Hello,
I will do my first post here starting with a tl;dr telling my background and what I looked so far:
Years ago, I heard about
Maltron and
Kinesis keyboards, and found their matrix design briliant. I touch type since I was a kid, and the key stagering reminescent of mechanical typerwriters makes no sense and enrage me everytime I think about it (fortunatedly, I seldom do it
), and I really wanted some extra thumb keys to offload my overworked pinkies. The shift key on ISO keyboards is specially painfull.
However, they were waaay too expensive for me, and there was no other thing similar at the time (the typematrix seems very unergonomic for me, and I was unaware of the, also expensive, japanese TRON keyboards). My afordable dream keybard at that time was the Microsoft Natural 4000, but I would have to import it and never did. I had then, and still have, a Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000, and it is a nice keyboard as far as the traditional layout and ruber dome swiches go. I've never typed on a mechanical keyboard, but it seems the rule for those advanced ergonomic keyboards and any custom made keyboard.
Fast foward to last year, I saw a review about
TEK on anandtech, and it seemed almost my perfect keyboard, but alas, it was also as expensive as the Kinesis Advantage. My budget for keyboards has risen, but I still don't want to pay $250+ (plus shipping and taxes) for a keyboard. Latter I heard about the problematic debouncing and lost all the desire to buy it.
And then I discoverd the world of the DIY keyboards, fist from
Ergodox. I was disapointed because it ALSO was around $250, plus I would have to solder those tiny diodes. But the layout and programability attracted me and I started looking around at why it was that price.
It seems that while I can lower some costs, the cost will end up proportional to the number of keys. The
Oobly custom keyboard is very interesting, but seems dificult to make the "case" with the required tenting and all, and there is no keyplate design because the way it was made, etc. Then I took interest for the Atreus. A kit for the Technomancy's
Atreus is only $150. The single board design seems to be the simplest and cheapest to make a handwired version of, and the TEK has shown it is sufficiently ergonomic as you can adjust the wrist separation by putting it nearer or farther away from your body. However I'm afraid it has too little keys for me and I would regret buying it. I want a keyboard for my daily use, not for ocasional trips.
Finally, I saw the
Keyboardio and
Axios, that have been promising croudfunded initial runs "soon"(TM). But the keyboardio guy explictly avoided talking about price, saying simply that it won't be cheap, but that it won't be more than a Kinesis... that don't sound very apealing to me. I haven't find a price estimate for the Axios keyboard, but given that it is similar to Ergodox, but with a more complex layout and even more keys than Ergodox, I guess it won't be any cheaper...
So, what is my best bet for a ergonomic keyboard like those I listed, costing not more than about $150?- I don't require a number row, as I usually type numbers in my numpad, and a FN layer numpad on non-stagered layout will probably make me happy.
- But I do want dedicated arrow keys for editing, spreadsheets, casual flash gaming, etc.
- I want to ofload my pinkies, but I think that once the ctrl, shift backspace, etc, are on the thumbs, I can still make use of a column of rarer keys next to it.
From what I saw, my ideal keyboard don't really exists... I'm wiling to handwire and solder my keyboard if I can make something solid and durable that way. A PCB with through the hole soldering would surelly be nicer though, even if a bit more expensive than wire. If I go that way, I will probably base my design on the Atreus, but with about 10 more keys...
