In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits with virtually zero tradeoffs beyond the couple of days it take to adjust to it.
Could you elaborate on the benefits in taking more "advantage of the splitness"? Maybe I'm overlooking a big missed opportunity.
For me, I at least need to transition from my laptop keyboards (linux/mac) to my split keyboards without distracting from the work at hand. More generally, I think professionals should never stray too far from industry standard tools.
My main issue with ergodox is consumer lock-in. Dependence on custom keybindings is one thing, but dependence on custom physical keys is bad practice outside of special circumstances.
> More generally, I think professionals should never stray too far from industry standard tools.
I have used a Moonlander for close to two years now. Other than the few days at the beginning before muscle memory developed, I have had no issues going from a Moonlander, to a standard mechanical, to laptop keyboards. It's not nearly as big of a problem as you're making it seem, coming from my own experience.
And why can't someone choose to use a tool that helps them? What's so wrong with that?
> My main issue with ergodox is consumer lock-in. Dependence on custom keybindings is one thing, but dependence on custom physical keys is bad practice outside of special circumstances.
What even is this argument? Oryx is just a layer on top of QMK, an open source keyboard firmware. The keys are all standard row 3 keycaps, with the exception of the thumb cluster which are 1.5u and 2u keycaps. Sure, the thumb cluster is unique, but that can be said for dozens of different keyboards: A lot have macro keys, or twists and knobs to control things like volume. Arrow key designs are different from manufacturer to manufacturer. Hell, the entire layout is different based on which country you're in. Having a thumb cluster seems like an extremely minor lock-in considering muscle memory isn't limited to one layout at a time.
> In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits with virtually zero tradeoffs beyond the couple of days it take to adjust to it.
"standard layout, but split" doesn't quite do enough to fix a big deficiency of standard layouts:
Disproportionate use of the pinky finger compared to the thumb. - The thumb is much stronger than the pinky fingers, but the pinky fingers get used for many more keys than the thumb.
It's much more comfortable to be able to use the thumb for enter, backspace, tab, escape, than having to move the hand & use the pinky finger for these.
>In my experience, splitting the keyboard in half delivers 95+% of the ergonomic benefits
Splitting a staggered keyboard is only 2% of the ergonomic benefits in my experience. You're just splitting a terrible design into a wider terrible design. It's the finger movement that is un-ergonomic.
Have you used an ergodox or other ortholinear keyboard? I absolutely can't stand to use non-ortholinear keyboards now.
I don't care about lock-in. Staggered qwerty is lock-in to terrible keyboards.
I have my own keyboard for work and home. When I spend >12h per day on a keyboard, I need it to be how I like it.
Could you elaborate on the benefits in taking more "advantage of the splitness"? Maybe I'm overlooking a big missed opportunity.
For me, I at least need to transition from my laptop keyboards (linux/mac) to my split keyboards without distracting from the work at hand. More generally, I think professionals should never stray too far from industry standard tools.
My main issue with ergodox is consumer lock-in. Dependence on custom keybindings is one thing, but dependence on custom physical keys is bad practice outside of special circumstances.