This is incredible! I'm using a Chocofi and I thought Charybdis is the end-game. I guess not. Definitely will try the DIY kit once I'm more comfortable building my own keyboards. Get well soon Jan! Wishing you all the best!
I'm currently waiting for the charachorder master forge but this makes me think I should try the svalboard as well because of the possible adjustments. Thanks for the very detailed review!
I have ordered the 5 way switches the charachorder uses a while back and even when I just have my DIY version I would say they will have a wildly different feel than the svalboard, I like that the charachorder is a compact unit but I have my doubts with it, would be nice to see some more reviews about that one. Also I do think the svalboard is more repairable and has the open firmware so I can tinker with it more. But I guess these two are just very different in general
Thanks for this video. I had never heard about the Svalboard before. It looks like elite level ergonomics. The compact location of the switches leaves room for a large finger trackball in near-perfect position. Although you can significantly reduce the need for a mouse with Vim motions, the Vimium browser plugin, and tiling window managers, tasks like video editing will inevitably require some kind of cursor manipulation. The integrated trackball makes it possible to mount the unit to your chair and lean back. (I lean back all the time.) This is not possible with a regular mouse, because then it would slide off. I did some experiments with a Logitech thumb trackball. Although it works reasonably well, I found it significantly less pleasant than even a cheap mouse. What I really like about the Svalboard is the relatively short learning curve, since nearly all the keys are in the location your are used to, especially if you are already using a columnar keyboard. I also like the potential of the CharaChorder, but that has a long learning curve. Additionally, although the CharaChorder has an optional trackball, it cannot have a large finger trackball in near-perfect position. For now I’m very happy with my Dygma Defy, but if I ever want to upgrade, the Svalboard would definitely be on my shortlist. Wishing you a complete and speedy recovery of your health, Jan!
Two ways of being «into keyboards»: "double lubed indigo metatron switches, brass inlays on timascus body (still 65% qwerty)" vs "writing own firmware, using modern Datahand w\ Dual Trackballs (in VR)" How comfortable is it to press two keys w\ single finger (center/up, not up/down obv)?
very true just different worlds! using it for chording takes a bit of getting used to, the diagonals eg. north + east work very well but you might need to tune the tap time as the levers go in different directions, the down press + any direction is a bit easier with the north key being the hardest to chord but still not bad. I haven't used that too much yet but will try to play a bit more with my keymap
it's a huge bummer, as someone who has been often taken out of work by chronic pain in the hands/arms/back due to disease, that this type of adaptive equipment is so expensive. understandably so but the way my heart sank at the price was real deflating. i hope someone manages to make truly ergonomic peripherals accessible to everyone
I feel you there, here in germany you can request financial aid for a safe and ergonomic workspace not sure if that is available in your country but its an easier route than trying to make such a complex build for a third of the price. From what I have seen morgan do is that he is constantly pushing for an easier to build and maintain version which also drives down cost though to be fair it took me about two weeks worth of after work evenings to assemble and tune the board correctly so I guess he is already much faster than me in building one.
This video sold me. I was intrigued by the original post on the subreddit but this has shown me that it is practical and beneficial. One question though. Coming from a 34 key keyboard how do you use the side buttons on your fingers? Are they awkward? Intuitively I would use them for layers.
very nice! the side buttons are actually easier than the north button this is the one I would rank least in comfort from all of them, I use the added side keys currently for all modifiers to have them without homerowmods on the homerow. and i have play/pause and tab there as well. I think with some tweaking i will find better uses for them as they are so easy to use. I first thought that these might be difficult to trigger as its not a normal motion for the hand but because they are so light and tactile they feel very natural.
@@JanLunge That sounds exciting. Getting rid of HMR wasn't something i thought of since they are pretty natural to me but it sure would prevent some mishaps.
@@mdotmertens I'm allergic to HRMs 🙃 Key prefs vary from user to user -- I don't mind N at all except for repeats, but I really like the inward laterals on all fingers and the outward laterals on index and pinky. Some folks like different keys more, but it's all pretty personal and changes over time as you get used to it. Center and South are both pretty fantastic though -- S is SOOOOO much better than bottom row on any other kind of board!
I had the chance to test it once and it was incredible smooth to use it. So Jan is totally right.. If you already have experience with Colemak DH or any other layout, you will be quite fast adapting to the Svalboard.
This thing is awesome. I would like to try it first though, before making a purchase. Because resting my palm on the supports sometimes creates even more problems for my carpal.
The key is to find the right angle of the wrist and avoid wrist motion with the palm fixed in place. This is SO HARD on a regular split due to the inner column reaches, but very easy on Svalboard. There's probably one near you if you're in North America or Western Europe...
While the price is a bit steep, and not something that someone with issues but not a deep pocket is able to get all that easily. It does look incredibly interesting. And I'm also quite interested in seeing this being used for gaming
Great vid! Seems like an expensive upgrade to my Redox keyboard, which tbf I have no complaints about. But a dream keyboard nonetheless! Question: is chording 2 thumb keys at the same time (eg Ctrl / Shift) possible?
Yes you can press 2 thumb keys quite comfortably at the same time and if you want to maybe 3 even i do this quite often for shift+arrowkey layer which i have both on the left thumb one on down press and one on the nail key
Fantastic video! Thanks for making such a comprehensive overview. I’ve been thinking about using VR with my Sval but can’t quite swallow the Vision Pro price tag atm. Super curious how text in the Quest is working for you in the ultrawide virtual display
Same for me I would think I'd use it more often if it were as easy to use as the vision pro. the resolution isnt an issue I used vr since the early days and the quest 3 is in a nice spot a 1440p screen stretched to almost fill my view (like in the video) is much more readable than the actual monitor its mirroring from a proper distance eg. almost a meter. I really wanted a larger screen so i dont need to be so close to the screen as I really need the space for all my windows but there arent many option for this big ultrawides and they are really heavy and hard to mount on a standing desk
@@JanLunge I am mildly desperate to get away from physical displays so I can travel more as it’s not practical to do the kind of post-production projects I do for work on even a 16” laptop display. Keeping my eyes peeled for a steal on the AVP, but I don’t see them going south of $1k and I’m seeing
I have the same issues there I would love to use this setup as an on the go display and with the “better display” app i can set an virtual monitor that i can then mirror on my macbook and that can then show with immersed in vr. But all this setup is a bit more effort than I’d like to and gets in the way for 350$ its amazing and id say try it but its very manual to setup once it is connected its really great
Interesting video, thanks for making it! Let me share some background: I've started using Colemak in 2007, and switched to a Kinesis Advantage 1 in 2008, and have gone through many ergo keyboards since, the sculpted ones being my favorite. Have been using a Charybdis for almost a year now, and it's my current favorite, followed by the Kinesis non-Pro 360, and Glove80 in the third place. Flat ergo boards, such as the ErgoDox, are fine too, just not quite as comfortable. I'm lucky to be healthy so haven't had the need to do something as drastic as a Datahand or Svalboard, but it's good to know there are even more options should the need arise. I was wondering, how comfortable are the sideways "key presses"? I always imagined them as being somewhat uncomfortable, but you mentioned nothing of the sort. So it seems they're the least used directions anyway, after straight down, and "regular" up and down. You mentioned two extra rows, so maybe the number row and F-key row, plus the diagonal keys from a regular upper and lower row on the index and pinky side, which also need to live somewhere.
oh yeah the side ways keys are so nice to use I stopped thinking about them as "different" long ago. the up keys are just a tiny bit better than the top keys of a normal keyboard, all others are basically the homerow in comfortability. for the extra rows it has 15 keys for the fingers on each hand (excluding thumb) that are used for the normal alpha characters and now it does have 5 extra per hand that are not mapped yet but these are not the best ones to use for a number row in my opinion though F-keys might work well, i do prefer the numbers to be on a separate layer to be more comfortable.
@ Thanks for the detailed response. Is your layout published somewhere? The animation in the video is very neat, but looks like QWERTY. Ofc that could mentally be mapped to Colemak, but would be easier to see directly.
the animation is from the svalboard website and they also have a toggle for the colemak layout. I just thought to visualise it for people coming from qwerty. I did just upload my keymap to my blog check it out here janlunge.de/e/svalboard
Thanks, The recliner is the Fjords Contura 2080 Zero Gravity Recliner Armchair, if you meant my usual desk chair its a ikea langfjall which I am also happy with
Good news then, the side keys are really comfortable. I was skeptical before I used it about this as well but you dont have to worry about that I would say they are even more comfortable than the up motion for the north key. The thumb cluster keys are all comfortable to reach i tilted mine a bit and where with the dactyl about 3 keys were easy to reach here it is all 5, the outwards keys that you click with the knuckle and nail are so comfortable that I use them as layer switching keys that I hold for the special characters and numpad on both sides. I noticed how amazing the thumb part is for gaming as now you can map way more buttons to the thumb and actually use them as instant cast hotkeys etc. i may have forgotten to mention it but the thumb down press also has a second stage where the is an additional herder press for a button if you press down with more force this one i only use for permanent layer switching as it is uses more force to trigger and wont happen on accident
Its from the svalboard website svalboard.com/pages/the-layout they built and interactive demo to make the layout easier to understand and I do think it's done really well
How do you go about practicing the other layers, for special characters, numbers, function keys...? Also, how is it to play games? I do use colemak, but i usually have a layer with qwerty to play games. Do you do the same with the svalboard? Thank you for the review!
Yes i have an almost qwerty layer for gaming but because of the side keys I have about 5 keys from the right side as extra on there as well. I don’t practice a layer I just find things that i need often and put them on a layer. So with each addition my layer grows but I just learned it one by one. I learned the special characters from the neo2 layout and only modified it slightly for my needs. I only played dota and minecraft yet. For dota I wont use any other board again this is the best for these hotkey heavy games. For minecraft I haven’t figured out my favorite wasd placement yet but I was even fine using the wasd keys in the colemak placement so I don’t need much.
Man... I really would love to try moving to something like this, but lord, is that price hard to justify when I have no way to see if it is something I would be able to even adjust to :/
Thanks for reminding me to build another keyboard. 😮💨 The typing feel you described is basically the feeling of any Panda switch - and yes, they're very nice to type on. This video raised a question I had never thought about before. With all ergonomic keyboards/layouts, it's usually about reducing the range of motion for each finger. But when does it go too far? You could sit in a very ergonomic chair, but if you never change your position, you'll still experience pain or discomfort. The solution is to regularly change your position and take breaks for movement and stretching. I'm curious how this concept could be transferred to hand or finger movement. That said, I totally get your use case. Great video as always! 🙂
If the pandas had less than 20g of force maybe but u think it feels different at that point. Yes you still need movement but less than if you have your arms and hands tensed up. For the hands i don’t think you need a keyboard with more movement the little movement on the svalboard is really relaxing when used daily
There's no substitute for moving your body, that's for sure. Everything is a balance, but the reduction in splay from Datahand to Svalboard was nothing short of a revelation for me in terms of comfort -- and I thought I was fine on Datahand for 20 yrs. Literally can't go back now, feels soooo wide. I think hands benefit from stretching and variation of routine -- I assemble these devices myself and find that I have a very specific level of tolerance for any given assembly motion -- below that and I'm fine, over it and it gets pretty bad pretty fast. Maybe building super-fiddly ergo keebs by hand for a living isn't the best choice for someone with a history of severe RSI 😅
for ease of use the right hand thumb down is just the left click, makes it possible to use the right side like a mouse, but i did put another left click and the right and middle click on a layer on the left half which for some reason feels very natural
There are other keyboards you can order custom roughly fitted to your finger lengths, but none that eliminate 90% of hand and finger motion by bringing the keys so close, nor fitting your actual fingertip sizes individually 🙃 The difference is pretty big. But if you don't need this level of custom ergo bliss to get by, I'm legit happy for you 🙏🏻🎉
for sure its not possible for everybody but maybe in time this will change and make all of this more accessible to people, but for now everybody buying a svalboard will help to bring funding to morgan to make the production more efficient. Also right now there is nothing comparable on the market and its only a ¼ the price of the datahand. I do still think the prices are very fair for the labor involved not to mention the r&d
I wonder how much the cost is impacted by the additional hardware and material to allow for customisation. It's obviously ergonomically important to have an exact fit to your handshape, but 3D printing should allow for a parametric design to drive one-off prints for individual users. This would likely also make the device smaller and lighter. I definitely see the value of the current model, but potentially as a cheaper/more portable option, a service where you scan your hands in different postures then get a 3D model with the exact fit seems sensible.
@supersnail5000 I was thinking of modding my version in a similar way, but I did notice that the option to change the fit while working with it allows for a really tuned fit to your hands, and only after a few weeks of using it I figured out the real resting position for my hands as I slowly relaxed more when using the board. I think the biggest factor for costs right now are the insane amount of work to design something that fits all hands out there and then getting the parts at scale for better prices. But the design is still going through lots of iterations so locking in on this version now just to get it cheaper might be too early. I really want to see what morgan comes up with next. And with the limited amount of units sold iterating right now is the best time. Also 3D printing and its manual process and packaging hundreds of tiny pieces by hand even for the self print version might also be a factor. But if we want the perfect ergonomic keyboard getting the price down first will just make the product worse. Having the first version be the pro one with all the bells and whistles seems to me a good approach with the simpler consumer version maybe being a thing later
Svalboard offers an extended trial program, which lets you try it at a prorated cost. It’s still not as cheap as buying a basic board off Amazon, but the ergonomic keyboard scene is not cheap.
Definitely not cheap, but for anyone with severe RSI it’s a lot less expensive than a course of physical/occupational therapy.. or surgery. More comparable to prosthetics than other ergo keebs. It also has the benefit of being infinitely user-serviceable with access to a 3D printer, so it can outlive any computer you plug it into.
Changing keyboard layouts takes a lot less effort than people think, maybe it's just because I'm a slow typer, but it took me less than a week to get used to workman from QWERTY The worst bit is keybinds
I think some of the workarounds are overwhelming people like you said the hotkeys they use even things like copy past but also wasd and gaming things. but just for writing its amazing you just learn a lot of things while you are at it and most cant afford a few weeks with reduced typing speed, but I'm a slow typer too so maybe thats our bias
While I do find the design interesting, I still think I'd prefer one of the more cleanly implemented alternatives that already exist like the Azeron Cyborg II that already does all of this in a much smaller and tidier package. Yes the 3d prints could be improved but frankly the price being asked for the Svalboard is pretty insane for something with this crude a design when the cyborg only runs for 200$ per hand. I don't even own either because I'm poor, but that is just way too much for something that needs a _lot_ of extra work to be practical in my mind. Yes having QMK is a nice addition, but absolutely not worth over double the price.
well you could get the self print kit for basically the same price as two azeron boards but the big thing the azeron cant make up for is that layers work shared on both halves so a thumb button on the left side can change the assignments on both sides. but also the trackball is much nicer than a joystick. also the azeron dies not have the side switches between the fingers as they use actual switches that also require more force than the magnetically held optical switches of the sval. To be fair I looked at the azeron cyborg 2 and I would not use it as a keyboard maybe as a gamepad but nothing more.
I know but bigger screens get expensive fast and have quite bad input latency as they are designed for TV use cases. Getting closer also doesn’t work when you want to lay down. Mounting the screen floating in front of me would be nice but way too much hassle with the heavy screens, thats why I checked out the vr headset option.
While I get the creator of this specific product is an RSI sufferer and I’m absolutely willing to cut them in particular some slack for it when I usually wouldn’t (especially given these are hand-made which is a different kind of production entirely), as a disabled person with significant and debilitating joint pain across my entire body including wrists and fingers, I really, *really* wish ergonomic peripheral companies as an industry would quit relying so heavily on bringing up how good their products are for disabled people in their marketing/websites if they’re not going to price them in a way that doesn’t require a significantly high-paying job the average disabled person will never be able to have in order to afford.
It's a really tough area to work in when you work with a very specialised and custom problem space and at the same time need to bring down cost to make the accessibility aid accessible. Though in Germany you can request for a more ergonomic Work setup and mostly choose the tools you require and your healthcare provider pays actually will pay for up to 1000€ in equipment (this is mostly used by people with backpain to get a standing desk and an ergonomic chair here which will likely be pricier than the svalboard) I do really like that approach but sure know most countries do not offer these benefits. Its just not possible to get something at this complexity level at the same price of the mass manufactured keyboards where when you look at them more closely you notice just how simple they are built. even the glove80 is just one flex pcb and simple mechanical switches. Though I for sure think morgan will optimise the process wherever possible, compared to the effort a lalboard took to make this is already worlds better
@@JanLunge Oh for sure, I understand why it's the way it is, my comment and exasperation is aimed more at the industry as a whole being led by corporations who can absolutely afford to sink an initial investment into R&D and proper production tooling to keep end-user costs down overall, but don't let that translate into a lower cost for customers while also claiming to cater to people like me. Morgan going up against huge companies like that while trying to actively keep costs down has to be extremely difficult and I wish him the best with it, my heart just sinks a little every time I see something that'd be a huge help only to be shut out through pricing (which Morgan himself isn't perpetuating or responsible for, of course!). Happy to hear that there are means for Germans to access aids easier too, I wish more countries would adopt an approach like that.
This is how the keyboard should have been invented originally as it is optimized for the human hand in a way that just wasn't possible 150 years ago when the QWERTY keyboard was invented.
Yessssss ❤ the world needs more svalboard content
Get better soon man. Great video.
man this is insane in the best way. i wish i never saw this video because now i need to buy one
This is incredible! I'm using a Chocofi and I thought Charybdis is the end-game. I guess not. Definitely will try the DIY kit once I'm more comfortable building my own keyboards. Get well soon Jan! Wishing you all the best!
@00:06 that was such a BOSS thing. Both to have them installed on your arm rests, and to reveal by zooming out. Thanks for the video!
I'm currently waiting for the charachorder master forge but this makes me think I should try the svalboard as well because of the possible adjustments. Thanks for the very detailed review!
I have ordered the 5 way switches the charachorder uses a while back and even when I just have my DIY version I would say they will have a wildly different feel than the svalboard, I like that the charachorder is a compact unit but I have my doubts with it, would be nice to see some more reviews about that one. Also I do think the svalboard is more repairable and has the open firmware so I can tinker with it more. But I guess these two are just very different in general
I think the charachorder one switch is quite different from the master forge which will have snap action switches.
Thanks for this video. I had never heard about the Svalboard before. It looks like elite level ergonomics. The compact location of the switches leaves room for a large finger trackball in near-perfect position. Although you can significantly reduce the need for a mouse with Vim motions, the Vimium browser plugin, and tiling window managers, tasks like video editing will inevitably require some kind of cursor manipulation.
The integrated trackball makes it possible to mount the unit to your chair and lean back. (I lean back all the time.) This is not possible with a regular mouse, because then it would slide off. I did some experiments with a Logitech thumb trackball. Although it works reasonably well, I found it significantly less pleasant than even a cheap mouse.
What I really like about the Svalboard is the relatively short learning curve, since nearly all the keys are in the location your are used to, especially if you are already using a columnar keyboard. I also like the potential of the CharaChorder, but that has a long learning curve. Additionally, although the CharaChorder has an optional trackball, it cannot have a large finger trackball in near-perfect position.
For now I’m very happy with my Dygma Defy, but if I ever want to upgrade, the Svalboard would definitely be on my shortlist.
Wishing you a complete and speedy recovery of your health, Jan!
Two ways of being «into keyboards»: "double lubed indigo metatron switches, brass inlays on timascus body (still 65% qwerty)" vs "writing own firmware, using modern Datahand w\ Dual Trackballs (in VR)"
How comfortable is it to press two keys w\ single finger (center/up, not up/down obv)?
very true just different worlds! using it for chording takes a bit of getting used to, the diagonals eg. north + east work very well but you might need to tune the tap time as the levers go in different directions, the down press + any direction is a bit easier with the north key being the hardest to chord but still not bad. I haven't used that too much yet but will try to play a bit more with my keymap
it's a huge bummer, as someone who has been often taken out of work by chronic pain in the hands/arms/back due to disease, that this type of adaptive equipment is so expensive. understandably so but the way my heart sank at the price was real deflating. i hope someone manages to make truly ergonomic peripherals accessible to everyone
I feel you there, here in germany you can request financial aid for a safe and ergonomic workspace not sure if that is available in your country but its an easier route than trying to make such a complex build for a third of the price. From what I have seen morgan do is that he is constantly pushing for an easier to build and maintain version which also drives down cost though to be fair it took me about two weeks worth of after work evenings to assemble and tune the board correctly so I guess he is already much faster than me in building one.
If it only takes $1,000 to enable you to get a good paying job just get a loan.
This video sold me. I was intrigued by the original post on the subreddit but this has shown me that it is practical and beneficial.
One question though. Coming from a 34 key keyboard how do you use the side buttons on your fingers? Are they awkward? Intuitively I would use them for layers.
very nice! the side buttons are actually easier than the north button this is the one I would rank least in comfort from all of them, I use the added side keys currently for all modifiers to have them without homerowmods on the homerow. and i have play/pause and tab there as well.
I think with some tweaking i will find better uses for them as they are so easy to use. I first thought that these might be difficult to trigger as its not a normal motion for the hand but because they are so light and tactile they feel very natural.
@@JanLunge That sounds exciting. Getting rid of HMR wasn't something i thought of since they are pretty natural to me but it sure would prevent some mishaps.
@@mdotmertens I'm allergic to HRMs 🙃 Key prefs vary from user to user -- I don't mind N at all except for repeats, but I really like the inward laterals on all fingers and the outward laterals on index and pinky. Some folks like different keys more, but it's all pretty personal and changes over time as you get used to it. Center and South are both pretty fantastic though -- S is SOOOOO much better than bottom row on any other kind of board!
Very interesting, thanks for these details
I had a friend I showed a picture of this board to say that it looks like it's part of a mecha cockpit, and 13:55 really shows that lol
That is why the original datahand keyboard was used for the space ship in the movie Contact
I had the chance to test it once and it was incredible smooth to use it. So Jan is totally right.. If you already have experience with Colemak DH or any other layout, you will be quite fast adapting to the Svalboard.
Get well soon!
This thing is awesome. I would like to try it first though, before making a purchase. Because resting my palm on the supports sometimes creates even more problems for my carpal.
The key is to find the right angle of the wrist and avoid wrist motion with the palm fixed in place. This is SO HARD on a regular split due to the inner column reaches, but very easy on Svalboard. There's probably one near you if you're in North America or Western Europe...
While the price is a bit steep, and not something that someone with issues but not a deep pocket is able to get all that easily. It does look incredibly interesting.
And I'm also quite interested in seeing this being used for gaming
Fun bit of trivia is that the datahand keyboard was used as the control input on the spaceship in the movie Contact.
Great vid! Seems like an expensive upgrade to my Redox keyboard, which tbf I have no complaints about. But a dream keyboard nonetheless! Question: is chording 2 thumb keys at the same time (eg Ctrl / Shift) possible?
Yes you can press 2 thumb keys quite comfortably at the same time and if you want to maybe 3 even i do this quite often for shift+arrowkey layer which i have both on the left thumb one on down press and one on the nail key
thank you, get well soon and have a nice day.
Fantastic video! Thanks for making such a comprehensive overview.
I’ve been thinking about using VR with my Sval but can’t quite swallow the Vision Pro price tag atm. Super curious how text in the Quest is working for you in the ultrawide virtual display
Same for me I would think I'd use it more often if it were as easy to use as the vision pro. the resolution isnt an issue I used vr since the early days and the quest 3 is in a nice spot a 1440p screen stretched to almost fill my view (like in the video) is much more readable than the actual monitor its mirroring from a proper distance eg. almost a meter. I really wanted a larger screen so i dont need to be so close to the screen as I really need the space for all my windows but there arent many option for this big ultrawides and they are really heavy and hard to mount on a standing desk
@@JanLunge I am mildly desperate to get away from physical displays so I can travel more as it’s not practical to do the kind of post-production projects I do for work on even a 16” laptop display.
Keeping my eyes peeled for a steal on the AVP, but I don’t see them going south of $1k and I’m seeing
@@JanLungeI had had the same question. Thanks to OP for asking, and Jan for your video.
I have the same issues there I would love to use this setup as an on the go display and with the “better display” app i can set an virtual monitor that i can then mirror on my macbook and that can then show with immersed in vr. But all this setup is a bit more effort than I’d like to and gets in the way for 350$ its amazing and id say try it but its very manual to setup once it is connected its really great
Interesting video, thanks for making it!
Let me share some background: I've started using Colemak in 2007, and switched to a Kinesis Advantage 1 in 2008, and have gone through many ergo keyboards since, the sculpted ones being my favorite. Have been using a Charybdis for almost a year now, and it's my current favorite, followed by the Kinesis non-Pro 360, and Glove80 in the third place. Flat ergo boards, such as the ErgoDox, are fine too, just not quite as comfortable. I'm lucky to be healthy so haven't had the need to do something as drastic as a Datahand or Svalboard, but it's good to know there are even more options should the need arise.
I was wondering, how comfortable are the sideways "key presses"? I always imagined them as being somewhat uncomfortable, but you mentioned nothing of the sort. So it seems they're the least used directions anyway, after straight down, and "regular" up and down. You mentioned two extra rows, so maybe the number row and F-key row, plus the diagonal keys from a regular upper and lower row on the index and pinky side, which also need to live somewhere.
oh yeah the side ways keys are so nice to use I stopped thinking about them as "different" long ago. the up keys are just a tiny bit better than the top keys of a normal keyboard, all others are basically the homerow in comfortability. for the extra rows it has 15 keys for the fingers on each hand (excluding thumb) that are used for the normal alpha characters and now it does have 5 extra per hand that are not mapped yet but these are not the best ones to use for a number row in my opinion though F-keys might work well, i do prefer the numbers to be on a separate layer to be more comfortable.
@ Thanks for the detailed response. Is your layout published somewhere? The animation in the video is very neat, but looks like QWERTY. Ofc that could mentally be mapped to Colemak, but would be easier to see directly.
the animation is from the svalboard website and they also have a toggle for the colemak layout. I just thought to visualise it for people coming from qwerty. I did just upload my keymap to my blog check it out here janlunge.de/e/svalboard
life just decides to repeatedly slap us with medical issues sometimes :/ stay strong man... glad you got something out of it. awesome video!
Nice vid mate
nice video, the Svalboard with the trackball seems interesting.
I actually quiet like your chair. What model is that one?
Thanks, The recliner is the Fjords Contura 2080 Zero Gravity Recliner Armchair, if you meant my usual desk chair its a ikea langfjall which I am also happy with
I meant the recliner, thank you very much
If you tell me the side motions are comfortable (including thumbs, specially outwards) then I’m sold
Good news then, the side keys are really comfortable. I was skeptical before I used it about this as well but you dont have to worry about that I would say they are even more comfortable than the up motion for the north key. The thumb cluster keys are all comfortable to reach i tilted mine a bit and where with the dactyl about 3 keys were easy to reach here it is all 5, the outwards keys that you click with the knuckle and nail are so comfortable that I use them as layer switching keys that I hold for the special characters and numpad on both sides. I noticed how amazing the thumb part is for gaming as now you can map way more buttons to the thumb and actually use them as instant cast hotkeys etc. i may have forgotten to mention it but the thumb down press also has a second stage where the is an additional herder press for a button if you press down with more force this one i only use for permanent layer switching as it is uses more force to trigger and wont happen on accident
@@JanLungecheers for the details. Never mind about replying to my comment asking the same thing
Does anyone know from where is the page that shows the evolution of keyboards? 15:09
Its from the svalboard website svalboard.com/pages/the-layout they built and interactive demo to make the layout easier to understand and I do think it's done really well
@@JanLunge It is a really gorgeous graphic.
How do you go about practicing the other layers, for special characters, numbers, function keys...?
Also, how is it to play games? I do use colemak, but i usually have a layer with qwerty to play games. Do you do the same with the svalboard?
Thank you for the review!
Yes i have an almost qwerty layer for gaming but because of the side keys I have about 5 keys from the right side as extra on there as well. I don’t practice a layer I just find things that i need often and put them on a layer. So with each addition my layer grows but I just learned it one by one. I learned the special characters from the neo2 layout and only modified it slightly for my needs. I only played dota and minecraft yet. For dota I wont use any other board again this is the best for these hotkey heavy games. For minecraft I haven’t figured out my favorite wasd placement yet but I was even fine using the wasd keys in the colemak placement so I don’t need much.
I really like this! I would also really like someone to compare a characorder 2 or master forge to this style of switches.
Man... I really would love to try moving to something like this, but lord, is that price hard to justify when I have no way to see if it is something I would be able to even adjust to :/
The return/trial policy is pretty generous for a custom fitted device, but it's definitely not cheap (to build or to buy!)
That is a smooooth intro
now we need to make it portable
Thanks for reminding me to build another keyboard. 😮💨
The typing feel you described is basically the feeling of any Panda switch - and yes, they're very nice to type on.
This video raised a question I had never thought about before. With all ergonomic keyboards/layouts, it's usually about reducing the range of motion for each finger. But when does it go too far? You could sit in a very ergonomic chair, but if you never change your position, you'll still experience pain or discomfort. The solution is to regularly change your position and take breaks for movement and stretching. I'm curious how this concept could be transferred to hand or finger movement.
That said, I totally get your use case. Great video as always! 🙂
If the pandas had less than 20g of force maybe but u think it feels different at that point.
Yes you still need movement but less than if you have your arms and hands tensed up. For the hands i don’t think you need a keyboard with more movement the little movement on the svalboard is really relaxing when used daily
There's no substitute for moving your body, that's for sure. Everything is a balance, but the reduction in splay from Datahand to Svalboard was nothing short of a revelation for me in terms of comfort -- and I thought I was fine on Datahand for 20 yrs. Literally can't go back now, feels soooo wide. I think hands benefit from stretching and variation of routine -- I assemble these devices myself and find that I have a very specific level of tolerance for any given assembly motion -- below that and I'm fine, over it and it gets pretty bad pretty fast. Maybe building super-fiddly ergo keebs by hand for a living isn't the best choice for someone with a history of severe RSI 😅
How do you do left/middle/right clicks?
for ease of use the right hand thumb down is just the left click, makes it possible to use the right side like a mouse, but i did put another left click and the right and middle click on a layer on the left half which for some reason feels very natural
There are other keyboards which you can order custom fit.
There are other keyboards you can order custom roughly fitted to your finger lengths, but none that eliminate 90% of hand and finger motion by bringing the keys so close, nor fitting your actual fingertip sizes individually 🙃 The difference is pretty big. But if you don't need this level of custom ergo bliss to get by, I'm legit happy for you 🙏🏻🎉
Love KMK
The price is too high for all options.
for sure its not possible for everybody but maybe in time this will change and make all of this more accessible to people, but for now everybody buying a svalboard will help to bring funding to morgan to make the production more efficient. Also right now there is nothing comparable on the market and its only a ¼ the price of the datahand. I do still think the prices are very fair for the labor involved not to mention the r&d
I wonder how much the cost is impacted by the additional hardware and material to allow for customisation. It's obviously ergonomically important to have an exact fit to your handshape, but 3D printing should allow for a parametric design to drive one-off prints for individual users. This would likely also make the device smaller and lighter.
I definitely see the value of the current model, but potentially as a cheaper/more portable option, a service where you scan your hands in different postures then get a 3D model with the exact fit seems sensible.
@supersnail5000 I was thinking of modding my version in a similar way, but I did notice that the option to change the fit while working with it allows for a really tuned fit to your hands, and only after a few weeks of using it I figured out the real resting position for my hands as I slowly relaxed more when using the board.
I think the biggest factor for costs right now are the insane amount of work to design something that fits all hands out there and then getting the parts at scale for better prices. But the design is still going through lots of iterations so locking in on this version now just to get it cheaper might be too early. I really want to see what morgan comes up with next. And with the limited amount of units sold iterating right now is the best time. Also 3D printing and its manual process and packaging hundreds of tiny pieces by hand even for the self print version might also be a factor. But if we want the perfect ergonomic keyboard getting the price down first will just make the product worse. Having the first version be the pro one with all the bells and whistles seems to me a good approach with the simpler consumer version maybe being a thing later
Svalboard offers an extended trial program, which lets you try it at a prorated cost. It’s still not as cheap as buying a basic board off Amazon, but the ergonomic keyboard scene is not cheap.
Definitely not cheap, but for anyone with severe RSI it’s a lot less expensive than a course of physical/occupational therapy.. or surgery. More comparable to prosthetics than other ergo keebs.
It also has the benefit of being infinitely user-serviceable with access to a 3D printer, so it can outlive any computer you plug it into.
Changing keyboard layouts takes a lot less effort than people think, maybe it's just because I'm a slow typer, but it took me less than a week to get used to workman from QWERTY
The worst bit is keybinds
I think some of the workarounds are overwhelming people like you said the hotkeys they use even things like copy past but also wasd and gaming things. but just for writing its amazing you just learn a lot of things while you are at it and most cant afford a few weeks with reduced typing speed, but I'm a slow typer too so maybe thats our bias
@JanLunge I like how the WASD on workman changes to DASH, it feels fitting for the movement keys lol
But yeah, that's understandable
I'm afraid to do it and then get worse at QWERTY because I've never worked at a company that let me use a non-QWERTY keyboard layout.
While I do find the design interesting, I still think I'd prefer one of the more cleanly implemented alternatives that already exist like the Azeron Cyborg II that already does all of this in a much smaller and tidier package. Yes the 3d prints could be improved but frankly the price being asked for the Svalboard is pretty insane for something with this crude a design when the cyborg only runs for 200$ per hand. I don't even own either because I'm poor, but that is just way too much for something that needs a _lot_ of extra work to be practical in my mind. Yes having QMK is a nice addition, but absolutely not worth over double the price.
well you could get the self print kit for basically the same price as two azeron boards but the big thing the azeron cant make up for is that layers work shared on both halves so a thumb button on the left side can change the assignments on both sides. but also the trackball is much nicer than a joystick. also the azeron dies not have the side switches between the fingers as they use actual switches that also require more force than the magnetically held optical switches of the sval. To be fair I looked at the azeron cyborg 2 and I would not use it as a keyboard maybe as a gamepad but nothing more.
@@JanLunge I have used a Cyborg as a daily driver for 2 years with a MMO mouse and layers.
🤯🤯🤯
2 meters from a 43" monitor is way too far away.
I know but bigger screens get expensive fast and have quite bad input latency as they are designed for TV use cases. Getting closer also doesn’t work when you want to lay down. Mounting the screen floating in front of me would be nice but way too much hassle with the heavy screens, thats why I checked out the vr headset option.
While I get the creator of this specific product is an RSI sufferer and I’m absolutely willing to cut them in particular some slack for it when I usually wouldn’t (especially given these are hand-made which is a different kind of production entirely), as a disabled person with significant and debilitating joint pain across my entire body including wrists and fingers, I really, *really* wish ergonomic peripheral companies as an industry would quit relying so heavily on bringing up how good their products are for disabled people in their marketing/websites if they’re not going to price them in a way that doesn’t require a significantly high-paying job the average disabled person will never be able to have in order to afford.
It's a really tough area to work in when you work with a very specialised and custom problem space and at the same time need to bring down cost to make the accessibility aid accessible. Though in Germany you can request for a more ergonomic Work setup and mostly choose the tools you require and your healthcare provider pays actually will pay for up to 1000€ in equipment (this is mostly used by people with backpain to get a standing desk and an ergonomic chair here which will likely be pricier than the svalboard) I do really like that approach but sure know most countries do not offer these benefits. Its just not possible to get something at this complexity level at the same price of the mass manufactured keyboards where when you look at them more closely you notice just how simple they are built. even the glove80 is just one flex pcb and simple mechanical switches. Though I for sure think morgan will optimise the process wherever possible, compared to the effort a lalboard took to make this is already worlds better
@@JanLunge Oh for sure, I understand why it's the way it is, my comment and exasperation is aimed more at the industry as a whole being led by corporations who can absolutely afford to sink an initial investment into R&D and proper production tooling to keep end-user costs down overall, but don't let that translate into a lower cost for customers while also claiming to cater to people like me. Morgan going up against huge companies like that while trying to actively keep costs down has to be extremely difficult and I wish him the best with it, my heart just sinks a little every time I see something that'd be a huge help only to be shut out through pricing (which Morgan himself isn't perpetuating or responsible for, of course!). Happy to hear that there are means for Germans to access aids easier too, I wish more countries would adopt an approach like that.
$1,000 is really not that much money for something you use as much as a keyboard.
Some people will do ANYTHING to be different
This is how the keyboard should have been invented originally as it is optimized for the human hand in a way that just wasn't possible 150 years ago when the QWERTY keyboard was invented.