[HN Gopher] Show HN: Bayleaf - Building a low-profile wireless s...
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Show HN: Bayleaf - Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard
Hey HN, I built a wireless, split, ultra-low profile keyboard from
scratch called Bayleaf. As a beginner I learned all things
electronics, PCB-building, designing for manufacturing, and many
other hardware-related skills to put this together. This case
study dives into the build process and of course the final result,
hope you enjoy!
Author : sgraz
Score : 683 points
Date : 2025-03-04 15:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.graz.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.graz.io)
| mattpavelle wrote:
| I love this. Well done. I've looked in the past for an ultra
| portable full sized keyboard (with a nice aesthetic) that I could
| throw in my pocket. I wonder if I could actually do any real work
| (not coding, of course) at a coffee shop with my iPhone in a
| stand and with a keyboard like that.
| aredox wrote:
| Nice write-up.
|
| For something so thin, your soldering woes aren't surprising. The
| standard way to manage that would have been to solder everything
| in one go on a hot plate (reflow soldering).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarizoUnRfk
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > reflow soldering
|
| one of _the_ most satisfying things to watch
| ghostly_s wrote:
| This video features the exact same technique and hot plate that
| was used here.
| sgraz wrote:
| Thank you, My first few attempts were with a SMD stencil and a
| 50x50mm hotplate, it's true that maybe a larger hotplate that
| could span the whole PCB might have done a better job. But with
| the smaller plate it was "easier" to just manually apply solder
| paste and do 4 switches at a time.
|
| I think this method is also highly specific to these switches.
| They are known for being difficult to solder with hobby-tier
| equipment.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| I just reflowed a board in a cheap cast iron pan filled with
| some sand on my induction stove. Worked fine!
| nickdichev wrote:
| Really well done! Looks great
| snide wrote:
| This is beautiful. I'm a "Let's Split" style keyboarder as well
| so this made me giddy! There's a distinct lack of solid cases out
| there for this layout style.
|
| You mention possibly mass producing the next round. Please add a
| notify email list or something. I'd be all over this.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| I think cases are the biggest issue with DIY keyboards.
|
| The plastic laminate of my ergodoxen was stiff, sturdy, and
| heavy. The exposed bolts were a little industrial. Very much
| had a DIY look.
|
| My Lily58 started out with the PCB "case" which is horrible.
| Way too flexible, and switches falling out as soon as you
| attempted to transport it. (Easy transport was my main
| motivation for the smaller keyboard.)
|
| Eventually, I was able to convince someone on Etsy to print me
| a 3d case for it. It is ok. Much better than the PCBs. However,
| switches still have a tendency to pop out when moving the
| keyboard.
|
| The case on the Bayleaf makes me wonder if other keyboards
| could do a better job with case offerings.
|
| I've always gone with wired keyboards because dealing with
| batteries seems annoying.
|
| Looking at this keyboard makes me realize that I've optimized
| for functionality but this beauty is optimized for form.
| jsheard wrote:
| 3D printed cases do vary in quality quite a bit, something
| made with a cheap consumer FDM printer won't be nearly as
| nice as a resin SLA or nylon MJF/SLS case printed on an
| industrial-grade machine and professionally finished. The
| latter processes are pretty accessible these days from
| companies like JLCPCB or PCBWay.
|
| You can even get them to 3D print metal parts with an SLM
| process, although that's on the pricier side.
| Palomides wrote:
| >do a better job with case offerings
|
| for hobby businesses like most of these weird little
| keyboards, adding $200 to the parts cost is a real stretch,
| considering their already niche appeal and limited capital
| for investment
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| Folks are already paying $200+ for these keyboards. Some
| pay $50+ for a single keycap.
| azthecx wrote:
| Quite neat result and presentation! Can you estimate what did
| your research and final product cost turn out to be?
| sgraz wrote:
| Final product, i.e only the parts and components were $400.
|
| The cost of all the tools and software I did not track but I
| would guess I invested somewhere around $1K which includes
| software licenses, shipping, new tools etc.
|
| But I find tracking the cost of research a bit impractical as
| it doesn't include indirect costs like billable hours that I
| technically could have spent on clients etc.
| nicksergeant wrote:
| I've wanted this for years. I've tried so many "ergonomic"
| mechanical keyboards, but the huge key travel (even if very soft
| switches), tends to always give me finger/wrist issues over a few
| weeks.
| nicksergeant wrote:
| >> Can I buy this keyboard? > Negative, this singular prototype
| is not for sale.
|
| :sobbing:
|
| I hope someone builds / sells this! Instant buy for me, if so.
| abound wrote:
| But then, the next question down:
|
| > Are you planning to sell this keyboard at scale?
|
| > Dependent on the reception, likely yes. But it wont be
| exactly this design. A second iteration is in the works with
| improved sound profile and ergonomics. Stay tuned.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I had all those issues too, until I remembered my high school
| typing class where the teacher would slap our wrists with a
| ruler if they were resting. Now I lift my wrists like I was
| taught, and use non-split keyboards with better results than I
| used to get with splits.
| unitexe wrote:
| To reduce mouse hand travel I got a roller mouse pro slim about
| 6 months ago. Not great for fine motor tasks but exceptional
| for other general uses. Alleviated a lot of pain in my hands
| and fingers.
|
| I use this with a small slim keychron keyboard and with a
| kinesis advantage 360.
|
| The roller seems to be getting a bit sticky after 6 months of
| heavy use and transporting it between work and home.
| Nonetheless, would get another in a heartbeat.
|
| Perhaps worth a look?
| unitexe wrote:
| I keep my Logitech MX close cause the infinite scroll is just
| too damn good. But the MX kills my hands when using for
| prolonged periods.
| jacksontheel wrote:
| Roller mice are great. I also set up my keyboard such that I
| can hold down a key and use WASD to move my mouse, with J
| being left click and K being right. That's been a game
| changer for me, too.
| lycopodiopsida wrote:
| There is always Glove80, choc switches have very little travel.
| jsheard wrote:
| Eh, Choc switches have less travel than MX switches but I
| wouldn't say they have very little travel. Chocs main selling
| point is the form factor which allows the keyboard chassis to
| be much thinner. MX switches usually have 4mm of travel, Choc
| switches have 3mm, while the PG1316S switches used in OPs
| keyboard only have 1.8mm. I think Apples current switches are
| even shallower at ~1mm.
| nicksergeant wrote:
| Yeah. The travel on the Apple Magic Keyboard, which I can't
| seem to pry myself away from, is around 1.15mm.
| jjani wrote:
| I'm convinced the Macbook keys are different from the
| Magic Keyboard (my joints say so) and have significantly
| lower travel.
| jjani wrote:
| > while the PG1316S switches used in OPs keyboard only have
| 1.8mm
|
| Do you happen to know of a resource around this topic? I'd
| love to know what the actual lowest travel switches are. In
| my experience it's the Macbook's.
| tomlong wrote:
| This looks really good. As a happy ergodox-ez user of a few
| years, I would buy one of these in a heartbeat.
| zaruvi wrote:
| Looks really nice. I do have my doubts about the ergonomics of it
| though. Once you've had a taste of concavity and column-
| staggering nothing else feels the same.
| carb wrote:
| That's how I feel about keyboard tilts away from a full
| pronation/flat and towards a neutral position. Once I switched
| to having a rotated split keyboard, my forearms and wrists felt
| incredible, and I hadn't even considered them uncomfortable
| before.
| slama wrote:
| I wonder if they could fit a simple flip-out stand for some
| tilt without too many compromises
| acc_297 wrote:
| Looks really good
| derac wrote:
| "pain grid", Freudian slip? lol
| 2wrist wrote:
| This is gorgeous! well done.
| wnolens wrote:
| It's gorgeous. Impressive execution - looks like a polished
| product from Apple.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Damn that's pretty.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Beautiful design, great execution. All-in-all this is a wonderful
| project.
|
| However... ever since transitioning to an ergonomic/curved
| keyboard I don't think that I could ever go back to a traditional
| layout, even moreso for ortholinear.
| ge96 wrote:
| I feel both ways, I use an apple wireless keyboard (flat) and a
| Durgod Hades 68 (curved mech). I don't like the felt keycaps/no
| letters on this one but yeah the build is amazing especially
| saying they're a beginner damn.
|
| edit: I'll note I prefer the 65-68% keyboards where it has the
| dedicated arrow keys
| hhheath wrote:
| sensational. well done!
|
| one feature I would really like to see is multi-device
| connectivity/switching like the Logitech MX Keys. Outside of
| that, this keyboard is my grail board. Looking forward to keeping
| up with this project!
| wucke13 wrote:
| I think ZMK (available on the Nice!Nano) does exactly that
| already?
| memhole wrote:
| Wouldn't even know it's not a professional product. Great write
| up too
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| OP, congrats on the product and effort. _NOTHING_ beats
| prototyping and building.
|
| For other split-mechanical keyboards check out:
|
| ZSA Voyager
|
| Moergo Glove 80
| w10-1 wrote:
| Also, should you prioritize ergonomics over function or form,
| the Kinesis Advantage 360 Professional
| porkloin wrote:
| Not sure if you're familiar with it, but Glove80 which the
| parent comment you were replying to is very similar to
| Kinesis boards (concave keywell, staggered columnar layout,
| etc.) but leverages a lot of the open source stuff like ZMK
| firmware that Kinesis doesn't support https://www.moergo.com/
|
| Edit: nevermind, I just learned that the advantage360 pro
| uses ZMK as well. Either way, they both seem like great
| options for people who prioritize the ergonomics over
| aesthetics :)
| okayishdefaults wrote:
| Why stop there when you could go for a Charybdis and get the
| purer form of zmk and a trackball option
| cole-k wrote:
| Yeah this is awesome.
|
| For keyboards really similar to OP's
|
| The keyboard they were inspired by (not for sale... yet?):
| https://old.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1cfg3vr/...
|
| Corneish (out of stock): https://lowprokb.ca/products/corne-
| ish-zen?variant=376943319... Unicorne:
| https://new.boardsource.xyz/products/unicorne-LP
|
| The corneish is an absolute gem in my opinion. It is possibly
| (probably?) open-sourced too.
| ValentinPearce wrote:
| The mikefive is my dream work keyboard. It's two keys extra
| from what I have currently but I know I can find something to
| do with the extra cluster keys
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| less specifically like OP's, but a really great product that I
| and a bunch of my coworkers use: the 'Ultimate Hacking
| Keyboard' 60 (typically referred to as a UHK). I have mine with
| the palmrest and the recent riser accessory, so I use it split
| and tented for less wrist/forearm tension.
| szvsw wrote:
| I have the ZSA Moonlander and absolutely love it! Definitely
| recommend it!
| tortilla wrote:
| I have the voyager and I'm really very happy with it. No wrist
| pain when I'm typing a lot.
|
| https://imgur.com/pklEZSh
|
| Ambients Silent Choc Switches (20g Linear), keycaps from
| worklouder (Pure)
| droctothorpe wrote:
| Gorgeous! How do the worklouder pures compare to the stock
| keycaps?
| tortilla wrote:
| I wasn't sure how I would like the keycaps when I ordered
| it. Hard to describe but they feel better than the stock
| keycaps (with the silent switches) and sound a little
| better when I strike the plastic keycaps. The stock keycaps
| have a slight hollow sound (if I recall correctly).
| jacksontheel wrote:
| This looks incredible, I was hoping when I clicked that it would
| be ortholinear, pleasantly surprised it is! Probably about four
| years ago I bought a ZSA Moonlander, and started learning Vim
| keybindings right at the same time. My words per minute dropped
| to 20 or something before climbing back and passing what it was
| before. I couldn't ever go back.
| gatkinso wrote:
| Beautiful work, loved reading about your process.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| Looks beautiful. Congrats. A jedi builds their own lightsaber...
|
| (Typed on a Lily58)
| seemaze wrote:
| Bravo! You have elevated a honed tool to a truly engaging
| artifact! I think the large challenge in design is mitigating the
| breaking point between ruthless efficiency and endearing novelty.
|
| I picked up a Let's Split v2[0] when it came out years ago and
| never soldered it up.. maybe it's time!
|
| [0]https://shop.beekeeb.com/product/lets-split-v2-keyboard-
| pcb-...
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Why do no split keyboards have symbols on the keycaps? What
| happens when you forget where a key is that you don't use often,
| do you just have to press keys until you find it again?
| varunneal wrote:
| to support custom key mappings, as many people with fancy
| ergonomic keyboards use
| jsheard wrote:
| Partly because they're a niche product and making legended
| keycaps is more expensive, and partially because ergo layouts
| are so varied that it's hard to accommodate everyone.
| Especially if the keycap profile has different shapes for each
| row so they're not entirely interchangeable.
|
| There are a few low-profile legended keycap sets around but
| they typically only cover the "top" layer, which is the easiest
| to remember anyway. If you want legends which show every
| function of every key you'd have to get them custom laser
| etched to match your personal keymap.
| amarant wrote:
| I have the ultimate hackers keyboard (silly name, I know)
|
| It's a really good split keyboard with symbols printed
| (optional).
|
| https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| I have two UHKs, one at work and one in my home office, and I
| got my second one with blank keycaps. It's very satisfying.
|
| At this point I'm very happy with UHK's layout and features,
| but every once in a while I wonder if a low-profile wireless
| 60% would be cool.
| Syzygies wrote:
| Their UKH 80 looks incredible.
|
| Software is as critical as hardware: The UHK supports holding
| a key down to select a different keymap layer, then using the
| other hand to tap a key in that layer. While few people learn
| many-key chording, "one finger each hand" is every bit as
| easy as ordinary typing, with practice. This supports an n^2
| expansion in effective keyboard reach. I'm surprised this
| isn't the norm for selecting Chinese/Japanese characters.
|
| The question is: How well? I'm not entirely happy with my QMK
| firmware implementation. Tap-hold is the antithesis of n-key
| rollover; one needs to learn to properly nest key-down, key-
| up events. It's easy to switch from a clarinet (cleanly cover
| holes) to a saxophone (slap pads), but hard switching back.
| And we've all learned to type like we're on a saxophone,
| relying on n-key rollover to cover many sins.
|
| I now use QMK firmware with Hasu controllers for multiple
| Leopold FC660C keyboards with Topre Silent 45g "rubber dome"
| key switches. After trying dozens of mechanical key switches,
| I found that nothing feels like a Topre switch.
|
| And here's the kicker: The physical form factor doesn't
| matter so much if your fingers rarely go far from home row,
| which is what tap/hold facilitates.
| nprateem wrote:
| > The UHK supports holding a key down to select a different
| keymap layer, then using the other hand to tap a key in
| that layer.
|
| How is that different to what QMK/ZMK offer?
| amarant wrote:
| You can modify the uhk firmware quite extensively with the
| included Agent application. I typically stick to holding a
| keys to access different layers, but you can also double
| tap them to make it stick to a new layer. I only rarely use
| that functionality myself tho.
|
| Being able to modify each button, in each layer has it's
| downsides tho: if I'm ever on a keyboard other than my own,
| I can barely type anymore!
|
| I've edited away my most common typos on my keyboard
| layout, eg the key that's normally caps lock is just
| another shift key in my keyboard, since I find only ever
| use that key by mistake.
|
| Now when I'm on another keyboard I hit it all the time,
| since I'm so used to it not being a problem
| klauserc wrote:
| You can buy ZSA split keyboards with labels on the keycaps. Its
| great while you are still learning to type on these rather
| exotic keyboards. As you get more proficient, you start to rely
| more and more on the "central" keys (using layers toggles to
| put, say arrow keys on the home row). Muscle-memory is often
| more than enough.
|
| That said, I have kept the number row labelled. These keys are
| not obscured by your hands and they can give you the necessary
| frame of reference. The ideal trade-off for me.
| nicholassmith wrote:
| When I forget where I've stashed a specific symbol or similar I
| just check the Via QMK configuration tool, similar to when
| you're trying to learn the shortcut keys for a piece of
| software. Eventually it's muscle-memory, but it's nice to have
| a reference guide whilst you're building it.
| hinkley wrote:
| When I learned Dvorak I found a tiny picture of the layout
| and stuffed it into a corner of my desktop. I didn't usually
| have to look but sometimes.
|
| I still forget where the symbols are regularly, which ends up
| evening out my typing speed versus sticking with qwerty.
| milch wrote:
| Realistically you've got about 50 or so keys and you are using
| all of them all the time, so you're not really forgetting where
| anything is. Many also customize where symbols, media keys,
| etc., are - so they are positioned where it makes most sense to
| you. Outside of maybe a 2 week learning period I haven't needed
| to look up where a key is at all
|
| The other thing is that many keys will have multiple functions
| - so what do you print on them? e.g. my j key also doubles as #
| and the down key. Some are maybe even more frequently used key
| combinations, e.g. I have a ``` and a => key
| lawn wrote:
| You can have symbols if you want.
|
| It's just kind of unnecessary when you can just learn the
| layout. It's not a big deal, I've used blank keycaps for almost
| two decades across multiple different layouts.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| All ergonomic mech keyboards running QMK/ZMK firmware are
| programmable and most users prefer their custom key/layer
| mapping over defaults.
| 1-more wrote:
| when you have so few keys, there are none that you don't use
| often. When you customize your layout, you have keys that don't
| really correspond to caps anyway, and you may want to mess
| around with their values as you get used to it. Typed from my
| Iris with key caps from an Apple Extended Keyboard II that look
| nice and don't really tell the whole story for each key they're
| on.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Just friction. All it takes is commitment to a particular
| keymap and few minutes on a laser engraver, but that commitment
| is not insignificant to builders.
| stavros wrote:
| Honestly, for mine it was because I didn't know what I wanted
| the keys to do when I was making it. It took a few months to
| settle on a layout, and even now I might still change it with
| usage.
| CountHackulus wrote:
| I have a keyboardio Model 100 and it does have symbols on it.
| Available in mac, windows, and blank iirc.
| aendruk wrote:
| > What happens when you forget where a key is
|
| I ask myself where I expected it to be, then update the
| keyboard accordingly. Eventually it doesn't happen anymore.
| GordonS wrote:
| Wow, it looks amazing!
|
| I needed an enclosure for a project recently and went with
| modifying a stock ABS enclosure - but I'd love to use machined
| aluminium! You mentioned you're in the EU - did PCBway deliver
| from the US, or from closer to home? Also, how much did the
| enclosure cost please?
| sgraz wrote:
| The PCBWay order came from China to my EU address, I wasn't
| aware they have manus in other places. For a set of two
| enclosures I paid $187 excluding shipping.
| volemo wrote:
| sgraz beat me to it! I'm working on an almost the same project
| (thin, slick, aluminium, ortholinear). Guess I'll have someone to
| look up to. (:
| sgraz wrote:
| Keep me posted! Whats your bsky/x?
| volemo wrote:
| Oh, believe me I'll contact you the moment I encounter a
| hiccup. xD
|
| I use neither. I'm @volemo@mathstodon.xyz.
| cbdumas wrote:
| Very cool. Goes well with your Ghost S1 as well I see in the
| background. I love mine, though I will say it's getting harder
| and harder to find decent 2 slot GPUs.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Ah, I was wondering if anyone else noticed the Louqe case in
| the background. Legendary sffpc case, and I agree the custom
| keyboard matches very nicely.
| sgraz wrote:
| It's a Ghost S1 Chinese copy called Acat X2
|
| https://caseend.com/data/acat/acat-x2
|
| Almost 1-1 in dimensions but with thicker panels
| nakedneuron wrote:
| What parametric CAD tool did you use? Thanks!
| sgraz wrote:
| Autodesk Fusion
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Personal opinion, but I really don't get low-profile keyboards. I
| always need a foam cushion for my palms, which means that a
| normal profile always feels best for me. Low feels too low with a
| cushion, and yet still feels too high without one.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| My take is that finger muscle are really different from person
| to person, to a degree that can be surprising.
|
| I might be at the other extreme end, but even typing on glass
| doesn't bother me much, and laptop keyboards are a good
| compromise to have just enough travel and not too much.
|
| I tried a nuphy low profile and it was tiring after a while.
| The thinkpad standalone trackpoint keyboard has been my go to
| for a while, and tgis keyboard also looks great to me.
| hinkley wrote:
| Squishy keyboards make the tendons on the backs of my hand
| burn after a while. After Apple stopped producing their wired
| keyboard, which I used for everything, I bought a bunch of
| surplus ones and burned through them. I tried a few
| knockoffs, several of which were close, and now I'm on the
| wireless ones.
|
| I was surprised as anyone when an Apple keyboard became my
| gaming keyboard.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Another opinion:
|
| I want this keyboard to put on a bookshelf and never use, haha.
| It is really nice looking. It sounds like it was an incredible
| learning experience and making something so polished and
| professional looking is a real accomplishment. But low profile,
| no pads, ortho layout, and no tenting... my eyes ache for the
| beauty of the thing but my hands just ache.
|
| But anyway, ergonomics are personal so I can't really judge.
| volemo wrote:
| > ...low profile, no pads, ortho layout, and no tenting...
|
| I agree with the tenting remark, I can understand the
| preference against low profile, but I sincerely believe
| ortholinear is way better for one's hands than staggered.
| Maybe you mean it's a shame it's not columnar?
|
| > ...ergonomics are personal...
|
| Hear, hear!
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I agree. It looks like with this it would be near impossible to
| press the lower left/right keys with my palm, which is
| something that helps take the load off my pinkies. It does look
| like a fun project though.
| volemo wrote:
| Sorry for uninvited advice, but you really shouldn't be using
| the keys in the corners for common actions (so common that
| you have a need to take the load off you pinkies). Utilise
| the CapsLock [1, 2]. (This key is so misbalanced in terms of
| prime key estate to utility ratio!) Better yet, try using
| home row modifiers [3].
|
| [1]: https://wiki.c2.com/?RemapCapsLock
|
| [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/1442ads/mapping_ca
| pslo...
|
| [3]: https://mattgemmell.scot/home-row-mods/
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Mostly the offenders are enter and -=[];'./_+{}:">?. My
| solution was to move \\)}>][<({/ to the center (two new
| columns between G and H) and then to move enter and " to
| the corners for palm pressing--this is all at the "symbol"
| layer which I activate by holding the keys where my thumbs
| go. I rather like it: https://configure.zsa.io/planck-
| ez/layouts/RgRVl/latest/1
|
| So I guess that means that the position formerly occupied
| by caps lock is now... 'a'? I haven't bothered to configure
| a caps lock. Haven't needed it.
|
| Bonus, this is all handled in the keyboard firmware so I
| don't have to bother reconfiguring the OS. I just plug in
| the keyboard wherever and I'm all set.
|
| So while I like your advice... I may be too far gone to
| take it. I can still type on a normal keyboard with their
| silly staggered rows to prevent typewriter jams, but I
| don't think I'll ever go back to feeling like it's a good
| idea to do so.
| volemo wrote:
| TBF, I strayed quite far from "normal" keyboard as well
| [1]: I use a 36 key split (15+3 for each hand); Dvorak
| layout; all special symbols are on L2; return, escape,
| tab, and space are on the thumb clusters (along with
| backspace and language switcher); modifiers are on the
| home row. All this ensures no finger ever has to travel
| more than one key away from its resting position. I'm
| quite happy with this setup and am working on a thinner
| and more polished version of my keyboard. To each their
| own, I guess.
|
| [1]: Writing the GP comment I was cautious not to be that
| rando who goes "you're doing it all wrong! you gotta
| reconfigure your whole system and your brain!" to a
| stranger, so I limited myself to the, IMHO, bare minimum
| advice. ;)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I like the look of those minimal split setups. I'm
| currently using a planck half the time and an ergodox the
| other half. But because my brain has moved into the
| planck, more than 50% of the keys on the ergodox are just
| gathering dust.
|
| My next step on this path, if I ever take it, probably
| resembles your setup. If/when I take it, I'll explore the
| modifiers on home row approach, it does sound nice :)
| exitb wrote:
| It really depends on personal preferences. I find it best to
| hover the wrists while typing and rest while idle. In such case
| no palm rest paired with reasonably low profile works best.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I know what you mean, but there's also a big difference between
| _key_ height and _keyboard_ height.
|
| There's also a common misconception that it's ergonomic to
| angle a keyboard "upward" (elevating the back of the keyboard),
| when correct ergonomics is actually to angle the keyboard
| _downwards_ (elevate the front).
|
| See if you have a long object a little shorter than your foam
| cushion that you can scotch tape to the bottom of the front of
| a low-profile Apple keyboard, so that you still use the foam
| cushion but the front of the keyboard is at the same level as
| the cushion, and then angles downwards.
|
| And then you get the advantages of the short key travel, which
| just means your fingers move less and so there's less
| force/strain.
|
| You may find it shockingly comfortable!
| luqtas wrote:
| keyboard upward or downward angulation depends on your wrist
| support, arm position/chair height... what's optimal and
| generic to suggest because how our upper extremity muscles
| are, (at least for mouse but i think it can work for
| keyboards too) [0] is having it sides angled from 20deg up to
| 30deg, subjective exprience also plays a role
|
| you can easily find MX switches that have equal or +- 0.5mm
| travel lenght as low-profiles ones... which considering how
| thin PCB (and even handwired) flat keyboards are, i can't see
| the point unless you are supporting your arms in the same
| table your keyboard is! i rather have my arms floating so i
| can use shoulder and elbow movement for distant keys other
| than wrist movements but who cares :P
|
| [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00
| 036...
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _keyboard upward or downward angulation depends on..._
|
| It doesn't. But to clarify: it should always be downwards
| _relative to your forearm_. And your forearm should be
| generally be about horizontal (or a little bit downwards is
| OK too).
|
| A keyboard that is angled upwards puts constant strain on
| the top of your wrist. There are no circumstances where
| this is a good thing (assuming you don't have
| injury/disability that requires other accommodations).
|
| Also, your link is about mice not keyboards, and about
| angling mice _sideways_. It has no relevance to angling
| keyboards _up /down_. (But yes, "vertical" mice, that are
| angled in reality, are much better too.)
| luqtas wrote:
| various resources from universities recommend having your
| forearm angled between 90-120deg, which if it's > 90deg,
| an front angulation doesn't make sense at all... [0]
|
| > Also, your link is about mice not keyboards, and about
| angling mice sideways
|
| the author points out another research, i should have
| linked it instead of that one [1]... but it's about the
| ideal slanted angle considering how our muscles are
| structured; the author even cites that suggestions as
| something not taking relative preferences, which is
| totally fair as some people may use their computers for a
| short time in very awkward positions and that's fine
|
| [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii
| /S10506...
|
| [1] yet about mouse but please take your time to read
| what's was typed in the paper regarding the slant angle
| suggestion -- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic
| le/abs/pii/S02680...
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _recommend having your forearm angled between
| 90-120deg_
|
| That's what I said ("your forearm should be generally be
| about horizontal (or a little bit downwards is OK too)").
| Never upward.
|
| > _which if it 's > 90deg, an front angulation doesn't
| make sense at all._
|
| If you want a 10deg downwards angle on the keyboard
| relative to your forearm and your forearm is 5deg
| upwards, then your keyboard _still_ needs 5deg downward
| relative to your desk. If your desk is so high that your
| forearms are angled up 20deg from the horizontal, then
| something is _extremely_ wrong with your chair /desk
| height.
|
| And your first link supports exactly what I wrote:
|
| > _The natural position of your hands with respect to the
| relative vertical position at the wrist is along the
| plane or below it (i.e. you want the tips of your fingers
| to be at the same height as your wrist or preferably
| slightly lower). When your hand rises above this plane
| (making the hand signal for 'STOP'), this is called
| dorsiflexion or wrist extension. This greatly reduces
| blood flow through the wrist and can quickly cause pain,
| fatigue and numbness. Most keyboards have a 'foot'
| located at the back of the keyboard which is not
| desirable as it creates a positively inclined keyboarding
| surface. Many articulating arms offer the option of a
| negative inclination, which will make the entire work
| surface slope away from you, ensuring that your hands are
| not 'bent' upward at the wrist._
|
| And I don't know why you've added another link about
| sideways mouse slant. That has nothing to do with up-down
| keyboard/arm angle. If there's some relevant sentence in
| it, please quote it, because I can find nothing relevant
| in the publicly available text.
|
| You ask me to "please take your time to read" -- I
| suggest you take the time to re-read your own first link.
| It makes clear there is _no_ situation where a keyboard
| angled upwards (the back of the keyboard elevated) is
| good ergonomics -- exactly what I said.
| luqtas wrote:
| you are right, i always considered the front of the
| keyboard what you considered the back, sorry for this
| (and by the way, i changed the link to a more generic one
| citing the variation of 90deg -> 120deg i typed of one
| easily finding by surfing the internet)
|
| on the 2deg paper, > Among the five tested mice, the
| 25deg or 30deg slanted mice caused lower muscle activity
| and more neutral working postures for ECU, Trap and PT
| muscles.
|
| these muscles are also used during keyboard usage. slant
| angle is always suggested on ergonomic research, as our
| arms muscles are tensioned/twisted when using a flat
| keyboard/mouse... you can easily find research pointing
| slant angle on ergonomic keyboards but the research i
| pointed out is interesting as the author actually studied
| which is the optimal angle based on our anatomy (there's
| tension/forces on greater slant angles to maintain the
| posture, as there aren't surfaces to support our hand)
| and not on individual preference
| crazygringo wrote:
| No worries! Just trying to save people from wrist pain.
| :)
|
| And yes -- slanting the keyboard that way is usually
| called keyboard _tenting_. Also highly recommended, but
| difficult to implement in practice because it requires an
| even lower base for the keyboard, and there aren 't many
| good accessories out there for it, sadly...
|
| I'm still waiting for someone to sell a cheap kit for
| angling keyboards downwards _and_ implementing tenting.
| It 's kind of complex to do both at once...
| jjani wrote:
| I'd love an accessory that makes a keyboard completely
| flush with the surface it's on. I get this is hard
| because dimensions are different for each keyboard, but
| something that e.g. a Macbook fits into would be nice,
| given its standard size. Everyone's different but for me
| personally, I feel that would be a big ergonomic benefit.
| Supported by the fact that my current winner is the one
| coming closest to this ideal, being extremely low, maybe
| ~0.4cm from the surface.
|
| Been toying with the idea of getting something
| 3d-printed, basically something just as high as a
| Macbook, that you can attach to the front of it, giving a
| flush surface. Even better would be carving a Macbook-
| bottom-shaped or external keyboard-shaped "recess" into a
| table to place it into.
|
| Ever seen or heard of anything like this?
| yencabulator wrote:
| Ergodox has a design where the keyboard can sit on 3
| adjustable legs, and you can get both a downward angle
| and tenting out of that.
|
| The downside is that you really need to get your desk way
| low for your arms to naturally "droop" down over that. I
| have a motorized sit-stand desk I bought specifically
| after comparing specs on how low the desk surface can go,
| and the position that's low enough while seated is
| basically as low as my knees will let it go. A separate
| keyboard tray would be great but they rarely have room
| for the footprint and height of a tented keyboard with a
| touchpad in the middle.
|
| Standing up, it's a lot easier to find a good height.
|
| https://ergodox-ez.com/
| crazygringo wrote:
| Those legs look amazing.
|
| I want to be able to buy them as an adhesive add-on for
| any (split) keyboard!
| yencabulator wrote:
| I don't think glue will hold them well enough. There's a
| metal thread in the keyboard for a reason. The angle is
| adjustable and tightening the nut locks the foot at that
| angle.
| jwr wrote:
| Correct. So many people get this wrong, and there are so
| many misconceptions around, that there is actual market
| pressure to deliver upwards-tilting keyboards and wrist
| pads.
|
| If you want to get your keyboard and desk ergonomics
| correct, look at pianists. They have it nailed down.
| Elbows at right angle, no wrist supports, sitting
| straight. And guess what, the piano keyboards are not
| upwards-tilting! Unfortunately, most of our desks are too
| high relative to the chairs we sit in.
| lsaferite wrote:
| As a low-profile keyboard zealot, I'm trying to imagine why
| you'd need a foam pad under your palm. But maybe I'm odd. My
| entire forearm rests on my desk and supports my arm weight so
| nothing is pushing down on my hands. Then my hands flow
| directly over the LP keyboard without any appreciable bend in
| my wrist.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I like low-profile in theory, but in practices there's so many
| high quality mx profile switches, and everything in low-profile
| land seems a bit substandard. I can't go back to unlubed
| linears, or scratchy brown clones.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| I've tried numerous keyboards and the conclusion I've come to
| is that there's low profile and then there's _low_ profile. The
| bulk of the low profiles I 've tried (NuPhy, Keychron K8, the
| mechanical Logitech, a few others) are definitely low profile
| compared to the Logitech Pro X TKL I use for my gaming PC.
| However, they're still tall. Most of the gains are from a
| shorter switch and keycap, but the body is still quite high.
|
| If you compare it to the Apple Magic Keyboard I'm typing on now
| - and that seems like a definite inspiration for the Bayleaf -
| it's a stark contrast. The K3, for example, is more than twice
| as tall (10.9mm vs 22mm backrow). The Magic Keyboard feels fine
| to type on without any sort of wrist support and I never feel
| any strain. But on the K3, even with a support (tried both
| their wooden support and a similarly sized foam one), I would
| feel strain after an hour or two.
|
| Most low-profiles are really just a middle ground between the
| two sides. And, at least in my experience, you get the
| downsides of both without any of the positives of either.
| klauserc wrote:
| Fantastically beautiful keyboard!
|
| Keyboards are such a good hobby project. The scope is
| comparatively small, yet within that scope you get in contact
| with many different and highly interesting subjects and
| challenges. And you can more or less pick and choose, which ones
| you engage with (wireless vs wired, soldering vs hand-wired,
| custom firmware vs. ZMK/QMK, split vs. traditional).
| EWiggins wrote:
| Curious about the model of the monitor arm seen in the
| background?
| sgraz wrote:
| Humanscale M8.1
| mouse_ wrote:
| Sans stagger sans ergonomics is a tough sell.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Looks like something I would pay $150 for, or $120 if I had to
| assemble it myself.
| asoneth wrote:
| > Looks like something I would pay $150 for
|
| That's useful market information, but note that in the "How
| much did it cost?" section he points out that the BOM is ~$400
| not including labor, tools, or shipping. Going from extremely
| low-volume to moderately low-volume might reduce material cost
| slightly, but I'd still expect him to have to charge at least
| $400 just to break even.
|
| More generally, I've never seen a low-volume split wireless
| keyboard for less than $200 and the closest in design I can
| think of would be https://lowprokb.ca/products/corne-ish-zen
| which had a base price of $320 _before_ pricing in keyswitches
| or keycaps.
|
| It's totally reasonable that this is your price point and
| everyone is different -- some people would never pay more than
| a hundred bucks for a keyboard, whereas I have a couple
| keyboards that are more expensive than the computers they're
| connected to.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I am also a keyboard snob, and have far more expensive
| keyboards. Mass manufacturing drastically lowers costs, and a
| price point goal is super useful for group buys, which I have
| run before. It is useful data.
|
| I'm also talking about PCB + case only. The case is the
| biggest cost driver here, a simple FRT plate case would make
| my kit price reasonable with a healthy margin
| geokon wrote:
| First time seeing a low profile keyboard on par with a magic
| keyboard. Actually would fit in a bag :)
|
| Usually "low profile" is used generously in mechanical keyboard
| land
| jacobevelyn wrote:
| This is the keyboard I've been hoping Apple would make for years!
| I've currently got a UHK 60 but would probably switch to this if
| I could buy it. Especially if it had the standard Apple keyboard
| layout so my fingers don't need to relearn things like arrow keys
| and cmd like when I switch between the UHK and MacBook keyboard.
| SJMG wrote:
| Yes. Agreed.
| nextos wrote:
| Me too. Low-profile is nicer to joints in the long run, and
| also makes me type faster due to low-travel switches. Bonus
| points if it has a little bit of negative tilt.
|
| In this regard, I found Microsoft Sculpt really good because it
| ticked all ergonomic boxes but it didn't require relearning.
| However, quality was a bit subpar, it didn't offer a wired
| option, and it has been discontinued. The entire lineup was
| actually sold to Incase, who are releasing it again soon.
| kalium-xyz wrote:
| I have had 3 of which 1 has bricked itself.
| jjani wrote:
| > Low-profile is nicer to joints in the long run
|
| Very much so. I went through 10+ keyboards before finding one
| that I could type on for a day without aching joints. The
| only one that passed (which I'm typing this comment on), was
| the lowest out of all of them. Cheap Aliexpress keyboard, but
| it's maybe 4mm from table to keyboard. For those in a similar
| situation that want to try it, it's this one [1]. Definitely
| not "high quality", but saved me from inability to type.
|
| Question for the keyboard-knowledgeable: it claims in this
| picture [2] to use scissor keys but the picture of its
| insides are pretty meaningless to me. Does their claim look
| to hold up?
|
| [1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006265944802.html
|
| [2] https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sf4d150eda2c4441490535d5f17ebf
| bfc...
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I loved th MS Sculpt (the "75%" one, with a layout similar to
| a laptop, only split). It started randomly failing for some
| reason, the only keyboard I've ever had to fail...
|
| But I don't think that being low-profile was what was nice on
| the joints with that keyboard, but rather the presence of the
| palm rest which didn't force the wrists to bend upwards.
|
| I now type on a "gaming" keyboard with full-size cherry
| switches, which is quite thick, and I don't have any wrist
| pain. Some 12 years ago, I used to have an Apple keyboard
| which was hell on my wrists, despite being quite low profile.
| The Apple didn't have a palm rest, the mech one does.
|
| As to your typing speed remark, I suppose you already know
| that you don't have to bottom out your keys. I find I type
| faster on my mechanical keyboard than on laptops, and it's
| also easier on my fingers since there's no shock from
| bottoming out. It takes a while to get used to not press the
| keys all the way, but it's a much more pleasant experience.
| It's also quieter than the random HP domed keyboards we have
| at work or any laptop.
| someothherguyy wrote:
| > Low-profile is nicer to joints in the long run
|
| I think low profile is worse on joints in the long run. It
| probably isn't a universal truth.
| roflchoppa wrote:
| I really just want a wireless 60v2. Been debating trying to
| make a new PCB that uses a nice!nano.
|
| I'm sure the devils in the details.
| robenkleene wrote:
| For folks looking for something similar that you can buy
| https://hellonuio.com/
| jacobevelyn wrote:
| Ooh thank you for the tip!
| regularfry wrote:
| The unsung hero here is probably the nice!nano. Such a good
| little board. I've made my own split keyboard around them and it
| just makes so many things I thought I'd have to think about Go
| Away.
| jsheard wrote:
| The nice!nano gets the job done but it's _really_ expensive for
| what 's ultimately just an nRF52 dev board in the ubiquitous
| Pro Micro form factor. They're $25 a pop and you need two for a
| split board, while you can get generic nRF52 Pro Micros on
| AliExpress for about $3.50 each.
|
| It's the same story with RP2040 Pro Micros for wired QMK
| builds, there's a huge "keyboard tax" if you get the ones
| marketed for that purpose.
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| I'm not sure why the 'pro micro' format is so popular. If you
| are already designing a PCB, why not plop an Atmega32u2 on it
| directly (assuming you dont need wireless)? You only need a
| crystal, two resistors, four caps and a usb connector.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's just easier for people with less soldering experience,
| all the tricky SMD parts are already installed for you.
| Especially now that QMK has shifted from AVR to more
| powerful and readily available ARM chips like the RP2040,
| which are often only available in packages that are
| difficult to hand-solder. Plus designing a keyboard around
| the Pro Micro means you can use the same PCB for wired and
| wireless builds.
| regularfry wrote:
| It's more a convenience tax. The nano also has battery
| management onboard, which is one less thing to think about.
| But really at that price difference picking the nano over the
| bare pro micro has to save me less than an hour of design
| time and it's already paid for itself if I'm just building a
| keyboard for myself. If I was looking to manufacture
| something at any more than "it's just for me" scale it would
| be a different story but it's extremely well targeted at its
| niche.
| jsheard wrote:
| Pretty much every nRF dev board has battery management
| built-in, including the $3 AliExpress ones. The chip is
| meant for ultra-low-power applications so including battery
| management is a no brainer.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Unlike the author, I consider wireless to be a dealbreaker.
| Technology barely works, no way I am letting radio quality stand
| between me and the computer. Same reason I require a wired
| microphone.
|
| Also add the atrocious security record of HID, and I assume
| wireless typing is easily intercepted.
| roetlich wrote:
| Looks awesome! This with a small carrying case would be amazing.
| Maybe the space next to the keys could be a kind of small touch
| pad used for scrolling?
| w10-1 wrote:
| For next iteration, consider integrating trackpads?
|
| Moving to the mouse and back is pain enough that people go all-in
| on keyboard-only interfaces.
|
| I velcroed a trackpad to the middle of a Kinesis Advantage. Now I
| use either hand for the mouse, and even stretch a finger or thumb
| to the pad without leaving the keys. The movement is little
| different from using the keyboard.
|
| But for split keyboard, you'd need one trackpad for each side,
| and in dimensions not readily available. hmm.
| JeremyBarbosa wrote:
| So happy to read this because I don't see it mentioned often
| enough.
|
| I have a ErgoDox EZ, and I still prefer using my Framework 13
| (with Kanata![0]) because having my thumbs navigate the
| trackpad is so convenient even with a keyboard-driven setup.
|
| [0] https://github.com/jtroo/kanata
| yencabulator wrote:
| I have a touchpad in between the halves of my Ergodox EZ.
| It's not exactly as easy to reach as a laptop touchpad, but
| it's worlds better than moving your shoulder to reach a
| mouse.
| mkl wrote:
| I put a trackball (Kensington Expert Mouse) in between the
| keyboard halves. With tenting it can nestle in quite close.
| jazzabeanie wrote:
| I want a trackpads integrated into the keys. Under the J key a
| trackpad with low sensitifity, and under the K key a trackpad
| with high sensitivity.
| wyre wrote:
| Brilliant! Use modifier keys with your left hand for either
| key entry or mouse click?
| sgraz wrote:
| Definitely looking into adding trackpad/trackpoint/touchpad(?)
| into the V2. And finding a way to do so without sacrificing the
| minimalist look and feel too much.
| flyingpenguin wrote:
| I have been working on a very similar build.
|
| One feature I decided was a requirement is holding me up. I
| really want pogo pins on the sides of the keyboards, so that they
| magnetically attach and the left will charge the right.
|
| How do you charge the left and the right since they require
| separate cables?
| bb88 wrote:
| That doesn't seem to hard to do. They sell the connectors on
| amazon.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Connector-Positions-Pogopin-...
|
| Each battery should probably have their own charging circuit
| anyway. So the pogo pins should be 5V and ground coming
| directly from the USB 5V line.
| nashashmi wrote:
| My niche idea: Being a CAD user with one hand on the mouse and
| the other on a one-handed keyboard would be a charm.
| volemo wrote:
| Could you share the name of the battery you used?
| sgraz wrote:
| Li-Po 401235
| volemo wrote:
| Hmm, 150 mAh? How long does it last for in real use? Do you
| have to charge the keyboard often?
| shawnz wrote:
| Aside: What's that mouse pictured in the second pic?
| Kovah wrote:
| Would like to know that as well. At least GPT doesn't recognize
| it. Maybe it's a custom build, too?
| rmnwski wrote:
| Was wondering this as well. Looks a bit like a Logitech MX 3.
| Hard to find pictures from the same angle.
| sgraz wrote:
| Correct, it's MX Master 3S in gray
| goodpoint wrote:
| That's really not ergonomic.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Why do you think that? Split keyboards are considerably more
| ergonomic than regular keyboards.
| HHalvi wrote:
| Ever since I saw this video[1] by Dave2D I have felt the need to
| move away from my regular mechanical keyboards to Ortholinear
| keyboards. Non split keyboards seemed too much of a hassle and
| Bayleaf looks like something I can totally switch to. If only
| someone built a DIY kit that I could buy off shelves.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVfB_0s470I
| doubleyou wrote:
| Looking forward to stagger/more thumbs in the next one! magnet
| batteries also sound very cool. and if they could sandwich
| eachother protectively for packing/traveling wow
| Executor wrote:
| Criticism: - Non-standard layout - Where's the arrow keys block?
| Insert/delete/home/end/pgup/pgdown block? - Non-staggered keys
| makes it hard to type due to mistyping on the wrong row
|
| Questions: - Do you have nkey rollover? - Would you accept
| "optional" wires? Note: gaming requires fast response times. Hell
| even programming/writing sucks when there's key lag.
| striking wrote:
| I actually don't think I'll be going back to a staggered
| keyboard. Ortholinear layouts make setting up layers a lot
| easier, which gives you the ability to set up momentary arrow
| key or cursor movement blocks.
|
| ZMK supports N-key rollover and layers.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I mean, if you're going to design and build a keyboard only for
| yourself all from scratch, why would you expect a standard
| layout? The whole thing is bespoke to you.
| 6SixTy wrote:
| Ortholinear is a standard but non-orthodox layout for
| keyboards. And when you see 60%, it means you are getting only
| the main alphanumeric section with esc often smushed into what
| would otherwise be the ~/` key.
|
| With 60% keyboards, you are often using modifier layers baked
| into the keyboards' firmware to get back your function keys and
| your control block like page up
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| > Where's the arrow keys block?
| Insert/delete/home/end/pgup/pgdown block?
|
| In the nav layer. One popular layout of split keyboards is two
| 3x5 grids of keys with 3 thumb buttons. With this
| configuration, it is common to map modifier keys to the home
| row keys, activated when they are held down. Likewise, for
| numbers, symbols, navigation, a thumb key is held down to
| activate that layer. Your fingers never have to stretch more
| than one key-length away.
|
| Miryoku is a popular implmentation of this. It looks crazy, but
| you can get used to it really quickly, or alter it to your own
| taste.
|
| https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I get the idea, but how comfortable is it for shortcuts
| requiring multiple modifiers?
| ValentinPearce wrote:
| I have a 34 key split and it's decently comfortable. I have
| my mods mirrored on both halves so depending on the non-mod
| key of the shortcut I use the opposing hand for mods.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The trade off you make with these keyboards is that you have to
| learn a different muscle memory, in return for less finger
| contortions, more comfort, and less hand waving around the
| keyboard.
|
| If that's not appealing to you, there's probably no reason to
| get into it. If it is appealing to you to live mostly on your
| homerow, then the learning curve is not all that great, maybe a
| couple of months.
| hinkley wrote:
| The part of my brain that never stopped playing Tetris notices
| that if you had striped the color variations left to right
| instead of top to bottom you'd have a more uniform color
| variation. And if you's put half the dark and half the light on
| each side then the gradient would look more purposeful.
|
| But you also probably should have printed 2x as many keys and
| split them up for making two copies.
| sgraz wrote:
| Keen eye, initially I did sort the right split from left-to-
| right. But also over time the fat from the fingers affected the
| color as well, so I figured it's a loosing battle anyway. I'm
| waiting for a white colored MJF print, which should eliminate
| these color woes once I figure out the proper dimensions.
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm really good at helping pack vehicles for moves. My kid
| got to take three extra boxes and the driver got use of the
| rear view mirror back because I repacked the car.
|
| So you need some sort of sealant on the keys? Or maybe just a
| flame polish?
| sgraz wrote:
| Sealant is not a bad shout once I find the perfect
| switch<>cap fit. This elusive tolerance gap has been my
| moby dick moment for some time. (So when I get around to
| buy a resin printer)
| jabart wrote:
| First it looks amazing. Honest question, why do all of these
| keyboards never have an extra column on the right. Standard
| querty layout has a lot of coding related extra keys to the right
| than the left. Similar with the ergodox ez and moonlander. Hard
| to break a years long habit of going up for a curly brace or
| bracket then down.
| azthecx wrote:
| It really tends to be because the philosophy of homerow /
| economy of movement is quite high on the split / ergo keyboard
| communities, combined with the ease of creating temporary
| layers (imagine you had multiple programmable shift buttons).
| jjcm wrote:
| Beautiful build, and very close to my dream keyboard. Excited to
| see the v2 of this.
|
| Great writeup as well - thanks for sharing!
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It's a very impressive accomplishment. Nice job and you should be
| proud.
|
| My main reaction when seeing this was "this is not for me." In
| terms of the layout, no labels, etc. I'm actually surprised to
| see how many people seemingly have no problem with this.
| aylmao wrote:
| The grid layout makes this look so futuristic (and anime [1]). It
| looks very cool, though I wonder how long it'd take to get used
| to one, having only ever typed on staggered layouts.
|
| [1] https://gifer.com/es/BFCV
| squigz wrote:
| I was taught to touch-type on a standard QWERTY keyboard at a
| very young age. I picked up an Ergodox EZ after nearly 20 years
| of that. It unfortunately took me at least a couple years
| before I was 100% again - probably 6 months to a year to get
| "used" to it and not mistype keys regularly.
|
| They're worth it though!
| isaacaggrey wrote:
| I think other commenters are overstating the change from
| staggered to columnar. I type just fine (100 WPM+) going
| between my Moonlander (split keyboard from ZSA) and my
| Lenovo/Macbook (typical staggered layouts).
|
| In hindsight, the biggest issue I ran into switching keyboards
| was that I was too ambitious playing around with the key
| configuration. The configurability is a big draw but I took for
| granted that I had already built up years of natural tendency
| for certain things - which thumb I use for space, preferences
| for Ctrl/Alt/Command/Option, for Shift, etc.
|
| The default for these keyboards probably don't 100% align with
| what you're used to, so you should directly map what you're
| doing currently over to the keymap of the keyboard and then you
| can fiddle with making it yours over time.
|
| I will say that if you're not already a touch typer, then a
| split keyboard is not going to help and it will be more
| difficult to get used to.
|
| edit: also, if anything, going columnar _helped_ me actually
| consistently hit number keys!
| ciberado wrote:
| tl;dr: don't be afraid of trying it.
|
| In my case, going from a regular keyboard to a split one like
| he Raise[1] took me 10 minutes of adaption time. My second
| split one was (is) a columnar (the Defy[2]), and I must confess
| that the adaption time was something like three days. Mostly
| because I kept failing to correctly push a few keys (like the
| C). Now I can indistinctly work with a columnar or a stagged
| one with zero problem. In fact, I usually use both types many
| days.
|
| That said, I thought that the change would make me feel more
| comfortable, but to be honest in my case the difference is not
| big at all.
|
| [1] https://dygma.com/pages/dygma-raise-2
|
| [2] https://dygma.com/pages/defy
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Took a few weeks to get used to, but I love it now (Planck),
| and I'm just as fast, if not a bit faster, than on my laptop
| keyboard. It's also much easier for me to use my right small
| finger to hit P than it is on a "normal" keyboard.
| milch wrote:
| I went from only using my MacBook's builtin keyboard to using a
| Lily58 split keyboard and it took probably about 2 weeks to
| fully adjust. I started out at around 100-110 wpm on the
| standard keyboard. On the first day of the split I was doing
| about 20-30 wpm, after a week I was up to 60 wpm, and then
| 80wpm after 2 weeks. Kept improving more slowly after that. I
| did switch cold turkey, i.e. using it 100% of the time
| including at work.
|
| Now I'm about a year and a half later and am up to 140wpm. I
| think the biggest problem for me on the standard keyboard is
| the bottom row index fingers and pinkies, the "natural" motion
| of my fingers lands right in between the two keys on those
| fingers so I used to make a lot of mistakes there, especially
| when typing fast.
| numbers wrote:
| wow! the design is so simple. if you were selling this, I would
| be throwing my money at you right now!!
| tquinn wrote:
| My ideal keyboard would be taking a Magic keyboard (in black or
| space gray) and splitting it into two. This is the closest I have
| seen. I'm too committed to a standard layout to go ortho linear
| at this point, but I admit it looks the most sleek and modern for
| sure.
| K7PJP wrote:
| > My ideal keyboard would be taking a Magic keyboard (in black
| or space gray) and splitting it into two.
|
| Me, too. I feel there's a lot of us who want precisely this. I
| want every key that's on the Magic Keyboard. I already have a
| number of other Karabiner bindings, like the Hyper key, so I'm
| adding "layers" that way.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I always wanted Apple to make a split keyboard.
|
| Then I realized I could just buy two Magic Keyboards and use them
| at the same time -- typing on the left half of the left one, and
| the right half of the right one.
|
| After all, the proper ergonomic position is for your forearms to
| be parallel (not angled inward), which means the keyboard halves
| you're using should be approximately shoulder-width apart, so
| there's _tons_ of room to use both without them colliding.
|
| Once I figured it out, I felt like an idiot for not figuring it
| out a decade earlier. I'm never going back.
| Luc wrote:
| Can you use modifier keys spanning the two keyboards? E.g.
| shift on the left, and a letter on the right to type a capital?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yup. Though I think I may have had to install (free)
| Karabiner to enable that:
|
| https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/
|
| So I'll e.g. page down by holding Fn on the left keyboard and
| down arrow on the right.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I knew I shouldn't have opened HN this morning. I just scraped
| 3 hours off my morning trying to get this to work but my typing
| accuracy took an absolute nosedive.
| ddanieltan wrote:
| I don't know the price of a magic keyboard off the top of my
| head but I'm inclined to think that you could get a really good
| premium split keyboard for the price of buying 2 magic
| keyboards.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It's the opposite.
|
| Magic keyboards are $100 new. Or $30-40 on eBay used.
|
| Split keyboards are more. They're niche so they're more
| expensive.
| sgraz wrote:
| This is such a chaotic solution, I love it.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Typical Amsterdam street
| ddejohn wrote:
| The link when you mention Mikefive's post only goes to the
| subreddit, not a specific post. Searching for "Mikefive" on
| reddit yielded a lot of results. I'd love to see the specific
| post you were referring to.
|
| Beautiful keyboard.
|
| Sent from my Allium58 Low Profile :D
| nacs wrote:
| It's this one
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1cfg3vr/...
| donio wrote:
| Do the two sides communicate with each other or do they act as
| independent devices?
| jsheard wrote:
| With the ZMK firmware they're using the sides usually
| communicate with each other. You have a "primary" side which
| does most of the firmware heavy lifting, including the
| Bluetooth connection to the PC, and a "peripheral" side which
| just sends raw key codes to the primary.
|
| That arrangement means the peripheral side gets significantly
| better battery life than the primary, so ZMK also has an
| optional "dongle" mode where you connect a _third_ ZMK device
| directly to the PC over USB, which acts as the primary, and
| then both sides of the keyboard act as peripherals so they both
| sip power.
|
| As a bonus the dongle mode also means the PC sees it as a wired
| keyboard so it works in the BIOS, etc.
| maltalex wrote:
| Nice work, very impressive! What software did you use to create
| the design? Any recommendations for CAD and PCB design newbies?
| sgraz wrote:
| CAD for the case and keycaps was Fusion360 (Paid version to
| have Configurations which are clutch)
|
| And the following subs were great for general CAD/Electronic
| knowledge
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/@Fusion360School *
| https://www.youtube.com/@adafruit *
| https://www.youtube.com/@Borgedesigns *
| https://www.youtube.com/@TheFusionEssentials *
| https://www.youtube.com/@joe_scotto
| halayli wrote:
| Great work! Maybe in the next iteration try adding a lite haptic
| tracking device(or similar) on the inner sides.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| Not my kind of keyboard style but damn this looks nice
| elromulous wrote:
| "Sans stagger -- I'm not against stagger, I just love the neat
| look of a _pain_ rectangle. " [sic]
|
| What an apt typo :)
| speff wrote:
| Pain indeed. I tried an ortho layout a few weeks ago on a split
| Corne and developed really bad wrist pain. No idea why, but it
| went away after reverting to a stagger and giving that hand a
| break
| jackpeterfletch wrote:
| I'm personally not convinced by the theory of ortho.
|
| It seems to stem from the idea that stagger is a hangover
| from the typewriter, in which it was required to make room
| for the mechanics, and that if we didn't need to make them
| like that, we wouldn't have.
|
| Hence the keys should be lined up so your fingers just move
| up and down.
|
| However I think this has 2 problems.
|
| 1) Most ortho keyboards have 5 columns for 4 fingers.
|
| 2) In stagger I use different fingers to strike the same
| letter dependent on what the preceding letter was, so that I
| almost never use the same finger twice in a row. You can't do
| this in ortho if the 2 letters are in the same column,
| leading to more repeated strikes from the same finger.
|
| Which I would expect is both slower and more straining.
|
| But maybe my technique is weird, or haven't given the ortho
| enough time.
|
| (if you like ortho, good for you, not trying to spoil your
| fun, just musing)
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| If you think about regular keyboard stagger though, your
| fingers are always going towards the top left. It's not
| uniform.
|
| So if this sort of stagger is good, do we want top left
| stagger on one side, and top right stagger on the other?
| 3np wrote:
| Vertical stagger is where it's at. Shifting key height per
| column put keeping columns straight.
|
| The comfortable level of stagger is individual. I just
| can't with ortho but I guess it's a good fit for some
| folks' hands. For most of us, middle finger rests
| comfortably in a higher spot than pinky does. Just look at
| your hand. You won't really know until you try yourself.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| AFAIK your technique is very weird. Traditionally, every
| key has an assigned finger.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > the theory of ortho
|
| What theory of ortho? It's merely a rejection of stagger.
| Stagger represents our unwillingness to try new things even
| if the old thing makes no sense whatsoever.
|
| OK, attitude aside now: for me it's partly about the
| ability to find keys by feel. With stagger you can learn
| touch typing one row above the home row and one row below
| the home row, no problem. But when you start trying to
| learn touch typing for the number row the difficulty jumps
| up significantly, because the nonsensical stagger makes it
| difficult to feel your way up the column.
|
| So the benefits of ortho, according to me:
|
| - It's easier to touch type once you eliminate the stagger,
| especially when deviating more than one row.
|
| - Being better able to feel your way around helps with
| gaming, as does removing the stagger from WASD.
|
| - Being straightened out allows you to map a numpad over
| the keys, to be invoked with a function key. I tried this
| with stagger and it was awful.
|
| - I just dig the way it looks. It's like a lazy cartoon
| drawing of a keyboard.
| sgraz wrote:
| Haha I didn't think it would be misinterpreted as a typo. It's
| colloquially called "pain rectangle" within the ergo community.
| But happy it amused the readers. I edited the article to
| include that explanation!
| jodacola wrote:
| Beautiful keyboard. Great write-up.
|
| I would buy one at a premium price point, if you're interested in
| a market data point.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I like your design choices.
|
| Putting the micro-controllers at the far ends means the rest of
| the board can be lower, meaning less need for palm supports. Also
| I like you NOT having OLED screens - they're toys at best and one
| more thing to break at worse.
|
| As for Ortho VS Staggered, ortho has the great advantage of
| things like WASD just being usable out of the box, and also
| flexibility with things like numpad layers. I've printed paper
| cut outs of things like the ferris sweep to see if pinky stagger
| would be comfortable for me, and the answer was negative.
| Probably very hand dependent.
|
| Curious why aluminium and not steel? Steel is a heavier, and also
| has less of that pingy noise, though I have no idea about
| machining so perhaps it's a no go.
| sgraz wrote:
| I would not put OLEDs for the reasons you mentioned, but also
| because it would drain the battery in 1 day vs 1 week.
|
| Steel is likely better and surely stronger, but manufacturers
| charge 2x more for steel alloy machining. At that price level,
| titanium also becomes an interesting option.
| szvsw wrote:
| Fantastic write up and beautiful design decisions. Really
| remarkable work! As another market data point, I would definitely
| pay a premium price if you were to go to market with it.
| happens wrote:
| Awesome! Looks like it accompanied an apple trackpad, super
| sleek.
|
| I'm also using nice!nanos in my projects, and they're great
| little devices. At this point I'd love there to be a good
| alternative using a dongle, though... I have a desktop PC that I
| want to use them with, and since they can't connect via Bluetooth
| at boot time, I always have to connect them to select a boot
| option and unlock my ZFS drive.
|
| Having an affordable or open source controller that can do split
| as well as nice!nanos, but also switch between Bluetooth and a
| dongle is like the holy grail to me. I'd instantly buy 10.
| milch wrote:
| People make their own dongles using another nice!nano or
| something more compact like the Xiao BLE
| nwroot wrote:
| Looks amazing
| bschwindHN wrote:
| Nice work! I especially like the satisfying layout of the PCB
| traces, glad you didn't skimp on that detail.
| egypturnash wrote:
| This is so pretty. I've been playing with a used Ergodox and this
| is so close to what I feel like I'd build if I made my own from
| scratch. The main difference is that each half is a 6x5 grid
| instead of 7x5, and me being fine with a wired keyboard.
| user68858788 wrote:
| I'm currently using the kinesis advantage. It's a great keyboard
| but I've been hoping to find a wireless split keyboard for a
| while. This one looks great.
| ushiocheng wrote:
| I love this.
|
| Totally have been here done that. While my aesthetics are a bit
| different than yours, the core idea is very similar. I just
| imagined if Nuphy and Planck would have a twin and come up with
| this. I was on a budget so I basically said fuck it to the
| thickness and just kept the size small. Everything was FDM and I
| even had a 3d printable pcb-not-so-pcb if you can't wait at all.
| This runs zmk for full wireless experience, uses an nrf
| controller and have a battery life of over a month. I even had
| custom keycap with stickers on it so I can lookup rarely used
| keys.
|
| PS. The only cons or why I am not running this for everything is
| that you kind of need 2 hand to do certain things like pause the
| music or adjusting volume.
|
| Photo:
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZwvTO3jMyY0JBKoYrA88sJk-7SX...
| rosstex wrote:
| I once did a ton of research and settled on an ergonomic split
| keyboard. I ended up using it for a while but never fully got
| used to it enough to actually type well with it. In fact, it
| screwed up my typing and now I make more mistakes than I used to
| years later. I regret it so much. I don't understand split
| keyboards.
| sagarpatil wrote:
| I have one word: Woow!
| emmelaich wrote:
| I feel the large spaces in the middle could instead be for a
| trackpad. One side only of course, the other would have keys up
| to the edge. I often long for the convenience of the inbuilt mac
| trackpad when I'm using an external bluetooth keyboard and
| trackpad. Unfortunately the edges and the location of the
| trackpad charging port make it not ideal.
| rambling wrote:
| That's insane, nice work!
|
| I know quite a few people who would buy if you ever produced even
| 10 of them. Part 2 having charging magnets would seem good. Me
| personally, I don't have 2 usb-c ports lying around that aren't
| already used :P
| sandreas wrote:
| This is so funny, I dived into the custom keyboard rabbit hole
| just 3 weeks ago. Never thought this would be so intriguing and
| time consuming.
|
| Did you consider Mill-Max Sockets?
|
| My personal favorite are 80% TKL ISO low profile keyboards, which
| is quite uncommon and I've not found much except the
| Keychron K1 Max
|
| having this layout. Unfortunately, the integrated Gateron
| brown/red/... low profile switches are not my thing - my favorite
| ones would be Lofree Kailh Ghost, but these don't fit the
| keyboard, although it is hot swappable because low profile
| switches are non standard (at least 2 different layouts I know
| of).
|
| So I also thought about a custom solution. I found pretty
| impressive open source firmware and pcbs [1], but I noticed that
| I just didn't have the time to do all this. Since keyboards are
| so an individual device, manufacturing bigger batches is risky
| and manufacturing smaller batches is expensive... so pretty much
| no choice than waiting for someone having the same dream as I
| have or do it myself after shoving free enough time.
|
| 1: https://github.com/4pplet/waffling80/issues/1
| ValentinPearce wrote:
| > I dived into the custom keyboard rabbit hole just 3 weeks ago
|
| Take your time, the GAS is real and expensive !
|
| All jokes aside, ordering small batches of PCBs is
| unfortunately very expensive, especially if you have a larger
| size.
|
| If you ever feel the itch of going towards ergonomic split
| keyboards, you'll find plenty of ~40% splits that use
| reversible PCBs for both halves which allows for cheap batches.
| Typically you get 5 PCBs with JLC and that gives you enough to
| build one full keyboard for work and one for home.
| sandreas wrote:
| > If you ever feel the itch of going towards ergonomic split
| keyboards
|
| Unlikely. I caught my [nearly perfect] unicorn, but I'm not
| telling you what it is, because a.) it is too embarrassing
| and b.) don't wanna ruin your chase :-)
|
| There are some hints I can tell you though: +
| it's low profile (Kailh) + it's TKL 80% and 100%
| + it's available ANSI and ISO + it's wireless o
| it's not split (I like it this way but it depends on personal
| taste) - it's NOT hot swappable - it's not QMK /
| ZMK
|
| Probably I'm going to work on the hot-swappable thing via
| Mill-Max 7305 or 3305 (already ordered a pack), but the
| soldering will really take time, even if I use soldering
| paste and I have to order a second one for experimens.
| jjani wrote:
| I'd definitely buy this to try if it works for me.
|
| > Typing on the keyboard is very comfortable due to it's low
| height. No more wrist arching.
|
| Fully agreed. I went through many keyboards, from very expensive
| to very cheap, until I found the one my joints were okay with,
| and I think it was the lowest height of all. A cheap no-name,
| straight from Aliexpress. I think it's even lower than yours -
| hard to measure, but looks like ~4mm from table to top of keys.
| You can tell from the size of the USB-C port [1].
|
| [1]
| https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sffc2751fa6184967aaa16f2a629ca166...
| Daegalus wrote:
| Hey, this is awesome. I also have been building my own keyboard.
| I wanted something that others where making. Split, low profile,
| hotswappable, supports Kailh v1 and v2, Vertically staggered
| ortholinear, wireless, had more than 60 keys, closer to 68 or
| 75%. I had an ErgoDash before, but didn't like the high profile,
| and modding it to be wireless was a bit finicky.
|
| I had already used and made my first prototype and realized my
| thumb cluster was not positioned right and not comfortable for
| use. So I have the PCBs for the Prototype 2 where the entire
| bottom row is shifted in. I learned a lot about PCB design and
| MCUs through this. Yours looks SOOO much better laid out compared
| to mine too.
|
| Old pictures of prototype 1:
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/VhqQmjGyzTeBbKFQ9 ( have top and bottom
| plates, i just never used them because i found the thumb cluster
| issue quickly) (there is an ErgoDash pictured too that I used
| previously, modded to be wireless)
|
| Life, becoming a father, moving to a different country, and so
| many things have put this project on hold, but I will finish it
| soon.
| Umang018 wrote:
| This is really impressive, especially considering the complexity
| of designing a wireless split keyboard from scratch! Having built
| my own mechanical keyboard before (though not wireless), I know
| how much goes into PCB design, key switch selection, and firmware
| development.
|
| One challenge I've seen with wireless keyboards (especially
| splits) is managing synchronization lag between halves. Some DIY
| split builds struggle with Bluetooth interference, while others
| use NRF-based communication. What approach did you take to keep
| latency low and ensure reliable keypress synchronization? Also,
| how does the power efficiency compare to something like a ZMK-
| powered split?
| varispeed wrote:
| Maybe stupid question, but can split keyboard work as two
| separate keyboards connecting independently to the operating
| system? That way you don't have to synchronise anything.
| zxter wrote:
| There's no issue with a computer recognizing two keyboards,
| but smaller keyboards often lack all the keys found on a
| standard one. So, you'll need to use modifiers to create the
| keystroke and then send it to the computer. If you press a
| modifier on one half, the other half needs to be aware of it
| to send the final keystroke. Creating a layout with these
| modifier-based key combinations is just a small part of the
| many tricks you can pull off with custom firmware. While the
| computer thinks it's connected to a standard keyboard, you
| can do some really deep customization on the keyboard side.
| varispeed wrote:
| Wouldn't operating system take care of that?
| zxter wrote:
| When you have two halves of a keyboard recognized as
| separate keyboards by the computer, then just like you
| said. For example, if you press shift on the left half
| and u on the right, the computer first sees the shift and
| then the u. It then types a capital U.
|
| But in my case, let's say I don't have any numbers on the
| keyboard. Instead, I use modifier keys to create a layer
| for numeric values. So, when I press a modifier on the
| left, the computer won't notice. Then, pressing what
| would normally be the U key on the right sends a 7
| instead. The computer just sees a 7 being pressed.
| saltcod wrote:
| Beautifully done. I would buy this board in a heartbeat. I'd also
| buy a course on how you built it.
| thatxliner wrote:
| What about the Glove80?
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