are different decisions which could be made which could perhaps improve comfort. Different decisions would come with different advantages and costs.
It might not be "hand-shaped", but the use of layers (and tap-dance/home-row mods) will minimize hand-movement, which is another way to approach ergonomics.
Yeah, minimizing hand movement, and reducing use of the pinky fingers, and letting the thumbs use at least 2-3 keys each are all things that improve comfort.
https://kinesis-ergo.com/solutions/keyboard-risk-factors/
It only fulfills point 4 I think, but it does look like it might not be in line with the rules on the sidebar, so it will probably get removed (admittedly I don't know if posts need to be manually approved here, so I'm not sure about this).
It's technically a unibody split (notice that t and y are 2u apart) so that qualifies it as ergonomic according to the sidebar if I'm interpreting it correctly
I thought it might fall into the non-split ortholinear category, but that makes sense once you pointed it out.