This reminds me of the open source keyboardio [1], which isn't yet in production. They key mapping and LEDs are controlled by Arduino and fully customizable. The creator blogged in detail about its creation from concept to manufacturing [2]. A maker triumph.
Yup. It solves my main complaint about the ergodox, which is the poorly placed/uncomfortable thumb cluster. It also has out-of-band communication with PC for e.g. LED or layer controls, which, well, I've thought of a few interesting things for that already. At minimum, indicators for e.g. vi insert mode, running shell as root, &c&c...