You mean like a Kinesis Advantage2 (and its predecessors)? Monoblock, 20 degree built-in tenting, thumb keys and key wells.

(The linked keyboard looks quite bad from an ergonomics perspective. It has quite large positive tilt, which is bad for your wrists.)

I had wrist pains every now and then over the years. They never felt bad enough so find a doctor, so it never had a specific diagnosis.

I tried several split keyboards (Microsoft Sculpt on and off, Ferris Sweep, Kyria) and they didn’t really improve things and sometimes gave me new pains. Only after switching to a Kinesis Advantage2 I saw large improvements and wrist pains mostly going away.

I also started to be more mindful of taking breaks (sometimes it works out, sometimes I am so focused that time flies by) and do some hand exercises during breaks.

I use an Ender 3v2. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. It seems to have quite a bit of wear and often requires retuning stuff to get good prints. Also needs upgrades to make it better (like getting auto-levelling).

If you’re interested in something different, one really promising keyboard project just launched: Svalboard.

I have no experience with the Datahand, but the lateral finger movements necessary on that board look 😱. On a regular column stagger keyboard only the index finger makes a lot of lateral movements (meh) and the thumb (but following the natural thumb arc anyway).

You missed the original contoured keyboard, Maltron: http://www.maltron.com/store/p20/Maltron_L90_dual_hand_fully_ergonomic_(3D)_keyboard_-_US_English.html

I have/had a Dactyl, Advantage2, and Advantage360, but the Glove80 is definitely my favorite!

Yeah, IMO the promotional posts really got out of hand on the old subreddit. A certain manufacturer (who do make lovely cases) posted pretty comparable pics every 2 days or so. On the one hand I think we should nurture our vendor community, on the other hand I’d rather see this happening organically with users sharing their experiences with builds that they buy. I agree that a sticky thread would be a good solution, people who are interested could just follow that thread. To give it more freshness, maybe it could be a monthly Vendor news in [August, …] thread where vendors could post.

I think the only exception should be made for announcements of things like new case files or GitHub repos with Gerbers (which can include a link to the vendor that made it). Only permitting that type of vendor posts outside the vendor thread would encourage vendors to make new source files available.

The index finger is tricky because being a long finger, it is comparatively better to extend up than to curl down (assuming your wrist is neutral or slightly raised)

Ah, thanks, that makes sense. I guess I have that issue less, since I use a contoured keyboard and curling the index/middle fingers is pretty comfortable.

I’d recommend you to only practice a new layout on a column stagger keyboard if you have to use a row-stagger keyboard occasionally (type on someone else’s computer, laptop, etc.). For me at least it was much easier to retain QWERTY muscle memory doing that, because they are completely separate for me now QWERTY-row stagger, Colemak-DH-column stagger.

(Though I am planning to move away from Colemak-DH, so my column stagger memory is going to be a bloody mess for a while.)

d is the 11th most frequent letter [1], so there are many other letters vying for the 8 main home row positions. However h is 9th, it’s a good candidate for a better position, since it occurs in the two most frequent bigrams (th and he).

Since backspace is used far less than frequent letters by competent typists and enter is also relatively infrequent, it is probably best to put something like e on the thumb cluster, so that h can be on the home row.

[1] http://norvig.com/mayzner.html

It’s fine. I use mod DH, but it’s only a marginal improvement compared to getting an ergo keyboard (with thumb keys, key wells, split, columns stagger, etc.).

All the recent keyboard work I have done with the Pinecil and it’s great. I use both a pointed tip and a chisel tip. The pointed tip is nice for most PCB work, the chisel for things like hand wiring.

The soldering work looks pretty rough (practice on a throwaway project first). Probably one of the TRRS or MCU pins is not well connected. Get out a multimeter and do a continuity check of all the connections. It could also be misconfiguration of QMK, but make sure the basics (hardware connections) are right first.

I found the position of the hand rests really weird from the pictures. But then I put my hands on a Model 100 that I have and they are in a similar position. Given that the layout and the keycap profile look the same as the Model 100, this pretty much looks like a plastic monoblock version of the Model 100.

That color though 😘, we should have more boldly-colored prebuilt keyboards than all the boring black/grey.

Someone listed one on an online marketplace (sorta like the Dutch craigslist) without a price. It had already been on offer for six days (probably not a lot of interest in ergo keyboards there), so I offered 150 Euro and he agreed.

Improved key wells, thumb clusters with more reachable keys, more compact and light (nicer for travel), switch choice, RGB backlight (handy for status report like battery life, active layer, Bluetooth profiles, etc.), function keys (which some people want), uniform key cap profile (can be rearranged when using eg. another layout).

I recently switched to primarily using a Glove80, but the Kinesis Advantage keyboards are great. There is a learning curve, but it is definitely worth it.

The Moonlander doesn’t have a great thumb cluster anyway, so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have large hands. Prebuilts that you can get from Europe are (excluding keyboards without thumb keys like the Kinesis Freestyle Edge):

• Dygma Raise, the Defy is delayed again, so it’ll probably take a few months before you can get your hands on one. But I think it’s better to wait if you want to go with Dygma, because column stagger is a large improvement over row stagger.
• Custom build by Falbatech.
• Kinesis Advantage2 or Advantage360. These are the most ergonomic keyboards that you can get in Europe if you are not willing to order something outside Europe (like the Glove80). Lots of ergo shops have them, so you may even be able to try it out in a shop or with a 30/90 day return period if you find a good dealer.

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The Advantage360 does not really improve over the Advantage2, in some respects it’s a step forward (variable split/tenting), in other respects it’s a step back (tiring switches, Bluetooth connectivity issues), and in many respects it’s stuck in a 30 year old design (same key wells, same thumb cluster where I can only reach 2 keys per thumb without weird stretches or moving my hand).

The Glove80 is really a step forward in many aspects — better key wells, better thumb cluster, better portability, etc. It’s a contoured keyboard that takes all the lessons of the Kinesis Advantage and improves over it.

Alright, these are my experiences with the Advantage360 Pro and Glove80.

Let me start with two disclaimers. First of all, the Advantage360 is a great ergo keyboard. It ticks off a lot of ergo features and I can fully understand that people are happy with it. Secondly, I have had my Glove80 just over a week. I plan to write up an actual review after one or two months. These are just my initial impressions and my opinions may still change after using the Glove80 for a longer period.

So, I should probably first say why I sold my 360 Pro after six months. Prior to the 360 Pro I was using and Advantage2 and life was good. Ehm, I mean I was really happy with it. Of course, the Advantage2 is largely a 30 year old design, so it has its shortcomings, such as no adjustable split and no adjustable tenting. So, I was very interested in getting a 360 when it came out, since it would solve these shortcomings of the Advantage2.

Initially I got a regular 360, but I returned it the next day, because the firmware had some serious bugs. Eg. the keyboard regularly froze while the V-Drive was mounted and there were bugs around macros. Also the keyboard was sold by the distributor as new, it had clearly been used before (there was damage from optional magnetic palm pads). So I tried it for maybe 30 minutes and then exchanged it with the 360 Pro.

The 360 Pro initially had really bad Bluetooth issues. When the keyboard was turned off or when flashing a new firmware/layout, it usually took 1-2 minutes of meticulous power cycle timing to get the halves to link again. This got better with subsequent firmware versions, but still required meticulous timing except I’d get it connected after one or two attempts.

However, the worse issue for me were the switches. Cherry Brown switches used in the Advantage2 are not known for their smooth and sharp tactility. But for me the Gateron Browns in the 360 Pro are really tiring to type on. I discovered pretty quickly that in contrast to the Cherry Browns they don’t actuate at 2mm, but close to 3mm. So typing is simply much more work for each finger.

Then there were more minor issues like that the ABS keycaps that the 360 Pro come feel quite bad. I did replace them with PBT keycaps. But it’s weird that a 620 Euro keyboard needs another 60 Euro upgrade to get decent key caps. Also the keycap profiles are (IMO) a regression compared to the Advantage2 — the spherical home row caps on the Advantage2 are nicer than the bland caps on the 360, also the 360 removed much of the staircase effect from the thumb cluster, making it harder to reach the upper keys.

Finally, the Advantage360 does not address an important shortcoming that goes back to the original Kinesis Contoured Keyboard - most people with regular or small hands can only reach two keys on each thumb cluster (four in total) without extreme stretching or moving your hand.

All in all, even though the Advantage360 Pro is much more expensive in Europe than the Advantage2, it feels like a side-grade from the Advantage2. It brings variable tenting, a variable split, and better acoustics. But it has (IMO) worse switches, Bluetooth issues, and worse keycaps. After a while I switched back to the Advantage2 because the switches were just less tiring and the 360 Pro was collecting dust (and then I sold it to recoup some of the cost).

I went back and forth a lot on whether I should buy a Glove80. My largest worry were the Choc switches. I have built some custom keyboards before with Choc switches and was never a big fan. However, I am glad that I eventually bit the bullet and ordered the Glove80.

One thing that immediately noticed when I started using the Glove80 is that the key wells feel better. I haven’t discovered all the reasons yet, but one thing that immediately jumped out for me was that the pinky columns feel nicer and that the pinky keys are easier to reach. If you look at the keyboard and your hand it’s pretty evident why. If you put your hand flat on the table, you can see that your pinky is much shorter than your ring finger. Both the Advantage and Glove80 account for this by moving the pinky column slighly towards the palm/wrist, but as importantly, they have a significantly raised pinky column. However, if you curl up your fingers or make a fist, you see that the length difference between the pinky and ring finger is almost gone. The Advantage does not account for this, the lower pinky rows are still raised compared to the ring finger rows. This makes typing with the pinky on the lower rows less pleasant. On the Glove80 the height of the pinky row converges towards the height of the ring finger rows in the lower rows. This makes typing with the pinky on the lower rows much more pleasant. The key wells feel different in other ways as well, but I haven’t investigated what the differences are yet :).

Another thing immediately jumps out is the thumb cluster. In contrast to the Advantage thumb cluster, the Glove 80 thumb cluster follows the thumb arc when you move the thumb outwards and has a raised second thumb cluster layer. I have average-sized hands and I can use more thumb cluster keys comfortably, which is definitely a win.

The tenting mechanism on the 360 is easier to use than that on the Glove80. But I always had the issue that none of the tenting degrees was exactly right for me. I often felt like the ideal degree on the 360 was somewhere between the lowest and the middle setting. So after a while I started to switch several times a day. It took me 30-60 minutes to tweak tenting on the Glove80, but that put it at a setting that I really like and feels good.

Wrt. to Bluetooth connectivity, after using the 360 Pro, I thought that the difficulty getting halves to link was an ZMK issue. But it turns out I was wrong. For me, so far the Glove80 halves have always linked immediately. No matter when I turn on each halve, it simply hasn’t been an issue.

Finally, the convex keycaps feel great (they are made to make it easy to move upwards and downwards). I expected that I would be bothered with the uniform profile, but with the curvature of the key wells and the shape of the keycaps I don’t have any trouble finding keys. And it’s nice that you can rearrange the caps as a result of the uniform profile (which I like as a Colemak-DH user). I went with Choc Red switches and they don’t bother me in daily use. They may not be silky smooth, lubed with Tibetan mountain goat saliva or whatever, but during multiple days of work they didn’t bother me and that is all I ask for. Plus there are multiple switch options to choose from (including soldering your own).

So far I haven’t really found anything negative, except that hopefully one day it will also be available in local ergo shops so that people can try it out + next day shipping.

Ok, this got a bit longer than I expected. But summarized my current feeling is that while the 360 is mostly a side-grade, the Glove80 is really an evolutionary step forward in contoured keyboards.