I work with the author at Nuon. He initially used a Kinesis like some coworkers, but refined it to a minimalist setup with an open-source Korne keyboard, that sits on top of his Macbook keyboard.
When I first saw it, he initially had rubber bands holding it down. Now it's on a secure plate with even a company-coordinated color scheme for the keys.
Interesting how his gaming experience led to a custom layer setup.
Your product might actually relevant for me, but browsing your website I gotta say it's quite the turnoff that there is nothing there on your company. I could not find out, within reasonable time, where you are incorporated.
For anyone looking into this who doesn't want to design their own layout from scratch, a well maintained layout for small keyboards is Miryoku. Worked very well for me (in qwerty base + vim directional keys mode) on a keyboardio atreus
Miryoku is a solid layout. Designing your own layout is definitely time consuming, and not something most should try diving into if they are new to small form factor keyboards.
Can't say I agree with the sentiment. Miryoku's layout looks pretty arbitrary, as is any other <60% setup. I daily drive a Planck (4 more total keys, but very similar levels of layout restrictions) and my layer designs are wildly different.
I would say just find or build a keyboard with support for Via or Vial so that you can change things on the fly when it feels wrong. If you're going down the small form factor keyboard path you're already committed to rewiring muscle memory, you might as well design your layout to meet your specific needs too. It's highly unlikely you will encounter someone else's Miryoku layout in the wild and need to type on it.
I don't think Miryoku is a good layout for many either, it will depend on your usage.
A strange thing is that many come in to the small split keyboard world and then don't have the motivation to come up with something that works for them. You can make anything work, so a lot make Miryoku work but I doubt for many that would be the best layout for them.
I code a lot and find that its layout would not suit me. I have 99% of what I need on a the base layer and one more layer for doing development work - on a 36 key board. I could not imagine that I would want to switch layers as much as I would have to for a continuous stream of alphabet/symbols and numbers.
I think Miryoku would be fine if you were an average computer user editing documents, emails etc and I do sometimes forget that there are a lot of guys out there using Miryoku doing only that.
I use this on my 42-key Corne: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layo...
It's a sensible starting layout that I've made very few changes to. I added a mousekeys/macro layer, moved single quote to put semicolon on pinky, added print screen bind, and added a homerow combo J+K for esc.
It's not super complex. I ended up just modifying the locations of the layer toggle keys. In the default Miryoku layout, in order to switch the keys to a different layer on the right hand you need to hold a button on the left hand. I found this to be annoying since some actions like entering and using a navigation layer can be done on 1 hand.
I just got a toucan. The touch disc on it is great. Having a pointing device in fingers reach makes it appealing enough for me to consider upgrading from a corne.
I often read about all those RSI problems and then how pinky fingers have a lot of duties. I find it strange. I type at decent speed and I barely use my pinky fingers at all. I press Caps-Lock, Tab, Shift and Enter with them as well as | and }. Pinkies are small and weak, why use them so much? That's surely neither ergonomic nor the fastest way to type.
It also means I don't like the idea of a split keyboard. I reach across quite often. I've never recorded myself to be 100% sure about all the keys but I am regularly reaching for b and y with both hands depending on the word. This way "typo" is just two quick "progressing" taps - "ty" with the left hand and "po" with the right. Of course "po" is way more comfortable with a ring-middle finger instead of a pinky/ring finger.
The whole idea of assigning keys to fingers doesn't sound too smart to me. Why would you type "ce" with the same finger? It's neither fast nor ergonomic.
Why do it to yourself?
>Home row mods live in the base layer. In my opinion, home row mods are nearly essential to make a layout this small work well. The idea is simple: your home row keys act as normal keys when tapped, but double as modifiers when held.
I feel this is underexplored idea. After remapping my CapsLock to tap=Esc, hold=ctrl it went from the least used key on my keyboard to the most used one. I really like the idea of also doing it with home row keys, that must be very convenient after getting used to. That also seems completely free as you never (I think) hold those keys during normal computer use.
Only issue with home row key combos is the letter comes out delayed since it’s now waiting for keyup event to register single press vs keydown for a combo. You don’t notice that with caps lock remapping because caps lock doesn’t output anything.
Oh that's a good point!
I forgot I actually tried it with jj or kj combos in VIM to exit insert mode and it was a bit annoying. That is before I found a way to re-map CapsLock to a dual duty key on Windows (I am using WSL2 but remaps go through Windows).
This is definitely a fair point with home row mods, which I left out on the blog. ZMK has has had the best configs to manage the timings for me. It requires some tweaking based your typing speed.
> To promote balanced usage, ... equal distribution eliminates the strain of overextending the right fingers
What overextension? You don't even type them frequently enough for your index/middle finger on the home row to notice anything, and "cognitive overhead" is lower if they're paired together.
And neither is this strategy
> we reach up for numbers,..This strategic approach ensures that my layout and daily typing tasks never overwhelm my cognitive load.
The default numbers are so inconveniently placed that you don't really get much proficiency in using them, so you'll not lose much if you switch from some great numpad layout back to horizontal line just like using regular numpad has no effect on your ability to use the horizontal row
And numpad can't overwhelm anything since is extremely common
This is just bad strategy, using superficial logic to hurt ergonomics.
The familiarity with more rarely used symbols might add overhead if broken, but maybe if symbols are mapped to the same numbers it won't be much? (this is at least plausible unlike with the numbers themselves)
I love almost everything about the current revolution in keyboards (the mech switches, ergonomic layouts, and open-source designs), but I do think this arms race towards fewer and fewer keys is just getting ridiculous. Yes, you can use chords and layers, but at some point I think the cognitive overhead is outpacing whatever size and ergonomic advantages there could be, especially if you're a programmer and frequently need to type symbols from the weirder parts of the keyboard. Maybe people doing a lot of pure writing find them more useful, idk.
I think the same thing, and then I went a little smaller! I went to a large split then to a 58 key split, then to a 42 key split. At 42 I saw no advantage in going smaller other than it being smaller if you liked the look of it.
Then I wanted to try a small dactyl and that lead me to an already designed 36 key split and I love it. I lost some more keys and found that I can easily handle that. I would not say that the move from 42 to 36 made it more ergonomic but not worse.
While I went from 42 to 36 without thinking there were downsides, I think going any smaller does start to compromise functionality for the sake of form.
At 36, I think that even on a bigger keyboard I would emulate the layout I have now as it is so easy.
I havn't tried it but its way up on my list to try. Another one thats really out there is the svalboard. I really dig that the trackball is just under your hand.
What started as a joke a few years ago has actually turned into really good signal. I've found that the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and are extremely productive.
Some people like to over-optimise everything. Window manager, vim config, unix tool choice, split keyboard, DVORAK layout, mechanical keyboards, coffee brewing, Obsidian note-taking/Zettelkasten, mice (the rabbit hole for mice goes as deep as keyboards)
This is often more about enjoying the process of optimising than wanting to be productive overall. Some may spend a lot of time reading Hacker News to "keep up with new tools" and clipping their productivity bonsai tree at the deteriment of actually getting work done. They may be the type to spend weeks optimising a command that is run once a year. They may obsess over pointless details that don't matter.
My keyboard obsession definitely turned into a rabbit hole. Once I got into the kinesis split, I immediately realized the world of wanting to customize it. This led me to figuring out soldering/desoldering, and over the past year figuring out how to do a DIY build.
I'm pretty busy, but I've tried to find 2/3 hours a month to progress on it, and keyboards feel like the type of "investment in my craft" that is worth that kind of time for me.
> the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this (1) spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and (2) are extremely productive
I think (1) is true. Whereas, (2) may be less so.
Or at least, "smart but unproductive" is also a class. :) (And I'm sure there are those who have had bad experiences working with such people).
I suppose using a keyboard like this is an expensive signal. As in.. it's fairly easy to buy a typical mechanical keyboard, but more difficult to get one of these small split keyboards. -- But I think this is just "interested in technical excellence", which is somewhat different than "highly productive".
;) As for these keyboards? The most pragmatic & superior tooling part isn't the "36-key keyboard" so much as "each thumb has 2-3 keys" each. That's what allows these keyboards to expressively bring the full functionality of the keyboard to within reach of the hands on home row.
I think 3 thumb keys are too much as the thumb is slow and awkward to move. You can easily get by with 2 and you can get by with just one for normal usage.
I put emphasis on splitting spacebar into thumb keys just because the large spacebar is so ubiquitous. -- There's practically no downside to splitting the large spacebar into 6x keys.
I think it's good if layout enthusiasts want to use as few as keys as each finds practical. -- I think a good keyboard will support layouts that bring the full functionality of the keyboards to within the hands on home row for two-handed typing (as well as support mouse + keyboard functionality).
But .. I think that the keyboard is physically better off with fewer keys is just fashion amongst enthusiasts.
You hit the nail on the head with the 2/3 thumb key bit. That is what was such a game changer for me with the kinesis. all the sudden you have real estate to take a layering approach that you just can't with normal keyboards.
Smart but unproductive is a class. We've all had experiences with those types of engineers. I think startups generally weed them out though. It's hard to survive at a startup without being productive. I probably should have put that as a disclaimer up front.
By "expensive signal" I mean more like "hard to fake the enthusiasm" rather than "spent a lot of money".
In terms of monetary cost, the DIY ones can be quite cheap. -- But it's still going to be more expensive & effort intensive compared to just getting a typical mechanical keyboard.
I work with the author at Nuon. He initially used a Kinesis like some coworkers, but refined it to a minimalist setup with an open-source Korne keyboard, that sits on top of his Macbook keyboard.
When I first saw it, he initially had rubber bands holding it down. Now it's on a secure plate with even a company-coordinated color scheme for the keys.
Interesting how his gaming experience led to a custom layer setup.
Your product might actually relevant for me, but browsing your website I gotta say it's quite the turnoff that there is nothing there on your company. I could not find out, within reasonable time, where you are incorporated.
That is quite good feedback, and I will make sure we get that addressed asap. Thank you.
FWIW, we're incorporated in delaware, and based in the US.
For anyone looking into this who doesn't want to design their own layout from scratch, a well maintained layout for small keyboards is Miryoku. Worked very well for me (in qwerty base + vim directional keys mode) on a keyboardio atreus
Miryoku is a solid layout. Designing your own layout is definitely time consuming, and not something most should try diving into if they are new to small form factor keyboards.
Can't say I agree with the sentiment. Miryoku's layout looks pretty arbitrary, as is any other <60% setup. I daily drive a Planck (4 more total keys, but very similar levels of layout restrictions) and my layer designs are wildly different.
I would say just find or build a keyboard with support for Via or Vial so that you can change things on the fly when it feels wrong. If you're going down the small form factor keyboard path you're already committed to rewiring muscle memory, you might as well design your layout to meet your specific needs too. It's highly unlikely you will encounter someone else's Miryoku layout in the wild and need to type on it.
I don't think Miryoku is a good layout for many either, it will depend on your usage.
I use this on my 42-key Corne: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layo... It's a sensible starting layout that I've made very few changes to. I added a mousekeys/macro layer, moved single quote to put semicolon on pinky, added print screen bind, and added a homerow combo J+K for esc.
I’d definitely recommend Miryoku for those starting out. You’re then free to make any modifications to suit your preferences.
I ended up making the layer activations happen on the same hand to allow 1 handed use.
Using this for my next build. Could you share more on how you did the activations for 1-handed used? That sounds quite interesting.
It's not super complex. I ended up just modifying the locations of the layer toggle keys. In the default Miryoku layout, in order to switch the keys to a different layer on the right hand you need to hold a button on the left hand. I found this to be annoying since some actions like entering and using a navigation layer can be done on 1 hand.
For reference: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku
I'm building a toucan (piantor style layout) and was thinking about using seniply layout, but this looks much better.
I just got a toucan. The touch disc on it is great. Having a pointing device in fingers reach makes it appealing enough for me to consider upgrading from a corne.
I often read about all those RSI problems and then how pinky fingers have a lot of duties. I find it strange. I type at decent speed and I barely use my pinky fingers at all. I press Caps-Lock, Tab, Shift and Enter with them as well as | and }. Pinkies are small and weak, why use them so much? That's surely neither ergonomic nor the fastest way to type. It also means I don't like the idea of a split keyboard. I reach across quite often. I've never recorded myself to be 100% sure about all the keys but I am regularly reaching for b and y with both hands depending on the word. This way "typo" is just two quick "progressing" taps - "ty" with the left hand and "po" with the right. Of course "po" is way more comfortable with a ring-middle finger instead of a pinky/ring finger.
The whole idea of assigning keys to fingers doesn't sound too smart to me. Why would you type "ce" with the same finger? It's neither fast nor ergonomic. Why do it to yourself?
>Home row mods live in the base layer. In my opinion, home row mods are nearly essential to make a layout this small work well. The idea is simple: your home row keys act as normal keys when tapped, but double as modifiers when held.
I feel this is underexplored idea. After remapping my CapsLock to tap=Esc, hold=ctrl it went from the least used key on my keyboard to the most used one. I really like the idea of also doing it with home row keys, that must be very convenient after getting used to. That also seems completely free as you never (I think) hold those keys during normal computer use.
Only issue with home row key combos is the letter comes out delayed since it’s now waiting for keyup event to register single press vs keydown for a combo. You don’t notice that with caps lock remapping because caps lock doesn’t output anything.
Ask me how I know :)
Oh that's a good point! I forgot I actually tried it with jj or kj combos in VIM to exit insert mode and it was a bit annoying. That is before I found a way to re-map CapsLock to a dual duty key on Windows (I am using WSL2 but remaps go through Windows).
I do this cross-OS with Kanata, since I don't have a keyboard with QMK.
This is definitely a fair point with home row mods, which I left out on the blog. ZMK has has had the best configs to manage the timings for me. It requires some tweaking based your typing speed.
the principles aren't sound
> To promote balanced usage, ... equal distribution eliminates the strain of overextending the right fingers
What overextension? You don't even type them frequently enough for your index/middle finger on the home row to notice anything, and "cognitive overhead" is lower if they're paired together.
And neither is this strategy
> we reach up for numbers,..This strategic approach ensures that my layout and daily typing tasks never overwhelm my cognitive load.
The default numbers are so inconveniently placed that you don't really get much proficiency in using them, so you'll not lose much if you switch from some great numpad layout back to horizontal line just like using regular numpad has no effect on your ability to use the horizontal row And numpad can't overwhelm anything since is extremely common
This is just bad strategy, using superficial logic to hurt ergonomics.
The familiarity with more rarely used symbols might add overhead if broken, but maybe if symbols are mapped to the same numbers it won't be much? (this is at least plausible unlike with the numbers themselves)
I love almost everything about the current revolution in keyboards (the mech switches, ergonomic layouts, and open-source designs), but I do think this arms race towards fewer and fewer keys is just getting ridiculous. Yes, you can use chords and layers, but at some point I think the cognitive overhead is outpacing whatever size and ergonomic advantages there could be, especially if you're a programmer and frequently need to type symbols from the weirder parts of the keyboard. Maybe people doing a lot of pure writing find them more useful, idk.
I think the same thing, and then I went a little smaller! I went to a large split then to a 58 key split, then to a 42 key split. At 42 I saw no advantage in going smaller other than it being smaller if you liked the look of it. Then I wanted to try a small dactyl and that lead me to an already designed 36 key split and I love it. I lost some more keys and found that I can easily handle that. I would not say that the move from 42 to 36 made it more ergonomic but not worse. While I went from 42 to 36 without thinking there were downsides, I think going any smaller does start to compromise functionality for the sake of form. At 36, I think that even on a bigger keyboard I would emulate the layout I have now as it is so easy.
Curious have any of you tried the Charachorder? It's supposed to be the fastest "keyboard" to type on.
I havn't tried it but its way up on my list to try. Another one thats really out there is the svalboard. I really dig that the trackball is just under your hand.
disclaimer: I'm the ceo of this company.
What started as a joke a few years ago has actually turned into really good signal. I've found that the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and are extremely productive.
Causation or correlation?
Some people like to over-optimise everything. Window manager, vim config, unix tool choice, split keyboard, DVORAK layout, mechanical keyboards, coffee brewing, Obsidian note-taking/Zettelkasten, mice (the rabbit hole for mice goes as deep as keyboards)
This is often more about enjoying the process of optimising than wanting to be productive overall. Some may spend a lot of time reading Hacker News to "keep up with new tools" and clipping their productivity bonsai tree at the deteriment of actually getting work done. They may be the type to spend weeks optimising a command that is run once a year. They may obsess over pointless details that don't matter.
My keyboard obsession definitely turned into a rabbit hole. Once I got into the kinesis split, I immediately realized the world of wanting to customize it. This led me to figuring out soldering/desoldering, and over the past year figuring out how to do a DIY build.
I've been doing this kinesis mod https://github.com/dcpedit/pillzmod, and have a working solenoid wired up https://github.com/dcpedit/taptap. (I recommend checking out https://dcpedit.com/keyboards/ if you have time).
I'm pretty busy, but I've tried to find 2/3 hours a month to progress on it, and keyboards feel like the type of "investment in my craft" that is worth that kind of time for me.
Spot on! If you add car tuning or PC overclocking, you might as well call it a hobby.
> the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this (1) spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and (2) are extremely productive
I think (1) is true. Whereas, (2) may be less so.
Or at least, "smart but unproductive" is also a class. :) (And I'm sure there are those who have had bad experiences working with such people).
I suppose using a keyboard like this is an expensive signal. As in.. it's fairly easy to buy a typical mechanical keyboard, but more difficult to get one of these small split keyboards. -- But I think this is just "interested in technical excellence", which is somewhat different than "highly productive".
;) As for these keyboards? The most pragmatic & superior tooling part isn't the "36-key keyboard" so much as "each thumb has 2-3 keys" each. That's what allows these keyboards to expressively bring the full functionality of the keyboard to within reach of the hands on home row.
I think 3 thumb keys are too much as the thumb is slow and awkward to move. You can easily get by with 2 and you can get by with just one for normal usage.
See my own keyboard layouts for inspiration:
https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...
https://www.jonashietala.se/series/t-34/
I put emphasis on splitting spacebar into thumb keys just because the large spacebar is so ubiquitous. -- There's practically no downside to splitting the large spacebar into 6x keys.
I think it's good if layout enthusiasts want to use as few as keys as each finds practical. -- I think a good keyboard will support layouts that bring the full functionality of the keyboards to within the hands on home row for two-handed typing (as well as support mouse + keyboard functionality).
But .. I think that the keyboard is physically better off with fewer keys is just fashion amongst enthusiasts.
You hit the nail on the head with the 2/3 thumb key bit. That is what was such a game changer for me with the kinesis. all the sudden you have real estate to take a layering approach that you just can't with normal keyboards.
Smart but unproductive is a class. We've all had experiences with those types of engineers. I think startups generally weed them out though. It's hard to survive at a startup without being productive. I probably should have put that as a disclaimer up front.
> using a keyboard like this is an expensive signal
You can get premade keyboards in this layout for about $150. The Kinesis 360 mentioned earlier in the article is $400-500.
Decide for yourself how pricey "learning these things exist" and "making a custom DIY one is in terms of both resources and time.
By "expensive signal" I mean more like "hard to fake the enthusiasm" rather than "spent a lot of money".
In terms of monetary cost, the DIY ones can be quite cheap. -- But it's still going to be more expensive & effort intensive compared to just getting a typical mechanical keyboard.
[flagged]
Thank you governor for your service