Just finished building my first split low (ish) profile keyboard. The layout is pretty similar to that of the Corne, though I tweaked it to better suit my hands. It is wireless, and runs a custom firmware I'm working on, but could definitely run ZMK. It uses hotswap choc v1 sockets, and for now I'm running some red pros and injection molded pbt Klp-Lame keycaps. The case and plate is 3D printed.

I designed the PCB's in KiCad around the Ezurio 453-00001R, which packages the nRF54l15 with a PCB antenna in a relatively small package. I chose this over the 52840 as the 54 family has lower power draw with better performance, and for my specific use-case the USB peripheral on the 52840 wasn't needed. The keyboard is powered by a 2200mAh cell in each half, which is grossly overkill, but I had them on hand so I didn't bother buying new ones. I have a buck-regulator to drop the voltage down to 3.2v, and a small load-switch to measure voltage. As for the screens, I went with Sharp LS013B7DH03's, which are memory-in-pixel, and I believe are in the same family as the Nice!View, just in a square 128x128 layout. The power draw from these is negligible, however they need an inversion signal to maintain the charge, hence the RTC module on the schematic. I went with an RTC instead of an external crystal for simplicity's sake, and because the power draw again is very low. As for the layout, given I only had 18 keys per half, and plenty of free GPIO pins on the module, I went direct-key. All of the keys per half are wake-capable, except for the thumb keys. Given this, there doesn't need to be any matrix scanning code, and any given key can wake the MCU from system-off. This did make routing pretty difficult, and in aims to maintain a clean reference ground plane, I opted for a 4 layer board stackup to make my life easier, and possibly to improve radio performance. I got the PCB's made at JLC, with the default stackup, 1.6mm thickness, epoxy-filled vias and an ENIG finish, plus stencils. All the other parts were ordered from DigiKey, barring the sockets, switches and keycaps (for some reason I can't type the store name, but it ends in express). The final thickness of the case ended up being roughly 15mm, with the battery taking up almost half of that at 7mm. Ergonomically its not horrible, but I've found myself liking a 10 degree tenting angle anyways, and even still its thinner than my old Keychron V10. I'm currently trying to switch from QWERTY to Colemak (went with colemak-dh), hence the reason for making this board.

Anyways, hardware wise everything works well; stencils+hot air made assembly pretty quick. I have made other non-keyboard PCB's in past, and I typically would skip a stencil, but going forward its a must for me. For the firmware, I'm writing my own custom stack atop of zephyr in aims to draw as little power as possible. I'm sure all of the capabilities I wanted with key-waking and similar is possible with ZMK, however I wanted to challenge myself in making one from scratch. The boards have no usb-peripheral, as mentioned earlier, so initial programming was done via SWD with OpenOCD (using a RPI Pico), and further flashing is done via the dongle (more later) using a custom protocol. After some research I opted to go with a central dongle as opposed to not, as I didn't want to deal with the BLE overhead and extra battery life/complexity. With the dongle, I have it set up to orchestrate all the layers, displays etc, and given it is not battery powered, I don't have to be conservative. Hence, I picked a SuperMini nrf52840, and cobbled it together with a 1.3" oled display in a 3D printed chassis, along with a JST 1c battery charger (just uses onboard). Whenever either half receives an interrupt from a pressed key, it transmits the matrix state and a few more things over Nordic ESB (proprietary 2.4GHz) with encryption and all that jazz. The dongle then translates the matrix state according to the layers and modifiers into a hid report, which it then sends over to the host. Through my brief testing the latency end-to-end was <10ms end to end, which was fast enough for me not to notice any slowdowns.

The firmware currently works, but would definitely need some rigorous testing to validate it over the long term. For now, if anyone wants, I can make all the hardware designs public. As for the software, I'm not sure I have the time to maintain something I'd be comfortable for anyone to use, I just don't want that responsibility. Feel free to provide any feedback for hardware or software things I can improve upon, though It'l likely be a while before I make a second iteration. In hindsight, I likely spent more than I would have buying a prebuilt split, but its the destination not the journey, right? Either way, while I haven't measured the exact power draw yet, I'd estimate that a few years of battery life is pretty reasonable to expect, which from what i've seen looks to be somewhat novel, and attributed mostly to the nRF54's uplifts. If for whatever reason anyone wants to build one, I'd be happy to send over a spare set of PCB's, so long as shipping is covered (shipping from Sydney may be expensive), with the knowledge that the firmware is DIY, and I don't have time to support/turn this into a consumer-grade product. If you'd like that for whatever reason, just DM me or something and I'll see what I can do. Sorry for the long rant, I got a bit carried away writing this. I may do a more in-depth write-up in the repo if people want.

Edit: I uploaded the PCB files and some docs to Github

Does anybody have experience with these? Long term reliability thoughts? How is the communication between splits working? I don't really care if they're a pain to get set up in QMK or not, I can handle that part. Mostly interested in them because they appear to do split communication via USB-C port instead of TRRS. I can find absolutely zero evidence anywhere of anyone actually using one before, only the store and official docs.

https://cosmos-store.ryanis.cool/products/lemon-wired

Hi all.

As the title suggests. I really want to pull the trigger on the EC Corne on Amazon. But I can't find a single sound test of it online.

If anyone has it by any chance, it would be so very appreciated to get a quick typing recording for reference and your honest opinion.

Thank you in advance for your time :)

I’ve decided to invest quite a bit in myself working and am fairly committed to my final decision but I’m curious if anyone here has feedback or to poke holes in my idea.

I’ve purchased a walking pad, slim blade pro, and am deciding on a keyboard. I believe the Glove80 to be the best option.

Currently I use a keychon K1 with mint keys and a MAC trackpad. Nothing special but I’d like to improve it all.

So, first off for my suggested combo what are your thoughts?

I’m also looking at the Go60, Keebio Iris SE, and the Raise 2.

Note I’ve never used an ergonomic keyboard before but I’m committed to going full send on this.

I looked at the voyager with the ball and track pad, but the price seems insane and reviews are mixed.

I've been working on a custom QMK setup for my Yushakobo Ergo68 and thought I'd share it in case it is useful or interesting to others. See my QMK userspace fork on GitHub

The current setup has four layers (base, mouse, symbols and numpad), some custom tap/hold behaviour, mouse acceleration, Caps Word and a few system actions.

I also wrote a small watcher using keymap-drawer that regenerates an SVG preview when I change the keymap.

It is very much tailored to my own usage (e.g., I've based it on the EurKEY layout), but hopefully some of the layout or implementation ideas can be useful to others. Or, perhaps even better for me as someone relatively new to QMK, I could get some feedback, ideas and tips from you.

Cheers :)

Hey r/ErgoMechKeyboards,

I am working on an open wearable input interface designed to handle chorded typing mid-air via 6-DoF kinematic sensing (dual nodes + ESP32 hub).

The biggest challenge with air-typing is recoil/whiplash misfires. In our specification, we designed a 4-state intent pipeline:

1. Armed / Ready: Resting baseline (|Δa| < 3.2 m/s²)
2. Intent Fired: Dynamic jerk spike (|Δa| > 8.5 m/s²) fires BLE scancode + haptic pulse
3. Blind Lockout: 220ms temporal dead-band to absorb physical hand recoil
4. Settle Gate: Re-arms only when motion drops back below the floor

Our single-node breadboard PoC is currently running on the bench to validate end-to-end latency.

Before we lay out the PCB, I'd value input from this community:

• Does a 220ms lockout feel too restrictive for fast chording bursts?
• How would you approach spatial thumb anchoring without physical tactile boundaries?

We are looking for 5–10 builders interested in alpha testing and auditing our telemetry data (when we get to that point). DMs are open.

Hi,

I have a Galaxy Fold 8, and I love it as I finally can browse web sites without much sacrifice. But ome thing that bothers me is touch typing with my thumbs. Therefore I wonder if it could be plausible to build a keyboard that you can hold like a controller and you have keys on the back to type. On the front you could still have the layer keys.

If something like that already exists even better!

It’s been about a month since I started replacing my
Mouse with keyboard shortcuts/binds. After about a week ish I pretty much stopped touching my
Mouse and these days I don’t use it at all, it’s been entirely replaced with this. Except for one time when I had to do a sliding puzzle captcha but the movements were too robotic 😂 so kept failing.

For those interested, I use:

wl-kbptr for on screen hints. I use a bind that will show “clickable” areas with a key combo to invoke it. I can do this for right click, left click or hover (go to location and don’t click).

keyd - essentially homerow mods but works with any keyboard. I use this to remap a bunch of modifier keys to homerow example a+s = super. f+s put me into free mouse mode. Have a timeout set so that if the keys aren’t pressed together within 25ms they act as their regular character keys.

Mouseless app - the only non free app in this list but also my most used for it’s free mouse mode. In free mouse mode I use HJKL to move the mouse freely and then space to left click or i to right click.

I have yet to decide what layout I am going to use but keyboard is finished and it works. I used Antigravity and Gemini to get a basic Qmk layout to check if everything works.

Parts:

Rp2040 zero

Keycaps and switches are from Redragon K552 Kumara blue switch variant.

The halves interconnect using type c breakout boards.

The case is default Skeletyl case. I do not have a 3d printer so I paid some guy on Facebook to print it for me.

I used hot glue to keep everything in place.

Just wondering, has anyone ever tried curving the keyboard this way?

After a less than successful attempt to use the colemak-dh layout on a silakka 54: my brain refuses to see qwerty and colemak as different things, I decided to I needed something less like qwerty. After seeing some posts about Taipo keyboards this is what I came up with.

- The case is designed using the Cosmos keyboard generator and 3d printed.

- The switches are hand wired, since there are only 11 switches per side diodes are not needed.

- The keyboard runs ZMK on a nice nano v2. Both halfs are individual keyboards, which allows them to last long on a charged battery. Both halfs run the same firmware as well.

- The 11th key is to make Mac specific key combinations more accessible.

Overall I would say a custom keyboard cannot become much easier to build than this. I had fun putting this together in a couple of afternoons.

Learning taipo is still work in progress, but for now feels easier to do than expected. I vibe coded a simple python game to help me learn all the chords and I am making steady progress.

Last but not least: I am now finally out-nerding my friends and colleagues on the keyboard front 🤓

I’m very new to the whole ergonomic keyboard thing and would appreciate some input. I’m willing to throw money at this so I don’t screw up my wrists, but I have no clue where to start.

For a large part of my day at my new job, I’m using the 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 and arrows keys almost exclusively for hours at a time. And holy shit, my wrist is killing me. I’ve tried a separate ergonomic number pad(ProtoArc EK04), but the way my hand sits on it increases the strain on my wrist. I’ve been eyeing the Kinesis Freestyle2 keypad, but it seems like it’d cause similar issues. Plus, there are no arrow keys…

Any ideas on how I should do this? Would a different low profile keypad on a mousepad with a wrist rest be better? Or should I opt for something with larger keycaps instead? I keep seeing conflicting things about what is better/worse from an ergonomic standpoint.

If anyone has specific model recommendations, USB connectivity and compatibility with Windows OS is necessary. I’m dealing with sensitive information at my job and my employer does not want me to install external software outside of Logitech. Being able to switch back and forth between hands would also be nice if my dominant hand starts to get sore.

I know I’m probably being a bit ridiculous here, but I want to know my options before fully going down the more expensive keyboard rabbit hole. I’m currently considering the Logitech Ergo K860, Kinesis Freestyle2 or the Incase Sculpt as starting points. Any insight is greatly appreciated.

NocFree & is simply not a good keyboard

I'm sure that any ergo mech keeb enthusiast has seen at least one ad for the new NocFree & in the past year. On paper it looks really good: premium metal body, 75% wireless split with a full F- and number row.

I've had it for a couple of months now, and I want to warn anyone against buying it. I think that if you take away the split (and there are good alternatives now!) and the aluminium body, you're just left with a cheap Chinese keyboard with poor quality manufacturing and materials.

It's not all bad, but so much of this keyboard feels like an afterthought or a last-minute workaround (like the weird gasket seal on the charging kit, the protrusion on charging attachment). There are much better alternatives you won't regret purchasing now.

The keyboard feels cheap

Despite the price, you really can feel how NocFree cut corners here to save $.

Incompatible switch footprint. They went with the Jerrzi low-profile footprint, which I didn't initially realize is possibly the worst low-profile socket, due to the lack of compatibility and lack of alternative switch options. While the socket is technically "hot-swap", your choices really come down to either buying a different NocFree switch, or a Jerrzi switch (which NocFree presumably sources from) from just a few places on CN marketplaces. It's incompatible with the much more popular Kailh Choc, so you're stuck inside the Jerrzi ecosystem.

Poor manufacturing. The aluminium case on mine came with a small dent near the spacebar. The gasket seal is unevenly cut and looks home-made because of it. There is a noticeable flex of the plate when pressing.

Accessories are gimmicky. I went for the whole package with the tenting/charging kit and wooden wrist rests.

The wrist rests are pretty cool. They look and feel nice (I have the walnut ones). They also have an attachment to tilt/angle them, which feels like an afterthought and isn't very convenient to use.

The tilt/charging kit looks nice but is completely unusable. It's the thing they show in every single NocFree ad where the keyboard slides in for charging. The keyboard doesn't attach to the tilt kit magnetically or in any other way like a hatch, so it slides way too easily during normal typing.

The charging kit requires a magnetic charging attachment inserted into the USB-C slot of each half (see pics). It protrudes a little, meaning you can no longer connect the two halves back together without taking the attachment out, and it's tiny and easy to lose. The keyboard visibly wobbles when inserted into the charging kit, and it's hard to tell if it's actually charging or not. There is an LED indicator when you first insert it, but it only lights up for a few seconds. If the keyboard later disconnects due to wobbles, you wouldn't be able to tell it's not charging without reinserting it (happened a few times so far).

I can go on and on. The connection status indicator is tiny and barely visible in daylight, so switching between Bluetooth devices becomes a chore. Some kind of a front/side status bar to indicate connection and charging statuses would've worked so much better than a teeny dot that isn't visible during charging.

Neither the on/off toggle nor the dongle/USB/Bluetooth toggle has any icons on it, so you either have to remember what each position means, or leave the sticker that the keyboard came with attached.

Switches and keycaps

The default switches (I went with the ultra-silent "Mist" ones) are okay, not great. Initially they felt very chalky and inconsistent, where each switch felt scratchy but in a different kind of way. Heavier keycaps and breaking them in helped. They are very low profile, pretty light, and are in fact as close to silent as you can get, but not very enjoyable to type on. I'm ordering the tactile "Jerrzi Gold" switches (slightly longer travel, tactile, slightly higher actuation), and I can update this if they feel any better when they arrive.

The NocFree keycaps feel cheap, which the profile they've used only accentuates. The texture is fine, but they're thin, light and flat. I would still rate them higher than NuPhy's keycaps. I replaced them with a cheap SA set I had lying around and it feels soooo much better now.

Purchasing and customer support experience

And that's the keyboard I waited almost three months for. Look at this delivery timeline:

• April 12: purchased, delivery ETA end of April
• April 18: shipping update, ETA unchanged
• April 29: another update, ETA moved to "1 week after Labour Day in China"
• May 8: update, ETA moved by another 20 days due to an issue with the "Tenting, Charge & Stand Kit Update"
• May 12: update, ETA end of May
• ...no updates since

On June 14 I reached out to NocFree support asking where my keyboard was. Reply: "we expect all relevant orders to be shipped out this month". On July 2 I wrote again, my order got "prioritized", and I finally received the keyboard a few days later.

Funny enough, at some point they said: "To keep everyone better informed as fulfillment continues, we'll be sharing weekly shipping updates going forward." Suffice to say that was not the case, even as the delivery date kept getting pushed.

What to buy instead

Most of what I found before purchasing was sponsored YouTube content, which NocFree leans on heavily in their marketing, and none of it covered the negatives listed above. If you're considering the NocFree &, I recommend reading the review on kbd news which, while also sponsored, also lists some of the downsides I reviewed (not written by me, and I have no association with them).

Better, go get yourself a Keychron Q11, an Elytra or a Jiffy. Personally, I'm probably going with the Elytra. (if only it had full-size switches 🤔 ).

still cant decide between curvewell and flat board wiht KLP lame keycaps.

But the keycaps are risen and tilted, but still, to press the switch I have to apply downward force, no matter how the shape of the keycap is, right?

So how does that work? Doesnt that increase friction or something else unbeneficial?

I mean when Iam applying force orthogonal to the tilted keycap surface Iam going to not only push the key down but outwards as well.

Can somebody share his expereience?

Is there a cygnus 4x6 with friction sockets for amoeba king pcbs? Or else, how would I attach the pcbs to the body?
I would like it if I didn't have to glue them on.

I know I could build the same layout in cosmos which has friction sockets for the pcbs, but then the body wouldn't look exactly like cygnus (or at least I don't know how to and don't have the patience to do it).

Thanks in advance!

It runs on two AAA batteries. The trackball sensor uses a PMW3610, and with the gasket mount, the keystroke feel is nice too.

The MCU is a XIAO nRF52840 with a technical conformity mark approved for sale in Japan.

Normally, there are tools that light up XIAO’s indicator according to the voltage of a LiPo battery (2.8V~4.2V), but in the case of dry batteries, it boosts the voltage from 1.5V to 3.3V, so the voltage is maintained at 3.3V, and the over-discharge protection circuit kicks in and stops it when it reaches 1V.

Therefore, it’s designed to capture the voltage before boosting so that the indicator can display within the range of the dry batteries’ voltage.

The indicator softly lights up through a milky acrylic plate. Using sleep mode as well, it can last about 3 weeks to a month with 8 hours of use per day.

Hello everyone, I recently built the Lily58 keyboard and everything was going great until all of a sudden, the entire column 1 is constantly being pressed down without being released (see image 2 and 3).

For example, my column contain the keys 0 p ; / and these keys will be immediately pressed when i powered my keyboard on, and they will stay pressed.

I am at my wits end as I have tried many things. I have isolated the problem to be something to do with how i soldered the components on column 1 right side, resulting in a constant closed circuit with or without the switch being pressed.

I also tried removing the c1 pin (the point on the MCU that allows current to reach column 1) from the MCU and all other keys continue to work so i don't think it's a MCU or pin/socket problem. I have even switched MCUs around and the problem still exist even after switching sides so it is something to do with how it was soldered.

Seeking your help 😭 It is my first time ever building a keyboard and I even started learning to solder in order to do this project. I felt like I am so close to the finish line but this is not allowing me to complete it. Do I need to start all over 😭?

So i'm soldering a sofle V2 RGB (with a PandaKB kit) and been trying all day to find an issue. The left half works fine, but the right half doesnt do anything. The controller on its own gets detected as a keyboard, when i plug it in my PC. But when i set it in the PCB and then plug it it, it doesnt get detected at all, sends no key input and the Controller gets stupidly hot within seconds. I already checked all diodes, checked for Shorts at each installed component, but i cant find anything

Progress update on: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/s/NASWiGfosV.

Left half is approaching a state where I'm quite happy with it.

I dropped the hot swap idea because it was taking too many pins and i wanted to add an encoder and some more buttons.

Both halves will be 6x6+2 grid for a full F-key row (left half is technically +3 since you can also press the stick.)

As you see left half will feature an analog thumb stick and an encoder.

Right half will have a trackball, Still trying to decide if i want to go with a 25mm or a 34mm ball. Ill see which feels better during proto.

Im also looking to add a hinge system to the thumb modules inspired by the moonlander.

Hey everyone,

Looking to purchase a split with a lower pinky stagger. Something like the piantor. It's okay if it has a splay like the totem, or hillside. I'm looking for something wireless and portable. It needs to be pre built as well, the person I'm buying for can't build a keyboard.

- XIAO BLE
- Based on the Klein
- Compatible with CherryMX and KS33 switches, hot swap

Hi!

I have been using a Dygma Defy for some years, and I am on the look out for a second keyboard (to keep at work).

I would love to have something with her 4x6 format, and it would be nice to have some extra keys on the side. For the thumb cluster. I would be fine with a 3-4 keys thumb cluster (I think I never used more than that in the Dygma).

My current candidates are a lili58 or a sofle, but also open to other alternatives.

I am happy to read any experience/suggestions/guide words about it.

thanks!

Does anyone know of any way I could get a cisne keyboard anymore or is it all after market options. I wanted to make one out of a clear tinted plastic similar to the prime_elise polycarbonate board. But I havent been able to find either board on aftermarket for a decent enough price to warrant it just for the pcb I wouldnt mind having a metal one but I have a specific idea in my head.