You'd think that with the DIY freedom people would be making Kinesis Advantages and slapping touchpads in the middle. But no, somehow it's the same old flat boards for arms that grow out of the chest and fingers that extend out of the hand instead of rotating on joints; with the typewriters' staggered layout that makes no sense on electronic keyboards. Only now they're a couple centimeters higher so the wrists are even more crooked, and of course there's no wrist support.
The split keyboards and ortholinear keys aren't that much better. They're mostly ideas about what would be better ergonomically, but they haven't been as thoroughly thought out as they seem. For the split keyboards, look at the whole of human history and tell me, out of the hundreds of thousands of years of tool use all the way back to the stone age, how many of those tasks were done with your arms set straight out in front of you, hands 12 to 14 inches apart. I bet most of human fine movement tasks were done with the hands close together (sewing for example). The position with your hands extended and 12 inches apart actually puts your elbows in a quite uncomfortable position, and I wouldn't be surprised if that in itself would lead to some injuries in that area (elbow).
As for the ortholinear key designs, that's not very ergonomic either. Make a fist with your hands. Now open your fingers. Do they open in a parallel line pattern like the orthogonal keyboards? No, they don't. They spread out, in a star-like pattern. If the keys were laid out similar to that pattern then, yes, I might concede a benefit there. But these two regular complaints about traditional keyboards while hailing split and orthogonal keybords as well thought out ergonomic solutions seem more like a fad to me.
By the way, I don't think the traditional typewriter-like keyboards are great, far from it. I do think, though, that our hands are pretty resilient, but not infinitely resilient. Too much repetitive work, insufficient rest, personal biomechanics, can all eventually lead to injuries, on all these types of keyboards.
I don't think it can be argued that they aren't more ergonomic than a regular keyboard. If you manage to create an uncomfortable position with a split keyboard you have the luxury to adapt... And I haven't seen people claiming that it is the holy grail, just that it is better.
Many otholinear keyboard are in a grid, yes. I guess mostly because it is easy, aesthetics and it fits everyone as good/bad. Many keyboards have their rows at different height to adapt to the different length of each finger. But how much? Depends on hand size and preference it is hard to imagine one being mass produced.
I don't have huge hand issues due to ergonomics, but I have experienced some.
I have tried most of what is out there: Kinesis Advantage, Maltron, Kinesis Freestyle, Matias Ergo Pro, Microsoft Sculpt, several Vortex...
Paradoxically, my best experience is with an Apple Magic Keyboard 2 (and I use Linux). I think that's because it's tiny, so I can move my hands and use mostly index and thumb fingers. Plus, actuation force is so light. Yet depth is acceptable. This is not a butterfly switch. A great side effect is tiny latency [1].
I also enjoy using the Magic Trackpad, which now works quite well in Linux. Scrolling using a finger gesture is very ergonomic compared to mouse wheels or even trackballs. At least for me. It promotes position variability.
Of course, these Magic Keyboard scissor switches are much more fragile than any mechanical one. In 4 or 5 years of intense use keys start falling apart. That's my experience with an equivalent keyboard in a MacBook Air. So, shortly, I will try to assemble a split keyboard with more shallow mechanical switches, inspired by the Magic Keyboard experience.
Please post on HN when you get that project done, I'd love to see what you come up with!
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, where I have a split keyboard with blues. It's pretty good, but the combined height of PCB + plate on top + standoffs and plate below PCB (the 'case' is just two plates above/below the PCB) + switches + keycaps is quite tall. I'm also going to try to make a slim keyboard in the near future.
Ultimately, the ergonomic goal of a tool like a keyboard which is used for extended periods should be to encourage use with all joints in a relatively neutral position, with very low static load on muscles.
The thing that splitting the keyboard (while keeping it flat) helps with is reducing “ulnar deviation” of the wrist (outward rotation in the plane of the hands). It is also possible to avoid ulnar deviation on a standard keyboard by changing typing style a bit, which is why some people have less problem than others with a single-piece keyboard.
What helps most is not splitting the keyboard per se, but tilting the two sides upward toward the center (the ideal is probably something like a 45° tilt, but even a bit of “tenting” helps significantly).
Having the hands palms-down and close together (as forced by a standard keyboard) ends up causing an unpleasant trade-off between (a) forearms rotated uncomfortably inward about their axis (“wrist pronation”), or (b) elbows swung forward or out to the side to reduce the amount of wrist pronation, in the process causing shoulder and back strain, or causing people to rest their elbows, forearms, wrists, or palms on some surface to compensate for the shoulder strain, and often in the process flexing or extending their wrists.
Wrist flexion or extension is really the worst for any kind of repetitive motion. It dramatically reduces strength and responsiveness of the joints, and can cause severe repetitive strain injuries. You will notice that typical human tools are designed very carefully so they can be used with a mostly straight wrist (or tool-user technique has developed to work around tools which don’t make this obvious).
Tilting the keyboard the right amount front-to-back to match the height of the keyboard relative to the torso can help quite a bit; most keyboards I observe in the wild are tilted incorrectly. You want the plane of the keyboard to be roughly parallel to the plane of the forearm. So on a tall desk, the keyboard should be tilted up at the back. On a low keyboard tray they keyboard should be flat or even tilted slightly down at the back.
Personally for myself, I found the best option to be MS Natural 4000's backward tilt (down at the back)—I'd like it to tilt even more at low desk heights but oh well. That way, the wrists stay straight while the fingers drop downwards a bit, in a feeble emulation of Kinesis Advantage's pits. I even use a wrist brace sometimes, which pads the wrist on the palm's side giving even more of a raise—feels really great for the fingers, but alas can't be reproduced in a stock wrist support because of the thumb getting in the way.
On a tall desk with a low chair, a “backward” tilt to the keyboard almost inevitably causes some uncomfortable hand/arm positioning.
If you have a high desk and low chair and you can’t change the furniture, you want the keyboard to be tilted (sometimes very aggressively) “forward” so that the plane of the keyboard is parallel to the plane of the forearms.
The keyboard should be kept close to the torso so that the upper arms can hang loosely down with relaxed shoulders. A bent elbow isn’t generally too big a problem.
You’ll notice that typewriters from the middle of the 20th century have a very aggressive tilt to them, to compensate for the standard high desks and low chairs (which were optimized for a middle-sized male to write with a pen, but made quite poor furniture for typically female typists.)
> wrists stay straight while the fingers drop downwards a bit
I have observed people doing this; usually their wrists are not actually straight, but are extended (i.e. bent downward), which is also a bad idea.
Resting palms, wrists, or forearms on a surface is generally undesirable during active typing in my opinion. It’s fine when the hands are not being used but are just sitting there.
Also, the fingers should not “drop downward”. The primary joint which flexes to type a key on a keyboard is the near knuckle where the finger attaches to the palm. You want these first knuckles to be straight when the finger is on the top of the unpressed key, and then flex downward to press the key; this is the strong and efficient part of that joint’s range of motion.
When reaching the near rows of keys, the further knuckles will be bent. When reaching the far rows of keys (which should ideally have tall keycaps) the further knuckles will straighten to reach the keytops.
My personal opinion is that the Kinesis Advantage is not the most biomechanically sound design; it was more or less a cheaper-to-produce ripoff of the Maltron, made by people who had done less thinking about typing than Malt. With careful attention it is IMO possible to significantly improve on both of those designs.
> My personal opinion is that the Kinesis Advantage is not the most biomechanically sound design
I agree. I use an Advantage, and while it's certainly better than traditional keyboards, I think it has a couple of flaws in terms of ergonomics:
• the keywells are not rotated inward and the distance between them is not adjustable. Therefore, unless your shoulder width is exactly right for this keyboard, you have to rotate your hands in- or outwards
• the thumb clusters are too far away. For me, if I relax my thumbs, they drop right in that little space between the space/backspace keys and the keywells.
• the thumb clusters are also too high, making it somewhat painful to rest the thumbs on the keys for longer periods of time
I have a split keyboard, and I think the real benefit is not that I can rotate my wrists, but that it allows me to pull my shoulder blades closer together. I sit more upright and have less back pain.
This. I also enjoy being able to move the two halves around through the day, shifting the muscular load around. It makes it easy to accommodate different seating, standing and lying positions.
(I never figured out, despite 'ergonomics training', how I was supposed to hold my extended hands and arms upright for hours per day without shoulder and neck pain.)
Are you kidding, right? Some people have a natural predisposition to issues such as carpal tunnel and don't need to use a keyboard at all to exacerbate the problem.
Traditional keyboards are simply not great for a lot of reasons. I experimented with tons of different keyboards and keyboard layouts mostly out of curiosity. You don't need to go far to feel the difference: microsoft curved keyboards are already much better than most regular keyboards.
Once you realize you can reduce finger travel by orienting the keyboard to the natural direction of the finger flexion you won't go back easily, and you'd likely want to go further with something you can orient in any way you like.
And yes, 'ortholinear' plays a big part in how you position the keys. I've used a lot earlier models of fully split keyboards such as the "comfort keyboard", but it never felt as natural as a simple linear grid, as I tended to put the keyboard at weird angles just to achieve what a simple vertical array of keys does. Heck, I'll go as far as saying that if you want to experiment without going crazy, the first step would be to try an ortholinear keyboard. It makes more difference.
I've personally settled on a Kinesis Advantage Pro. It does many things right out of the box. I can only complain about the function keys, but I barely use them anyway. It's not fully split, but the position is good enough, and it avoids the issue of fixing the keyboard pads to the table in order to avoid movement which is an issue I had with all split keyboards (and no, a rubberized mat is not enough).
I think the price is right for the build quality, and I didn't want to go the DIY route mostly because I have other projects going on (a DIY keyboard is a lot of work - I have plenty of respect for those who make even a flat one).
The Advantage has been updated into the Advantage II (I have two and adore them ). One of the big changes is the function keys, if that is ever of interest to you.
A lot of people build their own ergonomic split keyboards, there are even websites like keeb.io which focus purely on kits for such variants, and open source projects like the ergodox or dactyl keyboards that everyone can 3D print(or otherwise create) and handwire with their own choice of componentes and materials. Of course it's not the majority but a market exists and many of the kits are almost constantly sold out.
I built a Nyquist from keeb.io parts (and zealios 67g switches). It was mostly to learn how to flash QMK to a microcontroller, solder the components etc., but I used it for a few weeks and it was surprisingly comfortable, better than my usual topre novatouch.
How do you find 67g switches? I built quefrency with 67g Zilents and while they are comfortable I wonder if they are a bit too stiff for fingers joints health
I like them, but I have a somewhat soft typing touch and don't bottom them out (they're harder to bottom out than most switches, too). I don't know if lighter switches (which are likely going to be easier to bottom out) might be better for joints.
It is also, like many things in hardware, a software problem. The purpose of a keyboard is to interact with software. And that software is biased towards certain layouts. It is hard to change the layout too much without quickly becoming a niche product. Add to that the barrier to entry to making a hardware product is still quite high, and relatively costly.
There are tons and tons of ortholinear diy-boards floating around.
The problem with curved boards is manufacturing (for diy) and the pcb. But 3D printing solved the first problem and they are mostly soldered with wires rather than experimenting with pcbs. So there are a few curved boards out there as well. Such as https://github.com/abstracthat/dactyl-manuform/blob/master/R...
As for touchpads they kind of suck as an input device (imo), but it would be easy to incorporate an apple device in the above. But people seem to be experimenting more with large ball mouses such as the kensington trackball or something like the point-stick that thinkpads use, where you don't even have to lift your hands of home-row.
> But 3D printing solved the first problem and they are mostly soldered with wires rather than experimenting with pcbs.
It doesn't really. Modern diy culture is ultimately about publishing. That is what puts you on somewhat equal footing with a large entity. What we mostly have with 3d printing is a do-it-for-yourself culture. That is why every institution will have an exclusive maker space, where you will get reprimanded if you use too much machine time. Why people dump things on github without documentation for their resume. And why the hacker news thread on the raspberry pi is about what people are using rather than what they have created.
A keyboard is a very basic object. It is almost like the hello world of hardware. Despite this it is very challenging to produce and publish one [0][1], or something like one [2]. But these stories mostly fall of deaf ears as this important part of diy culture has become marginalized.
Doing a keyboard is easy. Doing it well is surprisingly hard.
Canned firmwares solve a lot of bootstrapping problems, and there are spoon-feed tutorials to get a working PCB, but you run into a lot of real-world constraints soon.
While loose wiring allows for custom experimentation of some designs, ergonomic 3D shapes, it also tends to increase complexity of assembly and risk of things going wrong (shorts and loose connections) It's also a mess if you want custom lighting. So you tend to stick to PCB-based designs for anything beyond one-off projects.
Commercial quality mounting plates and cases are more of an impediment than the electronics. Yeah, you can make a science fair project, but for something you're using 12 hours a day for years, people want a point of pride. Want one 104-key switch mounting plate cut? It's probably going to be over $100. Bespoke CNC milled cases can be over $500. Since there are commercial offerings now for many popular sizes, it's easier to say "I'll make a slight riff on the existing 60% size, so people can use a cheap case, than to try a zesty new layout that means a $400 admission charge."
Note this is from an enthusiast short-run-of-kits perspective. If you're going for commercial production, then you have issues with sourcing and manufacturers. We're now into year five of waiting for the Matias corporation to get new keycap designs they promised to market.
Sure, that is sort of what I am saying. It is hard to build a community around custom cases when injection molding starts at $5k. It is like trying to start a band (before the Internet) with no venues, demo or posters. That would be infinite rehearsal.
But I guess as I said in my other comment it depends on what you mean with diy. If it is about doing something in the craft sense you can 3d print, laser cut and solder. And you can collect keycaps and choose colours. But if it is doing something where the design of the keyboard is what you are doing, rather the assembling of it, than you need some sort medium for your design. And since their aren't much of scene to present your work in (like you would have with custom cars) you have distribute it.
There a huge disconnect between this idea of drones, 3d printing or maker spaces as the future and the reality of what is possible on the ground. And that is about being able to make a hundred of something without waiting months, spending quite a bit of money and/or traveling to China.
But I guess it is a bit of a tangent. As you said people don't make more different keyboards because things like cases and flex pcbs are expensive.
There is one definition of diy, which I guess is now more common, that means self-repair, crafting or hobbyism. But there is also a more distinct definition, as in diy culture, that means having the capabilities that are usually only afforded certain professionals or companies. It is primary the latter definition that creates innovation and communities.
The parent was asking why there isn't more innovation in keyboards despite the freedom to create them. The reason is because most of these keyboard are scrapbooks rather than zines. For that purpose 3d printing and handwiring makes sense. But for the purpose of innovation you need to be able to distribute your ideas. Which is something most people can't, because it is hard to do so.
That is why most people are making flat keyboards, because that is what is within their reach. But that is more ikea than hip hop. Maybe we should call it aiy, assemble-it-yourself, instead (but that really isn't that important).
It can of course be discussed but I think many of the 'natural' incentives to organize, or even notice something, like scarcity and expense isn't there anymore. These days there are just so much to compete with.
I guess what people try to do instead is to make things modular. But then you might still end up with a few companies like adafruit and sparkfun running most of the show.
The only good example I can think of is modular synths, which seems to have enough layers to be able to offer the "choose your own adventure" in meaningful way. There I could see how you could make something that people would want to "pull" from you, rather than having to "push" it. But on the other hand I don't know it that well.
I was a big trackball fan for many years (mostly Logitech models). Although I admit I switched away, in part because there was at least a period when I didn't like any of the models available, but also because Apple finally did a trackpad I actively liked rather than barely tolerated.
I have one (sans modules, obviously, for now), and I use it daily with great satisfaction. Not sure yet if it improves my RSI symptoms, but it's not making them worse. It does take a bit of time to develop muscle memory for the different layers. I'm eagerly awaiting the modules to be ready (got the trackball, track point, and the key cluster on order).
one other point, I did not find the palm rest to be very comfortable, and wish I could attach it at an angle to the keyboard itself. currently it's sitting in a box since I carry the uhk with me, and it's somewhat hefty.
I have one. It’s sweet even without the modules, can always order them later. I consider it one of those few perfect purchases. Only issue in 1/2 year: I thought the cool coiled cable was too short so i bought a straight replacement cable for 5€.
yes, i have the yellow one. it looks awesome, but i'm really longing for some post-apocalyptic touches (think Metro rather than Fallout). don't have an airbrush though, nor do I know how to use one. So this will have to wait...
Why do you think that the keyboard is the problem, and not the indoctrination of "this is the right way to type and posture" leading to further stress?
In fact, in my admittedly small sample of others I know who do have problems with their wrists, they were all ones who tried very hard to rigidly conform to the "standard" posture and move only the fingers of the hands instead of the whole arm. They were also people who hit the keys much harder than necessary.
I use a standard flat QWERTY keyboard and I can type for hours at 150+ WPM with no problem, but I've had comments from some of those people above that I'm not doing it right... when they're the ones who are getting pains in their wrists, not me...
If you try to keep your hands parallel to the keyboard no matter what, you are going to stress your wrists. Let them approach at whatever angle feels comfortable, and relax. That also happens to be the "trick" to typing faster too --- if you expend effort on trying to be "strict" about posture rather than just hitting the keys in whatever you feel to be the most comfortable way, you'll tire quickly, type slower, and stress your joints more.
It’s not only the form factor. They’re also obsessed with high resistance switches (going as high as 65 and even 80g activation point) which is sure way to develop RSI.
You should aim to go as low as possible but still avoiding accidental activation when resting your fingers on the keyboard. For most people, that means between 30 and 35g.
Realforce makes a bunch of them but they’re not held in high regard by the mechanical keyboard community because they don’t feel tactile enough. Let alone the fact that they dare using rubber in the keyboards.
Fortunately they seem to be busier building them from scratch and posting the results on Reddit than actually typing.
I absolutely haven't gotten that feeling from the mechanical keyboard community.
They seem pretty accepting of anything, and are often more concerned with finding the right keyboard for what you want. There are jokes and memes that go around, but not many people have issues with any kinds of switches.
Some people really prefer the tactile feel, and others really want the super high activation forces. It's a tradeoff, and there are more options now than ever.
I have a split ortholinear keyboard with Kailh blue 50cN activation force "clicky" switches, a BDN9 macro pad with Cherry MX White (80cN "clicky" switches), a planck with cherry MX brown 55cN quiet "tactile" switches, and an aging das-keyboard 4 ultimate that I replaced the stock greetech switches with MOD L Linear switches with a 45cN activation weight.
I have to say that I thought the lighter activation would be nice, but it was actually MORE stressful for my hands because even though I wouldn't normally accidentally activate the switch by resting my hands, if I moved too quickly or kind of let my fingers relax it would press down enough sometimes to type accidentally, leading to me kind of "hovering" my fingers above the keys all the time. I also missed the tactile feel that I was getting used to on other boards to avoid having to "bottom out" the keys for the most part.
I'm not going to say it's worse for everyone, but for me I greatly prefer 50-70cN activation force for typing, and I really like the "heavy" feel of the cherry MX White switches for my macro pad. You may like the lighter force switches. In that case you may want to go for linear switches as they tend to have smaller activation weights. Take a look at the Kalih silver or copper switches, or the cherry MX speed silver if you can find them. They are about as light as mechanical switches come.
> It’s not only the form factor. They’re also obsessed with high resistance switches (going as high as 65 and even 80g activation point) which is sure way to develop RSI.
I have been using a keyboard with relatively heavy switches for years now and never had fewer problems typing.
Actually, increasing resistance has reduced my strain from typing. After a few minutes of typing, I start to bottom out less and less, and instead I feel like I have little shock absorbers under each key, reducing the impact of every press.
As for the community, most seem to dislike high resistance switches, which is why my preference for MX Clears leaves me with few brands to purchase from, and my dream ideal of a higher resistance Topre will probably never happen.
I actually like the domes as they are. What I want is, somehow, to increase the spring tension after the dome collapses, so that I don't slam into the baseplate.
Funny you don't hear most pianists complaining about a need for a better piano layout. And they exist... http://www.altkeyboards.com/
The biggest value in QWERTY keyboards is that everyone can use them. It's a standard, and most of the information about it being intentionally designed to "slow you down" is false.
I care about the quality of my keyboard and how it feels in the same way I care about how my piano keys feel. Switching even from my thinkpad to friends butterfly MacBooks makes typing significantly harder for me.
As far as RSI is concerned, there was a time when I used to play WoW and I thought I might have a problem with this, but between small hand stretches and maybe just luck, I don't have these problems anymore. Maybe they'll come back as I continue to get older.
Here's a random reddit thread where random people seem to think posture and technique avoids RSI. I'm tempted to agree.
If you compare a piano with a standard keyboard, there are a lot of differences. The problem with the standard keyboard is, that for touch-typing, the hands need to be angled very unnaturally, as they have to be close together, yet lined up in an almost parallel position. The only way to achive that is to flex your wrists, and that is where a lot of stress originates from.
A piano is very wide, and you often have you hands spaced very far from each other. This reduces a lot of stress. Also, you don't have your fingers basically tied to the same positions, but during the play, the wrists change position a lot, so there is no static pressure into a single unnatural position. The active movement should be beneficial to your wrists too. Finally, the keys are pretty large, giving more possible hand positions to hit them.
The piano keyboard is pretty poorly designed from a pure user interface standpoint; its design is mostly dictated by the direct mechanical connection to a big bunch of parallel strings.
Tons of pianists get RSI, which can seriously impact their careers. It is important for serious musicians to figure out a piano technique which does not require putting too much static load on any of the joints.
An improved piano keyboard could help quite a bit, but it’s pretty hard to change piano keyboard layouts, since there are several centuries of repertoire built up around the current one, and pianos are very large, expensive, and difficult to modify.
I would also imagine manufacturing a piano keyboard is much harder, since it's not a simple on/off switch like computer keyboards. They need to have very precise tactile feel, and support multiple steps of pressure and speed when pressing the keys.
It's also an un-chorded interface (pun intended) for traditional pianos. So I'm not really sure how much better it could be made.
If you used hexagonal keys instead of long rectangles, made the keys a bit smaller, arranged them in several rows but not so many columns (so they were all accessible without excessive arm reaching), staggered their heights to make pressing combinations of them as convenient as possible, split the piano into two pieces and tilted them 30–50° upward toward the center (with the idea that each hand stayed on its own side), you’d get something much more comfortable to play and more flexible as an input device. Optimizing the layout would take a considerable amount of research / feedback from musicians.
However, it is likely that some parts of the existing piano repertoire would become significantly harder to play, or at the very least everything would require dramatically different motions vs. the current piano, requiring any aspiring player to completely re-learn how to play on the new design. But in trade many new types of note combinations would become dramatically easier.
I can’t see pianists who play e.g. 18–19th century piano pieces taking this up in significant numbers, but it would be great for people developing new music.
I just finished building my first design. It doesn't include a trackpad but it has curved keys like the kinesis, a thumb cluster that is better then the ergo dox or kinesis (but not perfect). People are building crazy custom keyboards.
Because not a lot of people prefer touchpads over mice. I'd very much prefer a compact keyboard + comfortable mouse to that setup (and given the keyboards a lot of people are building, I'm not alone)
Kinesis looks good for data entry and such keyboard-only activities, but otherwise, when one hand is using a mouse, I don't think it is comfortable. Any experiences?
I have used a kinesis for 12+ years as my main keyboard.
I'm not fully sure what you are asking -- I would guess you're referring to the fact that it's harder than usual to type with one hand and mouse with the other, because you have to reach across to the other side of the keyboard?
If that's what you're asking, I agree -- but I consider it a good thing :). I found that the kinesis helped me focus on touch-typing more and relying more on keyboard shortcuts to navigate; it's a bit of a learning curve but ultimately worth it for ergonomics and speed.
In case of the browser, I've augmented it with the Vimium add-on. I've gotten so used to touch-typing that I'm annoyed when I have to reach for the mouse, even despite the inherent delay for reading Vimium's label on a link. That's why I want a touchpad in quick reach. And also for the two-finger scroll with its analog sensitivity.
This keyboard-reliance has led me to another observation, that web devs don't test keyboard scroll on their sites.
I have one too. Because the body of the keyboard doesn't cut off where the keys end, and supports so much of your wrist, you don't notice that it's so thick, the "desk surface" is just that much higher.
I have one of these too. I ended up not using it because I preferred my long-standing kinesis. It was quite comfortable though; my main complaint was with the switches -- I didn't like the Matias switches it ships with (I prefer Cherry Browns). I also felt that I wanted more thumb-keys, but that's obviously a preference I inherited from my longtime Kinesis usage :).
If the design appeals to you I do still recommend it despite not preferring it myself. The build quality was great. I don't have any comments in particular about the height, not something I noticed.
I wonder if this is the audiophile equivalent of computer enthusiasm.
I mean, like audiophiles buying gold cables for 10x the price and no reason, and using 20's tech (vacuum tubes) in their amps, selecting individual tubes and all that...
So here the keyboard enthusiasts select their switches, key curvatures, materials, etc. and the result might just be some placebo feel good improvement and more noise for everyone else.
> I wonder if this is the audiophile equivalent of computer enthusiasm.
Obviously, there are many similarities, for examples,
* Community-driven
* DIY
* Emphasis on personal paste and preferences
This is why, drop.com is actually a well-known group-buy website that offers BOTH audiophiles AND mechanical keyboards.
> I mean, like audiophiles buying gold cables for 10x the price and no reason, and using 20's tech (vacuum tubes) in their amps, selecting individual tubes and all that...
But there are some important differences as well. Computer enthusiasm is either the delivery of objective performance or personal tastes and preferences. However, a large subset of the audiophile market is pseudoscientific, useless snake-oil that pretends to be an objective improvement.
Using vacuum tubes and selecting them individually is a personal preference, but buying "cryo-treated" vacuum tubes, some questionable power conditioners, and gold cables and actually believing them can have a significant effect (compared to, let's say, spending the money on upgrading the sound source or the acrostics of your room) is pure snake-oil.
On the other hand, computer enthusiasts know exactly what they are buying for, the transparency and competition is radical in the industry, unlike parts of the audiophile market.
> some placebo feel good improvement
There is no placebo effect, as mechanical keyboards users simply say that it's comfortable to type, and I don't see claims about how they can make you type faster (on the other hand, whether advocacy of alternative keyboard layouts are completely placebo effects would be something worth an actual discussion, e.g. I'm currently typing this on Dvorak).
You'll know without question that two mechanical keyboards have different characteristics, and you would have a personal preference. On the other hand, the same cannot often be said for some audio "equipment" such as a gold cable.
I don't know. I think there are some parallels, but more in the sense that many audiophile probably don't care that much about the audio. It is more about singling that you are successful enough to buy and care about different things. I think the same can be true of mechanical keyboards (and tech gadgets in general). People like the idea of something being special and having time for that more than they care whether it is. Which is why you will likely find that most people care more about the keycaps than the decaps.
Not all mechs are noisy. Personally I was having significant pain in my finger joints until I switched to mechs with (fairly quiet) Cherry Brown and Red switches, and trained myself to type mostly without bottoming out the keys.
There are very clearly noticeable differences between the different keyswitches, and also between different shapes of keycaps. And not just in mechanical keyboards.
I have used a mass-manufactured red (linear quiet) keyboard, a custom split blue (tactile loud/clicky) mechanical keyboards, the keyboard on my current XPS 15, and many years ago a MSI gaming laptop with a SteelSeries-made rubber dome keyboard. I realize these are audiophile terms, but there is a huge difference in how each keyboard feels and how satisfying it is to type on them. It's not just like having slightly 'cripser' etc. audio - the differences are extremely obvious.
The red keyboard sucks for typing; I didn't realize how much until I switched to the blue. They offer no feedback and my WPM and error rate is much higher/lower on the reds. The blues have very solid feedback and feel nice to type on, the sound is also beautiful. The keyboard on the XPS 15 sucks, it's like typing on a piece of styrofoam - but better still than the new MacBook keybaords, which feel like like typing on a piece of wood. The MSI laptop had a very deep keyboard (almost as much key travel as a mechanical one) and the keys were heavy. The pressure required to push them down felt nice, and they bottomed out in a very satisfying way. I only use the MSI laptop a few times a year but I always look forward to typing on it.
If you only drove 4 door sedans (normal rubber domes) you would think that people are crazy for wanting to get their own customized cars in different form factors, but if you drove a sedan and a SUV and a pickup truck and a motorcycle you would know that it's very much not just a 'placebo feel good' difference.
On the other hand if you go to /r/mechanicalkeyboards you'll find weirdos spending $200 on keycaps and cases and $50 on USB cables, or people that collect dozens of keyboards, or people that use 10x3 keyboards (letters + space, no numbers ctrl alt etc.). Those people are the audiophile-type ones. I just have a nice $120 keyboard which I love to use and which will last a decade or more.
You can find audiophile-type stuff for really every category of purchaseable products. I have a beautiful metal $15 fountain pen (Pilot Metropolitan); on /r/fountainpens you'll find weirdos spending $100 on an ugly octagonal pen made with transparent plastic. Here's a video on laundry machine collectors who bring dirty clothes to meets and listen/watch to the laundry machines go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmmmxI-Y_6U
Also, to some people the sound is really pleasing. You may want to try out Bucklespring, which plays the sounds of an old IBM buckling-spring keyboard through your computer speakers, and you might realize why so many people like clicky keyboards. When I'm not using headphones I can hear the blues, when I am wearing headphones the blue switches are muffled and their sound mixes with the sound of Bucklespring. When I take the laptop outside and I'm alone I turn up the speakers a bit; the buckling spring keyboard on its own sounds amazingly good, and helps reduce the type-on-wood feeling of laptop keyboards.
At least what I've seen feels to me more like casemodders with PCs, people putting decals or body-kits on their cars, or collectors ... It's more about making something their own and making it look cool, not pretending it works that much better.
Now seems like a good time to ask: does the loud, audible click of a mechanical keyboards increase the user's accuracy? Are our ears in the loop, consciously or not?
A family member had a mechanical keyboard with a cherry mx switch and I tried it out with an online typing test I'd tried before.
I could type about 20% faster than usual, which is already way up there. I easily hit 135+ in several segments[1], which is insane.
I easily felt when I was making a mistake, I had confidence in what I was typing. (because of each little click.)
But it was also really loud.
Is that necessary? Is it part of what made me fast and accurate?
The obvious way to test this which would not change the feel of the keyboard at all, would be to put in foam earbuds and then see if my typing rate or accuracy drops when I can't hear the keyboard. Unfortunately I didn't have any with me so I didn't try it.
Can someone who uses a mechanical keyboard comment on whether the audible noise from it is part of the typing loop? if someone here has the inclination and a mechanical keyboard and happens to have hearing protection with them could you try it and tell me whether your typing rate or accuracy drops if you can't hear the keyboard? (if you do an online typing test with strong hearing protection in.)
If it does not, then why aren't there any absolutely silent keyboards that just have the feel (tactile feedback) but without any loud click?
I plain can't decide if this clickety-clack noise is part of the feedback loop the typist uses or not. My family member's keyboard was incredibly loud.
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[1] I'm being very literal so just to show you, on my own keyboard now I took a screenshot 15 seconds into a test, before I made any mistakes: https://imgur.com/a/eOejvsu - this was really hard for me to do now. On my own keyboard I can average 100 wpm for 60 seconds but it's really hard: https://imgur.com/a/tClgZR4
I have a keyboard with silent black MX switches and I never felt any need for clickyness.
The cool thing about these linear switches (Black, Red, Silver, Grey) is that you can type extremely silent if you like to, by just hovering the keys or you can type loudly by bottoming them out (if somebody was wrong on the internet or so).
When I type silently it is less loud than my lenovo notebook keyboard.
For me the click was never really necessary — the resistance of the spring is already enough. Maybe it is because I play guitar, bass and piano.
> I have a keyboard with silent black MX switches and I never felt any need for clickyness.
I had a red keyboard and I never felt that it was necessary. But then I got a blue and I would never go back. Just because the sound isn't necessary or helpful doesn't mean it's pleasing to have it.
Like a big moon roof in a car, if you've never had one you may not really see the point, but once you get one the feeling of having light coming in from overhead is something that you quickly begin to enjoy.
You may want to try this program - even though I have blues I keep it enabled when I use headphones or when I am using the laptop keyboard: https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring
I'm having a little trouble following. Do I have this right:
- blues are louder than reds
- You had a red keyboard and you didn't think you needed the noise
- but then you got the blue which was much louder and you enjoyed this
If that's what you mean, what did you mean by this:
>Just because the sound isn't necessary or helpful doesn't mean it's pleasing to have it.
do you mean "just because it isn't necessary doesn't mean it's NOT pleasing to have it" (in fact for you it IS pleasing to have it - you enjoy the noise?)
let me know if I am reading your comment right. it sounds like you very much enjoy hearing loud clicks, to the point of installing a program to emulate them.
I know a lot of people who dislike the reds, they give the least feedback of all the cherry MX switches (be it force feedback or acoustic feedback). They are basically very light linear switches.
They are however popular in gaming, because the linearity of the force curve allows for fast repeat rates. In fact they made a silver variant, which is basically a red switch with a shorter travel way.
I don't get the clicky keys for the sound, personally. For me, it means that I don't have to bottom out the key to know that a key press has happened and I like having the sharp click. This is very nice for me, as I have reoccurring tendonitis in my wrist and the tendons that connect my fingers. That and the fact that I play organ, where you're supposed to press the key the absolute minimum to get the sound out.
Also it just feels nicer to me.
Then again, I haven't spent an insane amount of money on a keyboard. My work keyboard is a Red Dragon 10 keyless with Cherry MX blues (what you think of with clicky keyboards), one of the cheapest you can get on Amazon at around $25. Definitely worth the money, and in all honesty not a whole lot louder than the OEM keyboards some of my co-workers use (probably because I don't bottom out the keys).
I’ve wanted to make a keyboard, but I’m not sure it’s possible to make something materially better than the kinesis advantage. I switched to it 10 years after my hands would feel numb after typing.
I think I might have some problem other people don’t, but even for normal people, I find it hard to believe that a kinesis wouldn’t be better for them as well.
I’ve seen some split diy keyboards, but none of them have the great concave wells kinesis does. Also the kinesis has macros, key remapping, and easy switching between Dvorak and QWERTY. Being able to type your password with one button is super cool!
I have one for my work account. Whenever I have to update it I just overwrite the macro. I figure if it gets compromised they won't think it's my fault and I won't face any consequences :p
Dactyl https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard is split and curved. Been thinking about building one, though I'd probably use wood as casing material and I know it will be a lot of work, so it may or may not materialize...
I appreciated a lot about the one I got but had a hard time dealing with the increased friction introduced for non-alphanumeric keys I use regularly for programming.
What I want is a non-radical, normal sized, ergonomic mechanical keyboard. I basically want an MS natural keyboard with a decent feel. Does such a thing exist?
Why are so many mechanical keyboards tiny? They don't want to spend the money for more switches?
I thought I found something "close enough" in this split mechanical keyboard (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK74QY5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...). But it is "tiny" and doesn't have normal function keys, etc. After a while its lack of keys drove me crazy and I went back to my old mushy MS Natural.
> Why are so many mechanical keyboards tiny? They don't want to spend the money for more switches?
Yes, to some extent at least. But maybe more the pcb, plate, case etc. I have a pcb for a ms natural style keyboard (without the numpad) and the effective size is 40x15 cm (16x6 inches). Not that expensive to get in China, but I guess it is has also become fashion with smaller boards now. I think the whole thing sort of started with modifying pok3r, ducky, ninja type keyboards
That sounds like exactly what I want. Are you selling a keyboard around it? I don't need the numpad, but after 10+ years of ms natural, I'm used to the remainder of the layout.
Unfortunately not in the foreseeable future. It is a couple of years old at this point, and I haven't really tested it either. I think you would also need palm rests to recreate the experience well enough.
As someone with a mechanical Keyboard obsession I have this advice: "Walk away now!". This is a expensive hobby the more you get the more you want. The first fix is something cheap a couple hundred dollars. The next will be a little more bespoke on and on it will go. Until spending $500 on a keyboard seems like an everyday thing.
As someone who restores old Teletype machines, I don't consider little key units with clickers in them to be a "mechanical keyboard". On a real mechanical keyboard, like a Teletype or an IBM Selectric, you cannot push two keys at once. The mechanism resists that.
