Leo at beekeeb is awesome! I’ve been using this board for a few months now, and I’m going to test out a new USB-C variant he’s working on for connecting the halves instead of TRRS. I use a magnetic connector for the main connection; I have been doing this for a while with most of my boards and won’t look back. The layout is vanilla Miryoku which I’ve loved and have not missed the extra pinky column at all.
The piantor sure is one good looking keyboard…the thing I can’t understand, and this is for many common flat splits (cantor, corne, etc) is where does your thumb go? Is it the middle key or the outside key? For me, a comfortable resting position is the outside key, but then it’s a huge reach to get the inside key. I have many sculpted splits with the same key layout (3×5+3), so I’m quite familiar with the format, but can’t get over the thumb position…curious about your take.
The middle key is the default position. For Miryoku that houses space on the left and backspace on the right. Do you normally type on a linear board of some type? My board before this was a Planck, and I found that I had to re-adjust to how I angled my whole hand placement to not get used to contorting my hand to fit the board and just let my fingers be like they wanted to, and once I did that, a lot of other key placement worked out nicely
I normally type on something like a sculpted piantor, but the middle key is in a position equivalent to the outside key on the piantor. I also have a sofle RGB, and I find it quite uncomfortable to move my thumb under my hand to hit some of the keys, hence my line of curiosity. How do you find the accessibility of the inside key?
I’m honestly not sure I’ve noticed it all that much, but perhaps this is because I have not had experience typing on a variety of different split ergomechs. My baseline is comparing to ortholinear, and I found this to be considerably more comfortable, so I took that as a win. It’s entirely plausible that there is an even more natural progression towards a better shape. That said, I think my fingers are on the longer side, so perhaps that has helped with inner thumb key reach with my hands.
Oh interesting…I don’t have particularly long fingers, so maybe thats contributing to my hesitation. Thanks for the insight :-)
I just checked again today- seems like my thumb naturally rests between the TRRS cable side and middle key, in the middle. I guess that would technically mean the innermost key is harder to reach, but I never really thought about it. Always room for improvement though.
Good to know, thanks for looping back
I have this keyboard. My thumbs sit comfortably on the middle thumb key. I think the placement of the microcontroller hides just how far in the inner thumb keys are (towards the center)
I have this keyboard (42 keys) and love it! Today I made the change to un-map the outer column to see if I can manage
It’s scary at first but so liberating! I’d suggest diving into Miryoku for 36 keys- it’s so well thought out. You can change to Qwerty too if you desire.
I ended up taking the switches out completely. It’s been a few workdays and it’s a lot more comfortable to not use them.
Nice! You could print a new case and break off the outer column if you want to commit haha