[HN Gopher] One Handed Keyboard
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One Handed Keyboard
Author : doppp
Score : 154 points
Date : 2025-11-15 09:44 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| "Hi, would you like some RSI?"
|
| "Yes, just the one thank you."
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Iirc this keyboard was custom made for a user that only has one
| hand. A layered design would be better but harder for the
| average user to adapt to.
| block_dagger wrote:
| This already happened to me because of mouse usage. I've longed
| for a keyboard like this so I cam rest my right arm/hand which
| has significant damage and pain.
| rnentjes wrote:
| I am using this mouse because of that, and it works for me:
|
| https://www.contourdesign.com/collection/contour-slidermouse
| mechanicum wrote:
| Their video on YouTube, in English:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vW12gQ4Klc
| dandersch wrote:
| I wonder what issues they ran into with using the entire
| keyboard as a mouse.
| psKama wrote:
| Same, looks like an amazing idea.
| hiq wrote:
| I'm assuming it's too heavy and has too much contact surface
| (so more friction), making it too hard to glide smoothly.
|
| There's probably something with the position of the hand when
| you move the mouse as well. At least I seem to be moving
| mostly the wrist when I use my mouse, meaning that my hand
| and forearm are not always aligned; without this alignment, I
| feel there's more strain on the wrist when typing.
| msephton wrote:
| I'd also guess fatigue. Pushing around that huge thing
| constantly
| egypturnash wrote:
| Put keyboard in perfect ergonomic position on the desk, move
| mouse, now the keyboard's in a terrible ergonomic position.
|
| Also you have to keep a much bigger area clear for it.
| jolmg wrote:
| I imagine it's uncomfortable to grip since you need to be
| careful to not press a key doing so. Since you can't rely on
| fingers much for grip, you could put more force pressing
| downward with your wrist but that would also add friction
| with the table. Mice are small enough that you can fit your
| hand around it, but a keyboard is large and flat.
| zero0529 wrote:
| Okay I must say, the production quality of that video is
| insane.
| mholm wrote:
| Feels like HTX blew up out of nowhere with a ton of long form
| content at once, but they were huge in Chinese social media
| already, and finally decided to start translating previous
| content to english and uploading to Youtube.
| y-curious wrote:
| My family and I binged a few of their videos. They're so
| good
| utopcell wrote:
| I'd watch a video about the making of this video.
| danielfalbo wrote:
| From their youtube channel description:
|
| > Our goal is to create fun and engaging videos.
|
| I wonder whether they are more into video-making or tech.
| cyberax wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I've been watching them in Chinese for a while. Their video
| production evolved through the years by leaps and bounds.
| Their technical skill also skyrocketed. But it started as a
| channel with technical reviews and some DIY.
|
| If you want to try to watch their videos with AI
| translation, you can try this:
| https://space.bilibili.com/163637592 For example, an
| artificial flower made of memory metal:
| https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gN411M7kh/
| r0b05 wrote:
| Does anyone know which keys/switches out there sound like this
| one?
|
| It's got a soft cheery non-intrusive sound that I really like
| compared to the usual louder mechanical keys/switches that I
| hear in videos.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I recently learned that it's not just the switch, but also
| the gasket, so the switch plate material, the foam layers and
| even the keycap itself. I built two different split keyboards
| recently with the same simple Kailh box red v2 switch and
| they sound and feel completely different just because of the
| thickness of the switch plate and the type of keycaps I
| use.(check this for example
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HIldaxljpzc )
|
| You can check if you find the switches colors here(it looks
| like an Akko purple pro, but not quite) https://keeb-
| finder.com/switches
|
| Whereas rtings has a filtering list that also has sound
| profiles in the review pages.
|
| https://www.rtings.com/keyboard-switch/tools/compare
| arein3 wrote:
| The sound is described like creamy or thocky.
|
| You can get aula f75 for cheap, arround 50$, there are plenty
| of sound tests on youtube as it's very popular.
|
| I got that version and I am happy, but if I was to buy a new
| one I would get the full size f108 because it's important for
| me to have distance between arrow keys and other keys. And
| tbh I would just get an apple keyboard or something similarly
| slim because it's more confortable for me. However for thicc
| (mechanical switch) keyboards, aula f75 has great specs and
| sound at a very good price.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Best keyboard I have very used was at a random data center
| and I would swear it was using alps switches. They feel more
| like snapping a glass rod.
| piskov wrote:
| Lube them manually (by yourself or someone else)
| eloeffler wrote:
| Just leaving some links here because I had been researching this
| intensively before a planned shoulder surgery:
|
| (Definitely adding this to my list)
|
| Frogpad: German language one handed keyboard. Unfortunately
| discontinued http://frogpad.com/
|
| Mirrorboard (my favorite): Intruiging mirror solution that builds
| upon the assumption that it is easier to access muscle memory
| from the other hand when you've learned it before
| https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-ke...
|
| Mistel Barocco fully split Keyboard: Can (and unfortunately must)
| be programmed without software. Right half is the main keyboard.
| Left side connects to it, works also in standalone mode but is
| not programmable then.
| https://mistelkeyboard.com/products/bd20945a731491407807e80d...
| znpy wrote:
| The frogpad is most likely the best one. So sad to see it's
| been discontinued.
| swannodette wrote:
| Some research on this topic
| http://edgarmatias.com/papers/hci96/
|
| On OS X you can achieve this with Keyb, Karabiner Elements,
| etc. It's also easy to do with a programmable keyboard with
| ZMK/QMK. I've set up my Kinesis 360 Pro this way, being
| symmetrical means I can access every key easily. Hardware
| support for sticky keys also helps quite a bit.
| GlumWoodpecker wrote:
| Just being pedantic and off-topic here, but macOS hasn't been
| called OS X for nearly ten years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#macOS
| binaryturtle wrote:
| Some of us still use OS X and haven't made the unnecessary
| switch to any of the macOS that followed it. :)
| worthless-trash wrote:
| It'll always be OSX to me. Fight the branding!
| pimlottc wrote:
| Twiddler is an older design from the first wave of wearable
| computers, there are newer revisions that are still being sold
| afaik
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiddler
|
| https://www.mytwiddler.com/
| larusso wrote:
| The mirror board is an interesting idea as it allows to start
| with a normal keyboard and one could then switch to a smaller
| board with the muscle memory trained. I would prefer a
| different switch key though. I use cap lock as a layer switch
| on my keyboards. But I will think about it and try out a few
| things. It could already be useful in situation where I need to
| keep my hand over the mousepad.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I was maintaining [1] which might be useful to you, but it's
| become outdated. It doesn't have a filter for one handed
| keyboards, but some of the "two halves" ones might be
| appropriate.
|
| (If someone is interested in taking the site over and bringing
| it up to date, please open an issue.)
|
| [1] https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/
| stray wrote:
| I lost the use of my right hand in '06.
|
| It's amazing how quickly you adapt. I have to put my mouse to
| the left of my keyboard and whereas before I was a touch
| typist, I now have to look.
|
| And I can use a standard keyboard without undue hassle.
| giraldo wrote:
| Yes, having a special keyboard can be limiting in that it's a
| pain to cart around to hook up to laptops, etc. and to get an
| extra in case it fails.
|
| It still could be nice to have something optimized, though.
| If you ever design one, please share it, because I think
| you'd get more interest than you'd think.
|
| I began to have interest in developing for everyone
| (primarily for differences for vision, though difference in
| hearing, memory, learning also) about 13 years ago, and got
| little support from the small company I worked for. We had a
| very color-specific interface, because we were space-limited.
| Then, wouldn't you know it, our next manager was red-green
| colorblind, but it didn't bother her.
|
| I got jaded about it, learning that basically no one cared
| enough, and that people just get ignored and struggle with
| their adaptive devices. This still pisses me off, and I was
| once thinking heavily about applying a job where I could do
| something about it, but I don't have the required background.
|
| With AI, there's beginning to be almost no excuse for someone
| not to add first-class support for all types of people into
| their interfaces and process, but people still continue to
| design like everyone is a twenty-something y.o. with full
| hearing, 20/15 full color vision, 130 IQ average, and no
| memory or learning differences or other modalities.
| keyle wrote:
| I'm trying to understand why this isn't a thing already. It seems
| there would be a market for it; when you consider all the
| different keyboards shapes and sizes...
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| You can just buy a split keyboard and put all the keys on
| layers on one side.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A UK company had produced them for decades, which probably
| serves most injured non-geek users.
|
| https://www.maltron.com/store/p19/Maltron_Single_Hand_Keyboa...
| ginko wrote:
| That's actually quite a reasonable price for such a
| specialized device.
| jimlikeslimes wrote:
| Check out chorded keyboards. They've been a thing for a very
| long time. At least since early 00s or 90s when I saw them
| first. They are held one handed have 5 keys and you get
| different letters by chording multiple keys together.
| clort wrote:
| first consumer device I ever saw was the Microwriter, back in
| the 1980's .. but court stenographers have been using chorded
| keyboards for a century or more
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype
| exasperaited wrote:
| Court stenography keyboards were not originally spelling
| out letters, though; they worked in shorthand symbols. I
| guess they can autoexpand that now.
|
| Microwriter devices produced ASCII directly.
| cons0le wrote:
| CharaChorder beats all. I can type faster than I can talk
| exasperaited wrote:
| There's Maltron, Microwriter (who pretty much invented the
| contemporary chording ASCII computer keyboard) and its weird
| successors like Twiddler and Charachorder.
|
| But the fundamental problem with one-handed keyboards is that
| as soon as you only have one hand, you step into
| specialisation.
|
| People's hands and one-hand abilities are actually quite
| variable. People who have never had two hands have different
| hand agility to people who lose a hand in adulthood, for
| example.
|
| Two-handed keyboards and two-handed typing masks so much of
| this variability, because you can be a fast and efficient
| typist even with your hands straying across the keyboard and
| using only two or three fingers on each hand (say, two on non-
| dominant hand, two and thumb on dominant).
|
| One-handed keyboards, by contrast, need to be more optimised
| for individual one-handed typists when any economy of scale is
| already difficult to achieve.
| scatbot wrote:
| From the submission title I expected some kind of chorded
| keyboard. This is just a tiny regular keyboard. What a bummer.
|
| This reminds me how I once spend months trying to track down a
| Frogpad for a cyberpunk-inspired wearable computing project. I
| found one on eBay but got outbid at the last second. It still
| hurts a little.
| iammrpayments wrote:
| I thought this was a meme for cultured games.
| ginko wrote:
| Notice it's for left-handed use.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Someone linked to the video - they have produced a right-
| handed version.
| Levitz wrote:
| Left handed people also have a libido to take care of,
| after all.
| ok_craig wrote:
| About 20 years ago I wrote a little program to turn my own
| standard keyboard into something I could type on one hand with.
| It's basically just T9, with every basic letter key bound to two
| letters instead of one. (The mirror counterpart from the other
| side of the keyboard.)
|
| It's a shit demo from college and I always wanted to share the
| concept but never made it presentable.
|
| https://github.com/cilphex/QuickBoard
| attila-lendvai wrote:
| i believe that a crucial feature of good keyboards is that your
| wrist is stationary. this enables a better form of "muscle
| memory".
|
| i've been using such a keyboard for two decades.
| snickerer wrote:
| My personal search ended with the ZSA Moonlander.
| othomp wrote:
| Matias has a neat one-handed keyboard. It's quite expensive for
| what it is, especially considering these days where it's so easy
| to get a keyboard with remappable keys. There's a simulator on
| the sidebar at the link, and IMO it's quite intuitive.
|
| https://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/
| nephanth wrote:
| I tried that concept whith my ergodox when i had an arm in a
| splint, but i couldnt quite get my brain to wrap around it. I
| could type on the right key, but not press the mirror/switch
| key at the right moment.
|
| What would have made it easier is if it could infer the right
| key like an autocorrect
| hoss1474489 wrote:
| Wow, 595 USD is insanely expensive for literally half a
| keyboard.
| kurtis_reed wrote:
| It's in Mandarin
| garganzol wrote:
| I am kind of fascinated that some people move the world forward
| finding a solution even for supposedly dare conditions, while
| others kill innocent with bombs. This is what I've felt after
| watching the video.
|
| Good luck to these manufacturers who serve the niche with such a
| passion. It needs a lion share of compassion to be able to design
| this kind of products for handicapped people.
| iagooar wrote:
| I saw the keyboard to be operated by the left hand only and here
| is my (totally personal and somewhoat adjacent) problem with it.
|
| My left hand is the one which has suffered the most the many
| hours of using a keyboard over the last +-25 years. While the
| right hand has the occasional break from the keyboard when using
| the mouse, the left hand is constantly glued to the keyboard.
|
| It also has a much tougher job - all the cmd, ctrl, alt and shift
| + combinations are mostly done using the left hand - e.g. on Mac
| you cannot cmd+shift+ select text with the arrows - you must use
| the left hand - so it ends up doing so much more work.
|
| I wonder if there are other people with the same problem. My
| right hand never hurts after many hours of computer work - but
| the left hand does. It hurts even now that I am typing and I
| haven't even spent more than an hour doing it.
| stavros wrote:
| You should remap ctrl/cmd (whatever feels better) to caps lock.
| It'll be much more convenient.
| etothepii wrote:
| Check out make caps lock great again.
|
| https://github.com/Vonng/Capslock
| gcanyon wrote:
| I'm at the point where I need to redefine cmd-z, x, c, v
| because my left thumb doesn't want to do that dance anymore.
| It's been painful for a year, and I finally got to the point of
| redefining it a couple weeks ago. And the muscle memory is _so_
| ingrained that I changed it to option ', 1, 2, 3 and never
| thought about the idea that my right hand could do it.
| __s wrote:
| I was getting hand pain, switched to a Totem keyboard. 38 keys,
| 6 thumb keys. Column splay & never reaching for number row has
| greatly helped. 20g actuation means little force needed
| dandersch wrote:
| >It also has a much tougher job - all the cmd, ctrl, alt and
| shift + combinations are mostly done using the left hand
|
| Look into homerow mods if you are prepared to do some
| (invasive) key remaps in software:
| https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods
| pfortuny wrote:
| This has changed my life so much for the better. Once I knew
| about this, I needed look no further.
| Klathmon wrote:
| And if you like it, picking up any QMK or ZMK compatible
| keyboard would let you do it in firmware too!
| smrq wrote:
| Please do your hands a favor and get yourself an ergonomic
| keyboard! Thumb keys especially alleviate the issues with
| modifiers that you're describing.
|
| I use a Glove80 as my daily driver right now, although the
| price tag to build quality ratio is not amazing, so idk if I
| would recommend it particularly. But there's a massive world of
| ergo keyboards out there--surely the right one for you exists
| somewhere!
| trollbridge wrote:
| Use your right hand for meta keys?
| egypturnash wrote:
| there's a right-hand version too :)
| lolive wrote:
| Like people trying to find new interfaces for music making [thank
| god touchscreens!], there are people trying to figure out new
| hardware for interacting with computers. Thank you dudes!
|
| PS: the first step towards feeling why such research is so
| important is when you start customizing productivity shortcuts on
| your existing keyboard. Then you understand that the input device
| in front of you can be more than a stupid typewriter. From there
| you start interrogating your interaction with machines. [and then
| you are addict, and you end up designing your own device :)]
| mcdow wrote:
| Super cool!
| jorisboris wrote:
| The right hand keyboard could finally make me look like Boris
| from Golden Eye typing away while holding a pen in the left hand
| cons0le wrote:
| If anyone's interested in something way faster that still lets
| you go one handed. Take a look at the charachorder. You can type
| one handed, or easily rip 200wpm with 2 hands. But it does take
| like a year to get fast. I was coming from a moonlander tho so I
| was ready
| y-curious wrote:
| Thank you for sharing, so flipping cool. How do you handle the
| mouse navigation aspect? That's one thing missing from my
| glove80
| helios_tu wrote:
| ZMK on the glove80 has mouse control! I use a modified
| version of this keymap: https://sunaku.github.io/moergo-
| glove80-keyboard.html#mouse-...
|
| Essentially, hold down a thumb key and WASD (well, ESDF)
| moves the mouse.
| fallat wrote:
| I want to pull the trigger on this so badly. I've had my eyes
| on it for years. It seems the best way to increase typing speed
| is to reduce finger movement via physical modifications to a
| keyboard.
|
| Does charachorder support Dvorak-like layout mentally? Not a
| 1-1 but something similar? Like vowels on left hand?
| utopcell wrote:
| ..we found an off the shelf keyboard that could work, but we
| couldn't get it because it was 999 euros. So let's make 7
| iterations of our own keyboard with our Formlabs 3d printer,
| create silicom molds for each key, print legends with our uv
| printer and we're done. Glad he did though, looks awesome!
| ilitirit wrote:
| These guys are quite well-known in China and have recently
| started uploading tto Youtube as well. Their videos are quite
| entertaining and have extremely high production value compared to
| many other creators.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@HTXStudio/videos
|
| I love the one about the automated trash cans.
| hexeater wrote:
| Add eye tracking to replace the track ball please. :-)
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| is it only left-handed?
| kajic wrote:
| No
| egypturnash wrote:
| holy crap I want one of these, I spend a ton of time with one
| hand on my drawing stylus and the other on my keyboard and not
| having to go as far for right-side shortcuts would be _great_.
| gethly wrote:
| This looks like all you can eat of the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
| KolenCh wrote:
| Interesting. I worry about its ergonomics though as RSI might
| develops over time after long term usage of that design.
|
| I've been designing my own one-handed keyboard for 3 years. My
| main problem is that both of my wrist suffers from RSI and either
| wrist can ocassionally acts up with different levels of pain. (I
| also have shoulder problem.) They can become practically disabled
| temporarily for a few weeks, or just quite painful for me to
| avoid using it. So my desiderata are a bit different from
| permanently one-handed people.
|
| Interestingly my right wrist is acting up in the last couple
| weeks so I've been going through a iterative redesign phase
| recently. I probably will write up a blog post in the future when
| I have the final design, I'm going through it briefly below:
|
| Desiderata: (first three are directly from the temporarily and
| random disabled hand criteria)
|
| - primary used for two hands - each hand should be able to
| single-handedly control the computer - skill transfer from two
| hand to one hand: since one hand use is oacassional, retraining
| time should be minimal - based on the research in
| http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327051hci1101_...
| which eventually becomes a producten
| https://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/ , the concept of a mirror key
| becomes a requirement: with the hold of a mirror key, the key at
| the mirror image position is active. An implementation detail is
| that the mirror key is a dual function key: on tap it is space,
| on hold it is mirror. I've implemented other possibility but find
| that the design in this research is better than others I come up
| with. - symmetric keyboard would facilitate this, where many
| split keyboards already is. - I must be able to buy them off the
| shelf. I do not have the skills to design it from scratch, nor do
| I afford to put more strain to my hand to assemble it from parts.
| - ergonomic must be one the of the primary goal of the keyboard,
| to minimize RSI. Speed is not important at all for example. -
| from my empircal experience, split keyboard, espeicially true
| split keyboard would encourage a better wrist and shoulder
| ergonomics. Hence I require split keyboards.
|
| Based on these criteria, I bought ZSA Moonlander (QMK based)
| personally and Kinesis Advantage 360 Pro (ZMK based) for work.
|
| The mirror key based design is currently at -
| Moonlander
| https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/QwA3z/latest/0
| - Adv360 Pro: https://github.com/ickc/Adv360-Pro-ZMK/tree/dev
|
| The key concept are that the mirror key can be implemented as a
| layer, and shift also functionally acts like a mirror. Thumb
| cluster are then dual function, where on hold a key could be the
| mirror key (via layer), another key could be the shift key. And
| since mirror+shift is needed, you either hold both (which is a
| bit less pleasant for the thumb), or have another layer serves as
| the shift-mirror key. Over there, every key is implemented as
| holding shift+key at mirrored position.
|
| The ZSA training site is useful to iterate this design process:
| after each iteration I'd train per single hand and see if it
| works. For example in my earlier design I mainly focused on
| testing single left hand use and later found it doesn't quite
| work for single right hand.
|
| Finally, macOS sticky modifier is used to hold modifier with a
| single hand. I.e. Ctrl+Opt+A becomes Ctrl+Opt, release, A. This
| is because OSM in QMK cannot handles one-shot of multiple
| modifiers well. Without doing fancy thing, you need to do Ctrl,
| release, Opt, release, A.
|
| Same design working across Moonlander and Adv360 is important.
| Layout differences is not that much thankfully, but firmware
| difference can be a pain.
|
| Lastly, I recently bought a Silakka54 for the ocassions where the
| setup hassle of either is too high. Basically either lap use or
| going to a meeting. I think my current layout design is adaptable
| to it but I'll see.
| miladyincontrol wrote:
| I've found pretty good success just using a planck with layers
| swaping left/right halves. Its not my daily driver but it becomes
| surprisingly intuitive to do more with less.
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