ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

Rules

Keep it ergo

Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²

¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid

No Spam

No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.

No Buy/Sell/Trade

This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.

Some useful links

EMK wiki
Split keyboard compare tool
Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/

founded 1 year ago

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Advice on how to start/test (self.ergomechkeyboards)

submitted 1 year ago by The_one_and_only to c/[email protected]

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am someone who has not used mechanical keyboards before, but I am curious about them since I read everywhere that they are great. The issue I have is that I obviously don't know which things I will like or not. For example the switches, there are a lot of brands, and they produce different switches. When I read about them, I see the familiar terms: "clicky", "tactile", but I have no idea what that actually means.

However, just starting to buy stuff to test it out will become very expensive, very quickly.

How do you start with this without spending hundreds and hundreds of Euro's at the start (and without knowing if you like it or not)

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

Switch testers are quite nice even if they don't have the exact switch you want. It's a lot easier to figure out what the numbers and descriptions mean if you have a comparison point. The switches I ended up with were not in any tester, but the testers were still super helpful.

As for layout, it's worth being open to the smaller things like CRKBD or Lily58, your brain is better at adapting than you may think. These layouts save desk space, are significantly cheaper, and are quite nice to use. The savings add up especially quick if you are trying out different kinds of keys.

[–] The_one_and_only 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, those two keyboards are not for me. I don't even see a row with numbers on top on the CRKBD, and when you work in Finance like me, numbers really are indispesible. And to be honest, I am so used to typing all figures blindly on the numpad, that I really don't want to mess with that.

For non-financials I can see this working though, so thanks for the advice.