Roughly one year ago I decided to venture into mechanical split keyboards. Turns out, they are similar to books: You buy one, another one adds to it, and as soon as you’re not looking, they secretly multiply and make offspring. After a year, I own:

• 1 Kyria v2
• 2 Moonlanders from ZSA with a platform each for home and work
• 1 Glove80 from MoErgo

Mildly put, it escalated quickly. My adventure started with humble soldered beginnings (the Kyria) and led me straightaway to the Rolls-Royce of split keyboards, the Moonlander. At the same time, I switched keyboard layouts to a more ergonomic one, the Bone layout for German and English.

Notes after a year with new keyboards and layouts:

• Typing speeds still differ greatly: QWERTY is 87 WPM (392 CPM), Bone is 57 WPM (260 CPM). At least, both speeds place me in the “Octopus” range in a very scientific typing test.
• After 3 months, I could type with Bone as daily driver, occasionally replacing it with QWERTY when frustration levels got too high.
• All the subconscious movements took way longer, combinations like Alt+F4, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Shift+F10. Still not completely where I want to be, but after 6-8 months, they settled in on Bone as well.
• Complicated passwords let me frequently revert to QWERTY, thank goodness there are password managers with auto-type.
• Whenever I just need to get in the flow and hack my brain away, QWERTY is key.
• Cut/Copy/Past/Undo keys are among the best innovations there are, next to keyboard layers. So much comfort, so easy.

I bought the Glove80 only recently and was curious about the form and its low keycaps. I’m still configuring it, but initial thoughts are:

• Moonlander has individually configurable RGB lights, which is the best for my blank keycaps. Glove80 doesn’t have it (yet). It doesn’t bother me that much, but still. Also, blinkenlights improve quality of life so much.
• The Moonlander keycaps are a tad high for my taste.
• I fiddled with QMK for the Kyria, Moonlander uses it and I expected the Glove80 to have it as well. But: Hello open-source! There’s ZMK, which has a slightly different syntax. So I need to re-configure, re-learn, re-write everything from scratch. The fiddliness is on a similar level as the Kyria.
• The Moonlander has the smoothest and best software and configuration options. The web interface is awesome, guides you well in the beginning and helps you take off. I really appreciate the care and details that went to in the design of this product. Such good hard- and software really justifies the price.
• I bought the platform as soon as it launched, since the Moonlander’s horizontal position led to strained muscles in my underarms. Since then, I tilt the keyboard to roughly 30° and the pain has gone.
• The platform elevates the whole keyboard quite a bit, which means I need to lower my desk for the perfect ergonomic position of the keyboard. But then, the desk is just so slightly too low - haven’t found a solution for this yet.

After one year I can conclude that everything was worth the effort: Switch to a split keyboard, learn a new layout and fiddle with firmware. Bone equally distributes the typing strain on all fingers, and with control keys placed under the (stronger) thumbs or to dedicated keys, my pinky and ring fingers are markedly less strained. I don’t regret any of the money spent - others need a fancy sound system at home, I need a good keyboard and monitors (plural). Also, I can now relate to owners of fancy cars: Whenever someone’s new at the office or passing by my desk, I get sounds of adoration and wonderment, with the Moonlander serving as a communication ice-breaker. It’s the RGBs, folks, they really make life better!

(Here’s some OG blinkenlights love)

Last modified on 2023-08-20