[lukewrites]

Reading reviews of this type of keyboard is really interesting to me because their use is such a subjective experience. I have found that the glove80 has far and away the most comfortable thumb cluster for my hands as well as the most comfortable positioning for my pinkies.

I couldn’t make the corne variants work because tucking my thumbs hurt. The ergodox is too big. Even a keyboard like the ZSA Voyager just doesn’t fit me right. However, the glove80, running a 40 key layout that I’ve come up with after doing a fair amount of heat mapping my own keystrokes, gets rid of all my hand and wrist discomfort. My only complaint is what a hassle it is to haul around.

The only “wisdom” (hard earned) I would pass along is:

- Make a heat map of your keyboard over a few days to see what keys you need.

- tweak your layout to make it easy and comfortable to get to the keys and key combos you use.

- remember you do NOT have to use every key!

[grayrest]

I have a Chocofi (36 key, 3x5 + 3 thumb per half). My complaint with the Cornes is that the keyboard doesn't have enough stagger for where they thumb cluster is positioned. Either the thumb cluster should move out like the ZSA voyager or more stagger is needed like Ferris sweep and most newer boards at a similar size including mine.

I'm curious but not particularly enthusiastic about keywells because I find the biggest improvement with a split keyboard is the tenting. My personal setup uses heavy tenting+tilting (basically half of a square base pyramid split on the square's diagonal) with the keyboard in my lap and my forearms resting on the chair arms locks me into a neutral wrist position without any active muscle effort. Keeping a good wrist position through the entire day instead of just the first half makes a noticeable difference.

Finally, I use the neutral thumb keys for shift on hold but I don't use any other thumb holds because I believe it has stress injury risks[1]. They're used for important but relatively infrequent keys: backspace, enter, tab, esc.

[1] https://getreuer.info/posts/keyboards/thumb-ergo/index.html

[lukewrites]

Yeah, I have found it most comfortable to use two keys on each thumb cluster. Space, Enter, Layer 1, Layer 2. I also like how ZSA's thumb cluster it moved out (Keyboardio really did it the best imho), but for some reason the keywell on the glove80 makes it much easier on my pinkies than the ortho layout on the voyager.

How did you find an ideal tent + tilt setup? Whenever I've tried I've wound up with sore wrists or hands, so just gave up. It seems like the glove80 w/out wrist rests does "good enough" so I stopped trying to optimize, even though the temptation remains.

I've seen some members of the erg keyboard community design and print their own pcbs based on their hand dimensions. I just don't have the time for it and fear how far down the rabbit hole I'd wind up if I did.

[grayrest]

> How did you find an ideal tent + tilt setup?

I had the idea that the best position for long sessions would be the most relaxed one so I put my hands in my lap on top of a lapboard (old Wacom tablet) and tried to put they keyboard halves under my fingers. I cut up a shipping box for the tenting stand. It took me eight iterations with three fresh starts but doesn't take that long with cardboard and tape. Stick the keyboard onto the stand with double sided tape, fill the cardboard pyramid with change for weight, and it's been like that for eight months. I'll come up with a more permanent solution at some point but it's working well so I'm not in a hurry.

The positioning was mostly about getting the wrists straight with the keyboard halves in-plane. The in-plane part was, naturally, the tricky part and that was mostly about getting the pinky corners set and then small adjustments until the index corners felt good. I have it set so perfectly aligned requires me to slightly lift my arms off the armrests which prevents sore spots on the forearms. At rest with the sides of my palms on the lapboard my fingers are off to the side of the keys but I can still type.

> I've seen some members of the erg keyboard community design and print their own pcbs based on their hand dimensions

I follow the reddit community and see those as well. Someone started up a business selling fitted keywell boards (Cyboard) but the general consensus seems to be that the glove80 is good enough. I have some patches on my local ZMK (mostly changing chord detection) but no particular desire to do the hardware side. If I had a 3d printer I might consider it since apparently hand wiring isn't that hard if you have a print to hold the switches.

[bostonvaulter2]

> glove80 has far and away the most comfortable thumb cluster for my hands

If I'm reading your reply further down the page right then you only use two of the 6 keys. Is that right? For me, I think I'd want to use at least 4 or 5 keys in my thumb cluster before I could call it comfortable.

[pfortuny]

After developing a wrist pain which made moving my right-hand thumb ache, I discovered the usefulness of reprogramming the home keys to tap (letter) and hold (shift-Ctrl-Alt) on my Ergodox. Also, I shifted Space and Return to the left thumb cluster.

One does indeed not need to use all the keys. Lesson learned!

[clircle]

Recommendations for making a keyboard heatmap?

[lukewrites]

Others can make more informed recommendations; to the best of my knowledge it's going to depend on your keyboard and what firmware it runs. (There are some os-level heatmappers you can use, too.) When I used a Voyager I used the Heatmap feature in ZSA's keymapp app. When I was using a corne I used Via/Vial to do it. I finally found my way to the glove and used the data from those.