Type K - Tented Ergo keyboard (03/08/2023 - GB DATE AND PRICING ANNOUNCED)
Type K - Tented Ergo keyboard (03/08/2023 - GB DATE AND PRICING ANNOUNCED)
Looks lovely. But too expensive for my wallet :(
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I wish someone would make a nice tented unisplit like this with an actual ergo layout.
Sadek, from fingerpunch, designs a unibody case for their Ximi board.
You mean like a Kinesis Advantage2 (and its predecessors)? Monoblock, 20 degree built-in tenting, thumb keys and key wells.
(The linked keyboard looks quite bad from an ergonomics perspective. It has quite large positive tilt, which is bad for your wrists.)
The keyboard.io team is working on a Model-100-but-one-tented-piece, but it’s still pretty early in the development process. Obra has shown CAD screenshots on their discord!
I did see that and it looks cool, but is it actually a tented PCB, or is the tent part of the keycap sculpt?
It's two flat split pcbs joined with some curvature between them to form the trackball housing. STL is open source, and here https://github.com/sadekbaroudi/fingerpunch/tree/master/keyboards/ximi/v1/cases/stl
Search for "uni" in that folder and you'll find all the parts!
IIRC the tenting would indeed come from the housing - it would be slight though at 5 degrees. I have a Model 100 and the sculpt itself is to try and mimic the key well design you see on the Kinesis Advantage etc and it does okay at that; I think my own Advantage is a bit more “comfy” and the pinky is more usable on it, but the M100 feels fine otherwise and I like the palm key. (I also really like having the flexibility of the split keyboard, but if you’re looking for a unibody that doesn’t matter :p)
The other big drawback with Keyboard.io’s boards is that they ship with Kaleidoscope instead of QMK/etc - not necessarily a big deal if you’re not already invested in QMK but if you are it’s something to keep in mind. QMK was ported to the Model 01 but not the 100 yet AFAIK.
I mean, I know the housing is pointy, my question is, is it really two pcbs at an angle under there, or is the "tent" in the housing just a decorative flourish, with a flat PCB and the "tent" provided by using their custom sculpt keycaps? I am inclined to assume the latter since they've said it's going to be an "entry level" option.
The keycaps are not ideal for me because I prefer to be able to swap them out without being limited to first party options. (Although it is cool that they have linear a, for sure.)
I've used Kaleidoscope before on their Atreus, and it's okay. Ideally at this point I'd prefer ZMK really as it has the best tap-hold configuration options but I don't know what the odds are on them using a ZMK-friendly controller. (Probably low.)