this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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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

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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.

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Entry into the world of ergo keyboards [Portugal based] (self.ergomechkeyboards)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by asteroid to c/ergomechkeyboards
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Hi all,

New to Lemmy, and new to ergo keyboards. I have been working (programming, writing reports, i.e. typing up to 10hrs a day) on an 13" mac over the last 8 months and I realised that was a bad idea...

I do have a great second monitor and a decent chair but I need to rebuild my workspace, potentially get a moveable desk, and most importantly I'm in the market for an ergonomic keyboard. Where do I start? I would like to go try some out in a shop but I live in Portugal and it doesn't seem a big thing here, the big tech shops just seem to have some basic models. I have already ordered one of those wrist pads.

Hope this is OK to post here, I found this forum via the deprecated ErgoMechBoards reddit. Tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers :)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] asteroid 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aw yeah, makes sense... Okay thank you - useful page!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The worst thing for me is not being able to try out boards unless a friend has one. Where I live in the US they don't have them in stores to try out either. Hopefully someone here will be able to help you out. I just jumped in and bought one many years ago and have been happy with the decision, but your mileage may vary.