A refugee from reddit wanting to bring a question here. I'm looking to build a keyboard for work that would be ergonomic. Doesn't necessarily need to be split.
My desk is a corner so a 10key would be too big if attached. I would like to keep it under $125 if possible.
So, there are some different levels/kind of keyboard that may be more "ergonomic" than a traditional one. Howe weird are you looking to get?
Re: budget, ergo boards tend to be low-cost DIY kits, but you generally have to do a fair bit of soldering. You can also get prebuilts, but they're not super cheap since it's not like, assembly line production in most cases, it's one person building it by hand. There are some exceptions that are more production, but they won't be as cheap apart form like a Keyboardio Atreus or a Planck or Preonic
There are tons of different options out there, so you'll wan to start by narrowing down what kind of layout you want and how DIY you want the build to be. The actual builds are mostly pretty straightforward, but most ergo kits do require you to solder diodes and controllers, not just switches. And some of the more esoteric ones have a higher difficulty level, like the keywell boards.
Ortho and columnar stagger boards will take time to learn to type on at speed. Many users also take the opportunity to learn a new non-qwerty layout at the same time since they need to build new muscle memory anyway.
You'll want to pay attention to the layouts when you are picking keycaps. Many ergo boards use all 1u, or 1u plus a couple of spacebars. However, others use ergodox-style layouts with several keys of other sizes. Kitting can be difficult if you want all your keycaps to correspond exactly to what you have those keys assigned to do. Life will be easier if you are a touch typist and willing to make use of blanks or novelties.
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