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/
view the rest of the comments
Unless you can find a local meetup then trying before you buy isn't very easy, sadly. You can do things like print out layouts from https://compare.splitkb.com/ which will give an indication of how well a given design fits your needs, but nothing is a substitute for using it for a while. Even trying something out for a few minutes won't really give you an idea of what it's like to live with day-to-day.
Many of us have just taken to trial by fire, buy things based on hunches and work from there, but that's not an easy pill to swallow in terms of the financial burden of doing discovery that way.
Good luck in your search, be sure to scroll the posts here and in the reddit for inspiration.
Aw yeah, makes sense... Okay thank you - useful page!
If you're willing to solder, most ergo keyboards are sold as relatively inexpensive PCB kits, which helps somewhat to offset the cost of having to guess about the layouts. The majority of the cost of the build will often be the switches, keycaps, and controllers, and if you socket the controllers, all of those can be reused if you don't like the board.