I think concave keyboards tend to be more ergonomic than 2d layouts, but to each their own.
I have not been able to find a good entry point. The threads often reference shops, specific people, firmwares or discord communities without going into details.
Does anyone happen to know a good resource for how and where to get started today? What's the state of the art, where to buy what etc.
What makes it worse is that most designs do no have any long-term group studies at all. E.g. Dactyl Manuform keyboards are quite popular, but many long-term users report thumb injuries from using Dactyl Manuforms. Who knows what injuries many of the custom designs can cause long-term? Most hobbyist keyboard designers are not trained medical professionals and basically don't have much of a clue what they are doing.
I would recommend people to start with prebuilt keyboards that have been around for a while and are pretty well-understood and in some cases had input from or testing by experts. Some examples:
- Fixed-split angled Microsoft keyboards (some models had extensive group studies, etc. Some models do break fairly quickly.)
- Logitech ERGO K860
- Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB. This is traditional keyboard but with split and optional tenting (both of which have been shown to be good in various studies, be sure to get the tenting kit).
- Kinesis Advantage, goes all-in with ergonomic features and requires relearning typing a bit. Has been around in various forms for 30 years and is well-understood. Most people who use one swear by it.
- Keyboardio Model 100. The precursor (Model 01) has been around for many years. The design seems sane and I haven't seen many complaints.
- ZSA Ergodox EZ/Moonlander: these are quite popular. But be careful, quite many people report having thumb issues after a while.
I don't know any proven designs with trackballs, I have seen some people complain about integrated trackballs becoming uncomfortable after a while.
I've been using a corne for two years with absolutely no pain/issues (not that I had any issues before I started using it, though)
The Ergo K860 looks nice. I've also been eyeing the Kinesis Advantage 360, though it has no F-Keys. Another option would be the Glove80. The MS/Logitech keyboards are super cheap in comparison. Would you say not having ortholinear keys is a big difference for ergonomics?
The quality has been great. It's lasted 15 or so years now.
I switched to an optimized keyboard layout (neo2 - German) in 2006 when I had carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands and then also switched to one of those ergonomic keyboards.
Now, I'm basically looking for a successor.
Generally, the shops I've seen are all quite happy to sell parts, & provide assembly guides. I think those are good starting points for learning about the things you don't know.
https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q11-qmk-custom-me...
https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q10-alice-layout-...
https://ploopy.co/mini-trackball/ <-- this one has buttons and a scroll wheel.
I have a Keychron Q10 and program it with the "via" software, which works great. I also have a Ploopy mouse, which requires QMK compilation to customize. That worked out great for me, because I love tinkering.
It's really difficult to encapsulate all that goes into a keyboard and mouse/trackball, like you said the communities create huge amounts of information, commentary, and designs. Which is why companies like Keychron are doing great work creating "layman" accessible keyboards.
QMK is literally compiling C code into firmware. You can leave off LED effects if you want, use complex macros, rules, and layers, or cut out everything that you don't use. I mentioned my mouse earlier: it has 2 layers, the second of which is accessed by holding down a button. That gives me access to almost twice as many buttons! I have a volume control on my mouse's second layer, plus "paste plain text on MacOS". Very cool stuff and incredibly useful!
Via is a QMK that is designed to be updated without the C toolchain present. It uses an Electron front end and is pretty straightforward to use. Obviously it's more restricted in what it can do, but I think it covers 99.9% of use cases.
I wish I could write more, but I have to go for surgery. If you ask questions here, I should be able to respond by late evening US eastern time May 1st.
I'd already be happy if there were mechanical keyboards out there that offered USB passthrough to connect things like yubikeys, a trackpad or headphones. So far the only one I'm aware that has those is the Royal Kludge rk84, but I doesn't seem to be a popular choice.
However the board is not yet open source, like many Japanes custom boards.
I use museum wax as the mounting method, which allows slight adjustments but is otherwise a firm hold.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/kinesisadvantage/comments/s2n2k3/ki...
It's just really hard to follow when you're only casually browsing.
I am following on the steps of FlatFootFox to replicate the Corne (Cherry) in code, WIP for the moment: https://github.com/ceoloide/corney-island
Don't forget to support the creator of Ergogen, MrZealot: https://github.com/sponsors/mrzealot
I have a key layout in mind, and I just want a ready product, not to fiddle with hardware and firmware myself.
The order lot is very tiny of maybe 4-5 pcs.
The layout is quite simple QWERTY, based on Omnikey Ultra T.
Perhaps 500-800 US$ for 5 finished keyboards.
Similar to this Omnikey Ultra T, in a similar build quality, but with few keys rearranged. I wish the F11 and F12 on the life side to be below F9 and F10 keys.
https://www.thurrott.com/forums/general-discussion/hardware/...
I like the heavy metal bottom plate, but can be (cheaper) molded plastic.
My current Ultra T is at end of life, I am resoldering the gradually failing white ALPS.
1: https://www.cherrymx.de/en/dev.html 2: https://youtu.be/yYcNi9hKxDk?t=688 3: https://thangs.com/designer/ZackFreedman/3d-model/KeyV2%20G2...
Then there's the whole "artisan" community, which sculpt and cast individual keycaps in various designs and shapes, more for looks and collecting than for typing on. I've seen group buys of tooling for making these.
1. <https://www.wasdkeyboards.com>
2. <https://en.xvxchannel.com/en-eu/products/xvx-custom-art-icon...>
