I Tried 'Ergonomic' Keyboards for a Week.

I try three Ergonomic Keyboards to find out if I like Ergonomic keyboards for gaming and typing. I Try the Angry Miao AM AFA Keyboard, Ergo Dox Keyboard, and Truly Ergonomic Keyboards.
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[HipyoTech]

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[Halzholic]

- Goes to learn swimming
- Gives up on day 1
- Blames water

[lsvensson]

Ironic how you are doing the same thing here as that journalist in the "Journalists Don't Understand Custom Keyboards..." video

[no-nukez]

I feel like the video should be renamed,
from: I Tried "Ergonomic" Keyboards
to: I "Tried" Ergonomic Keyboards

[Stebynski]

I've been using only ergo boards for a bit over two years at this point. Most of us that have gotten into ergo boards didn't get into it because we wanted a keyboard that sounded good but we needed some type of change in order to use a keyboard without our hands dying. I use a 36 key split CRKBD layout and am able to type comfortably at about 130wpm throughout the day while working.

I feel like harping on the boards feel initially is a little bit out of the spirit of what ergo boards are trying to accomplish. I also totally understand the learning curve that you have to go through in order to use an ergo board efficiently. It doesn't help that you don't touch type with your right hand, so a change in layout would be a lot harder to manage. Gaming is also not the greatest benchmark for using an ergo board. While it's possible, I find it a lot easier to have a separate left-hand gamepad so that I can have all the keys I need for gaming and then being able to go back to the ergo board when I need to type for work and personal stuff.

It might have just been me, but I felt that your take on the whole ergo board topic was biased towards sound and switch feel when those aren't even the priority of the boards. I'd love to see you revisit this topic without harping on the boards for feel when that's not the primary goal for the boards.

[nathanhollow]

This video is like reviewing a mug to dig the ground. You're just reviewing a product based on what it's not designed to do.

[skatterpro]

>use split keyboard for ergonomic reasons
>doesn't push them far enough apart to actually have shoulders and elbows relaxed

Also, you sit with your desk too high, and you're defaulting to raised wrists, which would work with a high rest, but hovering is definitely putting strain on them.

[bees]

You ever hear that saying about judging a fish by it's ability to climb a tree? Yeah, that's a little like judging ergonomics by the sound the switches make and their gaming ability. Jumping to ortholinear or column staggered, as others have noted, is a lot to adjust to. It's not like relearning a new layout, but it is a lot. But it's necessary to adjust to if you're going to fairly evaluate the setup. Judging the boards you usually make videos on by the standards of ergonomic factors would result in an equally awful outlook. I mean, who builds a custom keyboard without a thumb cluster, or even a split spacebar?

[JakoTheWacko]

Guitarist tries playing piano for one day and declares it's a horribly inferior instrument: "I can't even see the strings".

[benburke]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of your wrists try an ergonomic keyboard that TENTS. Tenting alters your resting wrist position. I highly recommend the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard or UHK, with the wrist rests and thumb cluster addon. I really appreciate the split left and right style because you can pull them farther apart and keep your shoulders wide open and relaxed.

Oh, and you should try lowering your desk. It’s too high, so your elbows and forearms can’t get a healthy 90 degree angle.

[Persun_McPersonson]

Why would you make a whole video about trying ergonomic keyboards but not bother to actually learn how to use them to get the benefit?

[catswillruletheearth]

If you ever want to take another look at the first keyboard I would recommend seperating the two halves further apart. The main benifit of thos is the ability to spread them further apart, generaly to where your arms are at shoulder width. It definately does take getting used to, especially with those button clusters next to the thumbs (I've never had one with the thumb cluster).

[XeroShifter]

Watching your hands try to type on these things says a lot about if an ergo board is going to work well or not. You're moving hands all around the keyboards like they have no home-row or resting position. It also seems like you're heavily reliant on your index fingers to push keys that are supposed to be pushed by other fingers. I had a lot of these problems and they're actually why I forced myself to switch. The difficulty of learning meant I would have the chance to correct my typing style at the same time at what was essentially no extra cost. Being able to type fast was not the point of home-row for typing, and being able to type fast using a wonkey method doesn't make that method a good idea for regular use.

The point behind split boards is about keeping your shoulders and arms on the same plane, rather than having them tilt inward, and then your wrists tile outward. All of your arms should be following the same through-line the whole way, so even if you position the keyboard halves inward, at least tilt the halves so that your wrists aren't bending. On a similar note, your chair is too low in reference to the desk, your forearms should be roughly parallel with the floor, not inclined upwards. Your chair back is also way too far back and isn't properly supporting you during a lot of the typing footage here. Your hands should float above the keyboard over a centralized home, and your wrists should never be below your hands. Until you fix a bunch of these things no amount of ergo is going to help you because you are cancelling out ever bit of potential good with these things. Its entirely possible that you'd be fine without ergo if you fixed these things. Additionally, changes like ergo aren't going to immediately make you feel better, most of your pain is likely from damage caused by typing the way you have been, and you need to let that damage have time to heal. Ergo helps reduce the injuries' being caused, but itself is not a magical healing technique.

In regards to keyboards

Max-Ergo but You Essentially Relearn to Type: Dactly Manuform or its more commercial variant: AmHatsu, Kinesis Advantage,

Ergo with adjustment time - ZSA Moonlander, Atreus-like boards

This barely counts as Ergo - Keychron Q11

So much of the ergo space is DIY stuff right now because companies don't want to make the huge investment into making these boards and hoping that they appeal to enough people. When it comes to a niche sub-community like ergo-mech, maybe you should have asked someone about ergo stuff before you published something like this. I know you said you're not going in as an expert, but you went in so blind that you not only didn't have a good sample of the boards that are out there, but you also failed to utilize the ones you had in front of you in a way that might have actually given you some benefit.

That all said... yeah that 2nd board looked pretty trash.

[jacobgaylord]

Keychron has a split board that has a typical layout (staggered keys vs the keys vertically aligned) so it’ll feel much more natural to type on. For me, it’s been a complete game changer for shoulder and wrist pain (also a climber here). It’s plug & play, customization through VIA, so much easier to start using and customize. You can use just one half or the other at a time if you like, so plenty of space for gaming.

[mechanicalmonk]

"I've been doing this for 3 days now"

You're literally re-learning to ride a bike ... this needs more time.

It took me over a month to start being productive with my Kinesis and almost half a year to become fully comfortable with it.

[alyeva]

Okay so I have a few keyboard recommendations and also some tips on how to select a good one and actually use one efficiently (both health and work wise). First off you probably don't want to go for a flat keyboard, key layout and split designs are important factors but there's a bit more to it than that. Preferably you want something that inclines slightly upward towards your wrists (negative tilt) so your wrists are positioned slightly higher (elevation-wise) and your fingers are resting naturally on the keyboard, with this you generally want some sort of wrist rest so your wrists will be properly elevated and most ergo keyboards come with them (except for that last expensive one idk what the point of that one was lol). Another factor is tenting, most good ergo boards will be raised in the center so your wrists/hands can be more naturally angled instead of totally flat.

Other than that make sure you're sitting properly and your arms/hands aren't in any awkward angles, if you have a split keyboard you have more control/customization on where you want your hands to be (though it will give you significantly less mouse space if they're positioned too far away from each other). For keyboards I use a fairly cheap one that I highly recommend but I'm sure you can afford better. I use a cloud nine ergoTKL which does all the things I listed with the main caveat that you can't replace the switches as they're not hot-swappable. For the really nice expensive ones I recommend either the Kinesis Advantage360 or the ZSA Moonlander, the Moonlander you'll probably prefer as it's the only one hot swappable to my knowledge.

[pointeplusplus]

To answer your question: I think when you’re a software developer in your early 30s and have a joint disorder you kind of have no choice other than becoming an “ergonomics person”. For some people it’s going to be worth the retraining but one might argue maybe we should just design keyboards with ergonomics in mind so when kids use them for the first time it’ll just be training and not retraining 😅

Have you ever tried the glove80? I’m curious how it would be because it looks hard to get used to but also might be a grail keyboard ⌨️

[redspade]

Other than the keyboards themselves, I think to get the most out of ergonomic setup, you could also adjust your desk/chair height, arm rest angle/height, monitor height/angle. If mech keybs are a rabbit hole, ergonomic anything is an entirely new rabbit hole just as much, maybe even more...

[MammothSmasher]

I recommend learning how to home row type before transitioning to an ergo or split board.
This took me personally about two weeks to learn on a regularly staggered keyboard with another two weeks to be at ~70WPM on my Idobao ID75.

Ergo isn't for everyone (I use a Raindrop 60% daily) but learning that first step is crucial to transition to an ergo board, especially with a columnar layout.

I think the consensus here is this is a bad take and warrants a follow up.

Love you Hipyo, keep making great content for this community!! <3

[Brunnen_Gee]

I know someone who just recently switched to an ortholinear ergo keyboard. It started much the same way for him, he went from 110wpm to 20wpm. It didn't take him long to get back up to speed though, three hours of typing tests and he'd broken 100wpm with 100% accuracy.

Ergonomics isn't an instant change. It's something you have to let your body get used to, and there can be pains associated with it. This is something that can take weeks to months to do. Days, or even one week, isn't enough. I went through similar with my back, forcing myself to sit properly instead of slouching all the time. It wasn't great for a while, but after my body got used to it, I'll never go back.