I’ve slowly been going down the rabbit hole of ergo keyboards and want to replace my current “normal” full-size keyboard, but the sheer amount of variation there is, even disregarding the usual differences like rgb or some extra macro keys or whatever, is kind of giving me decision paralysis, so I’d like some help.
I know what I definitely want:
- Split
- Tentable
- Ortholinear
- Supports QMK
But that still leaves a lot of questions open.
I like the look and portability of heavily vertically staggered 42-key keyboards (three rows and three keys per thumb cluster), and while for programming that’s definitely enough, especially for certain games that seems like a questionable choice, since you’d need a lot of layers for a good experience.
Then I looked further into keyboards with four rows, which definitely seem more appealing, but at that point I’m wondering if for convenience’s sake, it might be better to just get something like the Moonlander which has more than enough keys, but is also just really big and leads to a lot of finger movement which isn’t necessarily a problem, but also just isn’t really… well, neat.
What kind of keyboards do you all have and what do you use them for? Are there any you’d recommend? Should I just go with something akin to the Moonlander or are there any tangible advantages to something like the Piantor apart from portability?
I fell into this rabbit hole when looking into all the options available when ordering an Ergodox EZ. I discovered the Iris keyboard and really liked its compact shape. I ended up not placing the order for that Ergodox and built myself an Iris v4 instead.
Iris turned out to be a good way to ease myself into the world of DIY split ergo boards. It’s affordable, easy to assemble and has enough keys to ease the transition from full sized keyboards. It’s a good starting point for experimenting with layers and other features that eventually may lead you to 40% or smaller layouts.
I also landed on the Iris rev 7, and it being my first I went with getting it prebuilt plus not having a soldering setup. Also, one decision was comparing the shape and size of keyboards using splitkb compare site. The Ergodox EZ and Moonlander were way too spread out for my hands to deal with so I chose Iris. Ended up cheaper than either with no included switches and now I’m practicing how to use only three rows and layers since it’s way more comfortable to not move your hands from the home row.
That isn’t to say I am not regretting it. The oryx software that ZSA has looks amazingly powerful out the box. VIA is annoyingly limited in how it utilizes its Any key so advanced configuration is also limited. Vial, while having more features, would require reflashing due to some tap_dance_count error which is annoying. If I had more time I would just use QMK but it’s way faster prototyping visually and adjusting to how you end up using the keys daily.