I’m quite tall and have rather long arms. As a consequence, I rarely find myself sitting at the desk with the elbows bent at a proper angle while typing. I figured out it would be more comfortable for me to work with the keyboard sitting on my lap, tented if possible, but I couldn’t find a stable configuration with my split 34-keys board. Is there anybody that came up with a smart solution to this?
I’m also considering building a small unibody like the hummingbird, but I guess it may be too small to comfortably sit on the lap.
The exposed PCB and towel could be a neat trick when I work from home, but I’d like to find a slightly more refined solution, possibly portable. At some point, the endgame will probably be a set of clamped mounts at home and one at work, to which magnetically attach the keyboard I carry around. The Atreus is an interesting option in the meanwhile, but I have a few concerns. First and foremost, too little pinky stagger. I don’t even find the one of my chocofi to be enough and operate the upper pinky key with my ring finger instead. Not a big deal tho, I could ignore the additional keys and I will probably move to a 30 keys layout someday. Next, there’s the software: I’m not sure moving away from zmk is worth it. And lastly, I have no experience with mechanical switches apart from the keychron bananas (which I hate) and linear chocs. But I don’t like long travels, so MX style switches is probably not my cup of tea (and honestly I’d like a shorter travel for chocs too). Actually I’m on the look for a way to reproduce the feeling of the latest MacBook Pros. I’ve never used an apple keyboard before (fortunately, it seems), but I really enjoy the tactility and short travel of the one on my laptop. I’ve heard good things about kailh speed switches, but I never tried them.
I’m interested in something like this that allows something like split keyboard tray mount. The Glove80 also has a pretty elegant tripod mounting option, since you mentioned low profile switches. The Ferris Sweep also has a greater pinky stagger, and you may also consider using Ergogen in the future to make something that properly matches your hand curvature!
The glove80 has way too many keys for me. And, as far as I know, the stagger on the Sweep is the same as the chocofi. But yeah, I’ll probably create my own design sooner or later.