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
One thing worth remembering is that with any programmable keyboard you don’t need to actually use all the keys (and can even physically remove the switches if your board is hotswap).
You can see Ben did this himself to test out the layout with a modified version of his keyboard “the card” (looks like a different soldered board rather than hotswap: https://youtu.be/5RN_4PQ0j1A ) and again to demo his one button keyboard for the April fools video (with a one button version of the card—he must’ve had a ton of those PCBs laying around 😂).
So, if you want to try out his layout, you can do so without any worry by just taking any layout you think you’ll like, buying that, and flashing Ben’s layout to a subset of keys. A lot of the cost of a custom keyboard of this style is in the switches, keycaps, and microcontrollers (say 2/3 or 3/4 the cost depending), which if you make them all hotswap, you can keep reusing for many different layouts until you find one you want to stick with for a while.
All this is to say: there is a cost to get into the hobby, but experimenting after that point is pretty affordable!