Ok many have been asking for my QMK/ZMK configs, here they are: Corne - github.com/Me163/keyboard_layouts_qmk/tree/master/corne Iris - github.com/Me163/keyboard_layouts_qmk/tree/master/iris Kinesis Advantage 360 - github.com/Me163/Adv360-Pro-ZMK Glove80 - github.com/Me163/glove80-zmk-config Chocofi - github.com/Me163/zmk-config-chocofi I'm not making the Piantor available quite yet as setting it up was a bit of an oddball compared to the rest and I'm not sure if I did it right. But the layout I use on the Piantor is identical to the one I use on the Corne.

Every time I see anyone going split ortholinear I regain faith in humanity. You reaching up to the glove80 really impressed me

I've been using a plank but now I'm ready to get a chocofi keyboard. Thank you so much for such a high quality video and awesome introduction to these next-gen keyboards!

One year ago, having switched to vim, I decided to go one step further and try out a Ferris Sweep v2 (34 keys) with a custom layout and put my mod keys on the home row. I liked the elegant minimalist design. It's so comfortable to work with it, I'm never going back to a traditionnal keyboard, ever.

This video is on par with a Project Farm tool comparison video. Super well done. Great research and presentation of each keyboard, as well as your journey.

These keyboards are really cool. the way you explained every keyboard is very good

This is such an incredible video. I have been looking into purchasing a split keyboard and this video is huge help. Thanks a lot!

Really high quality video. Pacing and script was on point

really appreciate the time and effort put into this video .

Wow, this video has been quite interesting. I dont think that I will use a split keyboard ever, but those home row mods sound so good. Thats right up my alley of keyboard optimization. I will definitely try that one.

I've been transitionning to split keyboard since two month ago. And I'm loving it ! Bought the Voyager zsa, it small enough to take everywhere, beautifull and pretty reliable. It takes some time to configurethe layout to your liking, but once it's done there's nothing that will make me come back to a traditionnal keyboard

Happily been using Corne for bit over 2 years now. Love it.

Great video. thanks for digging into the details!

I've spend so many hours researching keyboards. Ended up with the sofle(corne + number keys). It's a great starter board for those of us who could not commit to only 3 rows. Super expensive to get it imported here to Sweden, but totally worth it! Having vim arrow keys is just the best!

6:28 Thank you so much for showing this! After watching the video I looked it up and it's a game changer for me!

I've loved ergo boards since the original off white/grey Microsoft Natural keyboard that I used for a very long time. My first foray into split boards was the Kinesis Freestyle RGB. And what really got me to find it was a RGB. At the time I was using a black MS 4000 and the only thing I didn't like was not being able to see the keys when I had my room dark. I kept looking for an ergo RGB board now and again until the Kinesis finally showed up on the scene. I liked the board overall and being able to do a shoulder width split and tenting was just awesome. Still a staggered board though. It wasn't until a few years later that the ergo world took off and like you, my number of boards has grown. I got a ZSA Moonlander, which I really love, and that was my first experience with columnar and QMK. Like you, I hooked a lot of my layers to hold down home row keys and that's completely changed how I interact with the computer for the better. It makes it kind of hard to use a normal keyboard now, like on my laptop. It's like I forget what a lot of the combos for certain shortcuts are now because they are just baked into the layers I created, which is awesome. Hold down F to change my right hand to arrow keys and other cursor movements like home, end, move forward word, move back word, is just awesome. The Moonlander lead me to splurge on the Planck EZ Glow, which I like for completely different reasons and has almost the same layer setup as my Moonlander. Then the Voyager came out, which I'm using right now and is my first experience with Choc switches. I really like the Voyager. And I'm waiting on a Dygma Defy to show up. Crazy how expensive a keyboard hobby can get. Not as bad as rediscovering Lego as an adult, but still pretty bad.

I was curious about the corne and was leaning towards that to start my nextgen keyboard journey. After watching this, I think the Kinesis and the glove80 would suit me better. Thanks for the video man!

I ended up buying the piantor after a month of looking through options. It should be here in a month or so, and I'm excited to try it out. I wouldn't have known about it without this video. I think it is the fewest keys I could go to without previously using a next gen keyboard.

I recently got a ZSA Moonlander, I've been very happy with it so far. This video has given me some great ideas on new layers and macros to try. Thanks!

I have KinesisAdvantage2, Moonlander and now, you have convinced me to buy Glove80, just bought it, and can't wait for delivery :)

This is my favorite keyboard explanation video I've seen so far! It's the one I'm going to send to my physical therapist so he doesn't have to listen to me ramble and gush over keyboards. I've been just getting into mechanical keyboard and I had a similar religious experience when I bought my first upgrade to the Womier SK71 recently. For maybe about 8 months I've had my eye on the glove80 but haven't been able to bring myself to get it. And then very recently I find out the "unsoldered" version isn't hot swappable, just sans switches soldered in. Nuuuuu, not my perfect grail/endgame keyboard gone off and made me go back to square one. I was really interested in the pro red linears since I have some finger joint issues, but if they end up being too light I'll bottom out and it'll be worse. At that price point, I really wanted to get to try out different switches and if I ever need to lube them I'm not down to solder them all. I'm a little torn and I'm considering buying something like the glove80, iris, or moonlander which all aren't exactly what. I want... and going off the rails and going full dactyl manuform mode. I think for me per-key RGB is a must to help show a layer noob like me which layer I'm on and where the keys are on that layer. I'm trying not to lose too many keys at once and I'm not even sure if I'd do better with the regular switches or the choc. If only Best Buy were full of these and I could stroll down and give them a try 😅

While I appreciate the information and will definitely take a look at the glove80 as a starting point. I just do not understand the keyboard minimalist things for software devs, 99.9% of the time typing is not my bottleneck it's thinking about what I'm doing, also I can't be alone in having a very physical muscle memory that doesn't like key locations switching purpose (AKA layers) same reason I don't like virtual desktops and do like many, many monitors. I think I'd consider the glove80 split 3 ways with a numpad and extra keys on the sides for little used functions. I swear that I'd prefer to have no overloading on symbol keys at all

Here an user of two cornes, (one MX and a choc), Happy to know about other compact kbs and even happier about the home row. Great explanations and video as always.

Just ordered parts for an ergo travel. I like the look of the inside keys for brackets instead of having extra keys on the pinkeys

I went from wooting to planck to corne. I did not expect to like the ortholinear layout as much as I did. I was wishing my wrists weren't so cramped while I was daily driving the planck for a few months. So I looked at some options and the corne just spoke to me. This is coming from a gamer, not really a programmer. (I like the added functionality of being able to pocket the keyboard, love being able to throw them in my pockets and have a ton of functionality in such a small package). I can see why people wouldn't be able to enjoy 40% boards, it's a learning curve not a lot of people are willing to learn. You have to basically take the leap unless you have a friend that has one of these keyboards. There's also the fact that it's expensive if you don't have soldering experience.

I got a Lily58 as my first split board and I'm quite happy with it. It took an adjustment period but after a month or so I'm quite proficient with it and I don't see myself going back to a regular keyboard ever.

So if you are a dev and you have extra keys that you don't use for typing. Build macros on those keys. Like write out default function/class structures, logging, etc etc. Saves a lot of time

glove80 truly is the endgame. I love mine.

Down the rabbit hole I go! I ordered a Piantor after watching this vid - I've wrestled with touch typing ergonomics for a lot longer than necessary, it seems.... I'm going to give Colemak-DH a try while I'm at it, - this should be a fun journey!

I respect your commitment.

The mini42 and mini36 by controllerworks are some other boards similar to the corne, chocofi, and piantor layout. The RP2040 MCU circuitry and OLED display are embedded onto the board making it as small as possible. The top half of the case is CNC aluminum designed to fit the board and switches with a nicely designed bottom plate for RGB light diffusion. It's very nice If you want something premium feeling in addition to ergonomics. In addition to that, they've integrated esd and over current protection for the trrs cable design so you don't accidentally short the board(s) when disconnect them while powered. For around the same price as most presoldered, it's not a bad deal.

Having that money spent on keyboards deserves at least a like & comment 😅

Code to Moon, do you feel the Glove 80 thumb cluster more comfortable than on the Kinesis?

great video and a better list of what is available than what i was able to find when i was looking into it. you might want to look into different key layouts. im using a modified version of halmak. there is a bunch of misinformation, like travel being bad. what you really want is clustered travel. those buttons on the top of the keyboard that you dont use often would be great global control for your layers. so no matter what layer you are on you can navigate to the typing mode with the push of one button. these families of infrequent buttons matter but dont fit with the current paradigm. what we really should use is space on left hand pointer, and backspace one to the right. my current loadout uses that one for all punctuations. single press is apostraphee, double is semi, double hold is colon. but while i use colon more frequently than expected, i rarely use apostraphe. so there is a small stretch for mistakes. and it would be better if we could macro in 'delete word' to the backspace. on the right hand home row of halmak is the main vowels : aeoi. on the left hand of my modified halmak is : shnt from left to right. what i noticed and changed in terms of layout is a shift from simple likelyhood to treat consonant clusters together. having nt next to one another is great. and st is also nice. also it is nice that since words have small clusters of consonants and then vowels, i can alternatively pater pressing down with one hand then the other. you mentioned wanting to avoid using the pinky, but i find it easiest cause you can use your whole hand slightly rotating it. your pinky and ring finger share mostly the same muscles so your pinky is probably more useful. but some of the layout is ucky. i have w in the pinky collum of my non dominant hand. and it is bad. also i moved the tab away which was a really bad choice. emacs is a bit over rated but the different navigation and text in modes seem nice. i put the arrows on the bottom row of my loadout is emacs layout and it is... okay. better than an inverted T. there have been solutions for navigating uis without directly using a mouse and that seems to be the bigger jump awaiting us. i started with moonlander and moving the mouse with the keyboard is painful. they have special move mouse in cardinal directions commands but they dont go to items on the screen it is just pixel adjustments. i think we need to have a new generation of more context aware boards.

I have a corne but I'm in love with the charybdis nano, the one without number row, 6 columns (just as the corne) and with a trackball. It has a curved dactyl form but it's so expensive and hard to get!!

Thank you. Just ordered a lily58 and this gave me somehow a preface of my future spendings (and lengthy explanations with my wife why this is such a necesssry expense 😮)

You got into the rabbit hole. I started off with a refurbished Corsair K70 and now I'm writing this on a mountain everest keyboard with lubed and filmed holy pandas switches and pbs keycaps. It's an amazing keyboard but this is the hobby you want if your thing is loosing money.

Thanks for sharing, and it was very informative.

We need a link to your keymap, zmk and qmk pls :D Also have you tried using combos to replace the keys you placed on your extra pinky column? I find the use of combos to be awesome for keys like escape and backspace, at least on my ferris sweep (rust keyboard btw)

I've definitely gone down the keyboard rabbit hole... but have not been as brave as you to tally up how much I've spent on it lol. I wish I had this video when I was starting out. I don't know if it would have the same effect as going through the motions myself and eventually settling on one of the keyboards in your list (I love my corne wireless keyboard!) but it would've been nice to have something to compare my experience to along the way. For anyone starting on this journey, I'd re-visit this as you explore choices and see if they're similar to yours. You could save quite a bit of time and money.

I’d like to go deeper down the rabbit hole, but I’m afraid of not being able to use a laptop anymore. It’s great to just have a single device to carry around and do some work.

I have corne with black mx but feels weird to type or maybe i just became lazy and need lower resistence.. do you recommend lowprofile or highprofile is enough. Is it something to invest to? I don't want to spend much money if difference is minimal.

The aggressive colum in piantor is peter than corne layout with typeing or there is no different ?? especially with pinky finger ❓

Great video. We need to see more of these types of videos . I would add two very important things. 1. The corn keyboard now comes in low profile version. 2. I think very aggressive pinky staggers are a mistake. The corne is more ergonomic for sure... The very aggressive pinky staggers cause you to pull down your pinky further which is quite unnatural when done repetitively. Again great video.

Thank you for this video! I'm a little while out of college & decided I wanted to invest in a quality keyboard as a software engineer since I use it so much awhile ago. Well now, Im going to order a piantor to take a leap of faith to help with wrist pain and a better typing experience since Ive never been fully comfortable with QWERTY

Insane how loud those "silent" switches are

Actually a really good informative video. Although I couldn't help but notice the "H" and "G" key were the wrong way around on the Corne v3. I just couldnt unsee it haha

The home row mod thing is intriguing. But don't you get issues when typing fast where you intended to type two letters but they overlapped so it interprets it as a mod key combo?

For someone who has extreme wrist pain and RSI issues, which is the MOST comfortable and less fatiguing to type on for a full work day? I assume it would be the glove 80 or the Kinesis? Among those two boards, do you feel that the comfort level is the same, or is one more comfy than the other?

It’s amazing how similar our keyboard journeys are, i went sofle where you went iris, i went 36 key choc corne straight away after. My next step is a chardybis nano though, 36 keys like the chocify but sculpted like the glove. you sure you don’t need a new board? 👀

Did you find any difference between the chocofi and the piantor in terms of comfort? Which thumbs cluster do you prefer? Are there other notable differences between these two keyboards besides the number of keys?

I basically only like Clicky switches. The heavy glass trigger effect keeps me from making (more) typos, and it helps me to tell when I've fully pressed a key.

Thankyou for you service

I'm actually upgrading from an ergodox I built to a glove80, so this video was interesting to me.

I feel like you're me, but further along the journey, I got the Q1, loved it, got the Iris, loved it, experimented with removing the top row ... loved it and started looking into a corne... Haven't pulled the trigger yet because I wanted to try removing the outer column first, and I dont want to buy two keyboards, well I do, but theyre expesive and a hazzle to buy from europe. Currently in the process of swiching to Colemak-DH, and once I feel comfortable with that I'm going to try a 36 over 42 to see if I should get a Corne, or something else. Great video!

My guy, our mech key journey began almost exactly the same, only I bought Defender's, and it had wireless capabilities to boot, but for a price hardly higher Redragon's device. It features 7 color backlight with adjustable brightness and where applicable - speed of the light show.

$40 full sized Chrerry MX Red mech keeb from 5 years ago still going strong 💪 The key to making it perform like a $400 keeb: Space Cadet like mappings through karabiner and xmodmap

I would love to switch but I am too scared whether i could still work on a regular keyboard, which is for example on Laptops sontimes nessesary, right? Also I do not eant to rely on the keyboard to perform

I'm curious to see if you will get the Digma Defy to keep this journey on - and record your impressions on it - also the Digma Raise with the tenting kit. Cheers from Brazil, thanks for the great video.

Might be a strange question, but can you use the Glove80 lieing down (ie one to the left, one to the right of your hips)? Looking for a working from bed/couch setup, so far looking at a sweep but interested whether a glove could work or not as the regonomics shift slightly. Your feedback would help a lot - thank you!

Awesome video. Been using the Corne for over a year and love it. Do you ever ever think about going back to staggered? I’m gonna guess no but would love to hear any reasons you’ve ever considered it

Highly recommend the moonlander. To me, it just feels like some of the best of everything shown here. Like the Kinesis with the tenting and thumb clusters, but way less expensive, linear keys with stagger for finger length, pretty good portability with the only real downside being the need to untent before you go. Also Oryx is by far the best customization software I've used

I'm an Iris user myself.. been building them since the rev2 days where you soldered like 300 things to each half. Took about 4 to 6 hours to make one. The latest rev8 with the solid aluminum hefty frame is so nice.. keyboard doesn't move at all. That Glove 80 looks interesting though but I wouldn't want more than the keys I have on the iris with the exception of a pointer (index) finger set of two keys on each half in the center. I got used to that layout on my Model 01 (have you checked that one out??) and liked it because to your point about less finger travel, having tab/enter and/or a few other keys is very nice. I would absolutely love to go to the 3 row keyboards.. just not sure I am willing to spend the time to learn how to remember to use home keys to shift/hold in to numbers, etc.

Great video. You inspire me to try out using less keys. I always hate when programming and having to type {, } \ etc... I figure before I go out and buy a 60% keybard I just start by modding my 75% keyboard and getting a feeling of using layers in the keyboard. What software for windows do you recommend?

I spent a ton of money on keyboards too. Eventually settled on the UHK. Only gripe is that the arrow keys are chorded, and you have to hold another key to use them.

- Doctor I have a problem, please help me. - Sure thing, please take a seat and tell me everything - Hold on, let me take my 78 split keyboards that fit perfectly in my pockets - Oh, I see....NURSEEEEE!

Love this!

For boards like the chocify, piantor, and corne, you can build them for $100 if you really try and stick to budget switches and keycaps. I built my choc corne for $150, but printed the case and soldered it myself though.

I've got a Kyria and an Ergodox (which I never use) I have a 36 key layout on my kyria though, so I'm planning on downsizing to a Chocofi (for working outside of home) and a skeletyl (a 3x5 + 3 dactyl manuform designed by Bastardkb) for use in my home office. LOVE me some home row mods, I also have layers on each of my thumb keys to get to symbols and numbers. Personally I don't think I'll ever go back to a fullsize board for just regular writing and programming, I have done way too many little convenience tweaks. Plus my vim muscle memory relies on the layout I currently use. Gaming sucks though, so I'll probably get a backup 60% board for playing games

I have a Corne but am looking at a premade called the Defy by Dygma Labs that is about to ship. It has a lot of optional features including built in tenting and an interesting thumb key design.

love your keyboard

ESC at its usual position is still the most satisfying key to slam. Change my mind!

I'm curious how you replace the mouse with a chocify keyboard. Is there a way to drop a lenovo trackpoint on there? If you want to keep your keys on the home row, don't you also need a mouse?

I've been using a Corne for a few weeks now and can say that it's an absolute joy to use. I've been using home row mods for about a week and can definitely see the benefits although I'm going to need a little more time to really get used to them. Speaking of switches, have you tried the new kailh sunset switches? They're definitely the best ones I've ever used for low profile choc keys!

what switches did you use on the piantor? i have never had mechanical switches and think about buying the diy version to save some money

What is it with CttM making videos about topics I just right now are interested in. First the DoomEmacs video, now a ergo keyboard video. This has helped me a lot in choosing a new board to replace my over 10 year old G710+. Not because I'll be using any of the boards being shown, but rather because I was hesitant in switching to a smaller board and using layers. Thanks!

I converted to both split column staggered keyboard and colemak (and learnt vim) at the same time 10 months ago and it's one of the best decisions I ever made. I always take pleasure typing anything on my keyboard now. Now that I'm there, I really don't get the keyboard channel that stay in the old typewriter realm. I am using a keyboard that is very similar to the piantor but has an additonal thumb key in the exterior of each thumb called the claw44 (though it's only available from Japan I think).

great video! For me, an integrated pointing device is the future killer feature of any split/ergo/mech keyboard. Luckily it starts…. slowly.

Best split keyboard comparison currently online! Question please: How does the “height” (curvature seems the same) of the keycaps influence your tactile “situational awareness” between the Kinesis Advantage360 vs Glove80? As you move your fingers back and forth, is one keyboard easier for you to get back to the home row or locate some far-away key? I speak from my own experience of “normal height” vs “flatter” keyboards. It seems to me like the “edges” and “walls” of the taller keycaps to aid as a reference on the Kinesis (non split… haven’t migrated to the Advantage360 yet). Sorry for the metaphors, hopefully I’m sorta-kinda understandable? Also, have you noticed any touch-typing speed difference between the Advantage360 and the Glove80? Thanks so much for the effort you put into buying, comparing, shooting, editing… As a film guy, I realize how much work such a condensed 13 minutes require!

what font are you using in your emacs? Where I can download it?

I'm really trying to get homerow SHIFT to work with Karabiner Elements on MacOs but I don't think it's possible atm. Anyone got KMonad to do that on MacOs successfully?

No regrets, there are ways to spend even more money - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o5tjks2lr7iReZs.html But on a serious note, video feels a bit unfinished. Any plans, any options you've skipped, what would be a cheapest approach do diy something like Chocofi, etc.

I'm used to the ANSI layout, but I bought my last laptop with the UK layout. I am still not used to it. Imagine if I had to entirely switch to that strange ergonomic double keyboard. I am too old for such a change.

I'm not a programmer, but rather a writer (reports, essays, and sometimes shortstories) and I also do photo editing. I ordered a Dygma Defy, still waiting for its delivery (but first orders have been delivered to date). Looking at a presumably smaller and thus more portable keyboard, and after researching other options on my own, it looks like the prebuilt Piantor is a good quality/price option. I am just worried not about the learning curve but whether the set up processus of this keyboard requires some flashing or technical steps or not. Does it? The Web site does say "preflashed firmware", but is it the case for Mac OS Sonoma? Also, how do you map/programme this keyboard? With what software?

Just came across this video, however, our starting and ending keyboards are the same. The only difference is that I skipped the middle steps and went directly from Red dragon k552 to Glove80. Just ordered it a few days ago and still waiting on it.

If you can get a review unit, I’d be curious you take on the zsa Voyager.

One of the issues about "standard" keyboards that you didn't mention is that they're qwerty. Did you ever consider switching to a different layout? (eg colemak) I use a column staggered split keyboard with keywells like the glove80 and using qwerty on it would undo all the ergonomic benefits for me

Thanks!

What is the typing game with the cars that you are playing and where can I find it?

The thumb is not just for the spacebar but for the trackpad as well on laptops. Thats what these keyboards are missing if you ever use the mouse. You would have to take your hand all the way off the keyboard to use the mouse, kind of negating the whole efficiency of these keyboards (if you use the mouse)

Loved this video and your journey is similar to mine. Currently at the corne stage but I’ve not figured it out yet and keep going back to my preonic keyboard. Do you have a link to your corne layout btw?

Finally got my moonlander and I'm pretty happy with it, but will definitely need to try a concave keywell at some point, I should probably actually use my ender 5 and build my own dactyl... But first a switch change and maybe try to mod in a trackpoint or joystick (attached through one of the hotswap ports).

I ended up with 3 moonlanders all in 40 keys configuration :) I have one at home, one in the office and one spare for testing new ideas..

Have you tried any chorded keyboards?

I used ergo boards for several years until I discovered true mechanical keyboards and since then have reverted to normal 80%/TKL layouts (Keychron Q3 Pro, but not the SE). I spent a little time with QMK/VIA putting some regular productivity shortcuts in place, but other than that I spend most of the time on my keyboard using it to do actual work. A question that always comes to mind when watching the extent to which some people go with their layout experimentation and customisation is … how much time is spent on chasing the perfect layout (physical or key mapping) and how much more productive would it be to simply become familiar with a “good enough” layout and spend the rest of the time doing real work (and accelerating the familiarity process in, um, the process)? WPM metrics can be seductive. But PWPM is more important (Productive Words Per Minute). i.e. Words typed in doing actual work vs words typed in a synthetic WPM metric.

My path: Logitech G710+ with Cherry Browns, Keebio KBO-5000 with Kaihl Hako Violets and Chosfox x Kailh Arctic Fox for function keys, and now resting on a 3D Printed hand-wired Dactyl 5x6 with 4 thumb clusters, using a mix of Akko Jelly Lavenders and Kaihl Owl Whites for function keys, with some spare Hako Voilets on things I want more friction on. I'm thinking about building a split Planck next for portable use, though I'd really love to just build a Corne. That said, the Glove80? Looks amazing, but dear lord the price...

I feel scared watching this video, but it's one of my absolute favorite videos on youtube. I used mechanical keyboards before, and entered the world of next gen keyboards with the corne in January, then got the lily58 just in case I need the number row, turns out... I don't use it at all anymore. And now I want to try the chocofi and the piantor... coincidence ? I don't think so. Anyways, great content ! could you share your configuration of home row mods ? I feel like I have a hard time getting used to them on heavier switches, but on lighter switches they work wonders !

I have a nice offer for the Advantage360 pro. (Brown switch) It would be at the same price as the glove80. I have a very very hard time deciding between the two. I'm worried that the glove80 feels cheap and too light and move while typing. Also i'm a bit biaised my ThePrimeagen lol. But the sound might need new plt keycaps (for the advantage360) making it more expensive. Do you have a biaised opinion? If it's light at least i can pack it and only buy one to move from home to work. Should i skip my offer and the glove80 might just be a safer bet? More silent?

I got the zsa moonlander I really like it but I had been wondering how some people use less keys like you showed and I really like the idea of home row modifiers.

I struggled a lot switching to English format keyboards, then i struggled learning touchtyping, im scared how long can take me to use one of those.