Curious about firmware choices for ergo boards

[GG-Bond]

I’m a bit curious, what firmware do people usually use for ergo keyboards? For example, QMK or ZMK? I’ve seen some wireless split keyboards that don’t seem to run ZMK, and I wonder how they work. Also, what advantages does ZMK have compared to other firmware?

[vvp]

@filhalbate: Man, your response looks like an LLM slop. It is not completely wrong but is just enough off the point that it reminds an LLM output. It is almost correct. QMK and ZMK are in C (not C++). You mark mentioning two keyboard firmwares as a great resource Then introduce KMK to the list but in a way that it looks like misspelling of ZMK mentioned by the thread starter. Of course, python is much slower than C or C++. Typically around 100 times slower. But it does not matter for a keyboard firmware if you install it on a powerful 32 bit Arm controller instead some cheap 8 bit MCU.

I use a branch of this firmware on my custom split keyboard (K84CS):
https://github.com/chrisandreae/keyboard-firmware
I use it since it supports on-the-fly key remap and macros definition/replay. On-the-fly means you can define and use remaps/macros without any support from the OS (no special driver and no special application is needed to be installed) and without flashing firmware. It also supports programs interpreted in the keyboard but I do not really use this.

[Findecanor]

@filhalbate: Man, your response looks like an LLM slop.

Not even that. It is a copy of an old post from Reddit.
There is a problem with spambots that regurgitate old posts in an attempt to appear like genuine people. They tend to come back later and edit their posts with links to something they do marketing for.

The method of proving one spam is to search on Google for a phrase in the post that is somewhat distinct, in order to find the original.
I woe for the day when/if the bots actually start using some AI to post variations of old posts with the same semantic content, when we can no longer spot them as easily.

[vvp]

@Findecanor: Ach, ok, good catch. I considered the post suspicious but I was not sure 

[zegonix]

@GG-Bond i use QMK on my own keyboard, it is wired though. QMK works fine, but the management is a bit messy.
i can't comment on ZMK, as i haven't gotten to give it a try yet.

[odom]

I second KMK. It was really easy to set up a custom scanner for my kb that uses io expanders, and being able to change the keymap on the fly is very nice. I was concerned with the suboptimal performance and was planning on trying something like ZMK, but I haven't had any issues or a need to do that so KMK is probably here to stay.

[zegonix]

zmk has support for wired (also split), but as i said before, i don't know whether zmk is convenient to work with.

[PandaKB]

Most ergonomic keyboards run on either QMK or ZMK firmware.

For wireless split keyboards that do not use ZMK, many rely on a modified version of QMK using a master-slave architecture. In this setup, a 2.4GHz USB receiver acts as the master (host), while the two keyboard halves function as slaves that transmit raw matrix data to the receiver for processing.

Compared to QMK, ZMK offers three main advantages for wireless builds:

Native Multi-Device Bluetooth: Supports seamless switching between multiple saved Bluetooth profiles via key combinations.

Optimized Power Efficiency: Built on the Zephyr Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), significantly extending battery life.

Advanced Tap-Hold Behaviors: Offers highly precise configurations for home-row mods (such as tapping-term-ms and positional hold-tap features), effectively minimizing accidental inputs.