An alternative one-handed keyboard design I like is the half keyboard by Edgar Matias. Personally I am not sure which one is better for typing half-dvorak or half-qwerty.
This is awesome! Is there any support beyond the wrist, or how resistive is it when you press the buttons? Have you considered 2 hands too? Do you feel like you've maxed out the number of comfortably reachable keys? I guess you can't have keys off to the side since you can't move your hand relative to the keyboard. Does the thumb do anything currently?
I'm in this niche market too... although I don't really have an immediate use case beyond someday being more portable. Also had some issues with XR glasses and fov being reduced further by eye-glass distance.
No more physical support for the hand than what's seen in the vid. You can check more info in the github repo (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) and on printables (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype). The strap and the plate under the wrist seem enough that I'm not looking to improve on that at the moment; but I still need to test this version on some longer usage sessions. Interestingly, the original inventor and patent owner (https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c...) has a design that doesn't even use a strap, but I didn't explore this direction yet (and honestly not yet even sure how to crack it). I know of another designer who's trying to iterate in that space: http://blog.russnelson.com/chordite
As to resistance, there's a balance to be adjusted between having the buttons too easy or to hard. This seems in main part to need to be adjusted by their positioning though. If too easy, you'll press combinations/chords accidentally too often. If too hard, it gets tiresome and annoying. Maybe there's some better placement possible, haven't found it yet. The switches currently used are Alps; they have dimensions which make them a good fit for this particular design; Cherry MX are a tiny bit too big and would require some rethinking.
As to 2 hands, the whole point for me is to have my main (right) hand available for other use, like drinking water, or otherwise supporting myself in the physical environment around. So I'm not currently interested in two-handed.
As to the number of keys - the four fingers seem busy enough; on the other hand, if you could fit smaller switches around (as in the DataHand design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand - see also 3d-printed clones on the internet - _edit:_ e.g. the https://svalboard.com, as mentioned by someone else, and lalboard https://hackaday.io/project/178232-lalboard-ergonomic-keyboa... as respectfully linked from therein), maybe you could try working with that. The obvious extra possibility is the thumb as you mention - it does feel like something could be added there, though it also sometimes helps a bit in holding the device. The original Chordite designer managed to somehow do it without a strap, but his reasons to not use the thumb are somewhat confusing to me.
Watched the video and super excited to see where tech like this ends up in a few years. Was on the quest to find a split keyboard last week and ran across this. Ended up with a UHK, but man I thought hard about buying one (pair) of these. I was just worried about dust, dirt and overall longevity. Seems like something that would need to be worked on every month or two. The kit is reasonable and might be a fun (next) project.
Would be interested to hear about anyone's experience that owns one of these. How do they hold up? How long did it take to get used to using? Would you recommend to a friend?
I'm not aware of any production version of Chordite (that this design is based on) as of now; but in the wider family of chorded keyboards, the one with a production version that I'm aware of is the Twiddler.
I was going to say I have a old twiddler 2 (wired usb). There was this program I used to learn called "twidor" that was like a type tutor but had graphic that showed you the chords. Really helpful. I didn't see anything like that in the github repository linked in the video. I guess they are up to twiddler 4 now. I read the linked chordite page and I agree that a problem with the twiddler is you are kind of trying to hold the thing steady so you can chord with the same fingers you chording with.
I don't have a program at the moment. The layout I currently use is in the codebase, starts here: https://github.com/akavel/clawtype/blob/96980f68427eb1089112... Personally, I just edited this layout description into a more compact form and printed it on a sheet of A4 paper as a cheatsheet. I do intend to make this aspect more scriptable, but didn't get to it yet.
For learning, I personally just try to slowly code simple hobby things in vim, with the cheatsheet in the other hand... I tried to make the layout relatively intuitive wherever I could. I also patiently went through all the possible combinations of presses, and tried to group them into categories of easy<->medium<->hard<->impossible, then tried to put esp. the more frequently used keys on the easier combinations/chords.
Which part specifically are you asking about? To summarize as of now:
- the code in the repo (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) is under AGPL-v3, so you're totally fine to iterate on this part, as long as you keep the license and it terms - which means you should be able to sell it all fine, just also providing users the iterated code, so they can further iterate on their own;
- the 3d-printed parts & structure design (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype) is CC BY-NC-SA, so you can iterate on that part as long as you keep those terms - let me know (https://merveilles.town/@akavel/) if you want to negotiate the terms with the designer, or just reach out to him by yourself;
- in the US, some aspects of the design are covered by A PATENT by the original inventor & designer John W. McKown, as explained on the original Chordite page: https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c... with an exception for personal use - the patent is http://www.google.com/patents/US6429854 - though IIUC the google page seems to claim it's expired, whatever this means in the legal system, and google claim IANAL on the page too.
- or do you mean some other aspect?
An alternative one-handed keyboard design I like is the half keyboard by Edgar Matias. Personally I am not sure which one is better for typing half-dvorak or half-qwerty.
http://edgarmatias.com/papers/hci96/ https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/1257-half-qwerty-one-...
It's not wearable though, no? or is it?
Is this by chance inspired by the one handed keyboard from Children of Men?
https://youtu.be/sJO0n6kvPRU at around 2:05
One of my favorite scenes, by the way.
The patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6429854) was filed in 2000, and the movie seems to be from 2006, so possibly it was actually the other way around?
This is awesome! Is there any support beyond the wrist, or how resistive is it when you press the buttons? Have you considered 2 hands too? Do you feel like you've maxed out the number of comfortably reachable keys? I guess you can't have keys off to the side since you can't move your hand relative to the keyboard. Does the thumb do anything currently?
I'm in this niche market too... although I don't really have an immediate use case beyond someday being more portable. Also had some issues with XR glasses and fov being reduced further by eye-glass distance.
No more physical support for the hand than what's seen in the vid. You can check more info in the github repo (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) and on printables (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype). The strap and the plate under the wrist seem enough that I'm not looking to improve on that at the moment; but I still need to test this version on some longer usage sessions. Interestingly, the original inventor and patent owner (https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c...) has a design that doesn't even use a strap, but I didn't explore this direction yet (and honestly not yet even sure how to crack it). I know of another designer who's trying to iterate in that space: http://blog.russnelson.com/chordite
As to resistance, there's a balance to be adjusted between having the buttons too easy or to hard. This seems in main part to need to be adjusted by their positioning though. If too easy, you'll press combinations/chords accidentally too often. If too hard, it gets tiresome and annoying. Maybe there's some better placement possible, haven't found it yet. The switches currently used are Alps; they have dimensions which make them a good fit for this particular design; Cherry MX are a tiny bit too big and would require some rethinking.
As to 2 hands, the whole point for me is to have my main (right) hand available for other use, like drinking water, or otherwise supporting myself in the physical environment around. So I'm not currently interested in two-handed.
As to the number of keys - the four fingers seem busy enough; on the other hand, if you could fit smaller switches around (as in the DataHand design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand - see also 3d-printed clones on the internet - _edit:_ e.g. the https://svalboard.com, as mentioned by someone else, and lalboard https://hackaday.io/project/178232-lalboard-ergonomic-keyboa... as respectfully linked from therein), maybe you could try working with that. The obvious extra possibility is the thumb as you mention - it does feel like something could be added there, though it also sometimes helps a bit in holding the device. The original Chordite designer managed to somehow do it without a strap, but his reasons to not use the thumb are somewhat confusing to me.
Other one-handed keyboards with different input methods. All sorts of interesting custom keyboards as well.
https://kbd.news/tag/one-handed/
I'm not a hardware tinkerer - but if there was a production version of this, I would buy it. But I guess I'm a niche market.
Watched the video and super excited to see where tech like this ends up in a few years. Was on the quest to find a split keyboard last week and ran across this. Ended up with a UHK, but man I thought hard about buying one (pair) of these. I was just worried about dust, dirt and overall longevity. Seems like something that would need to be worked on every month or two. The kit is reasonable and might be a fun (next) project.
https://svalboard.com/
Would be interested to hear about anyone's experience that owns one of these. How do they hold up? How long did it take to get used to using? Would you recommend to a friend?
I'm not aware of any production version of Chordite (that this design is based on) as of now; but in the wider family of chorded keyboards, the one with a production version that I'm aware of is the Twiddler.
I was going to say I have a old twiddler 2 (wired usb). There was this program I used to learn called "twidor" that was like a type tutor but had graphic that showed you the chords. Really helpful. I didn't see anything like that in the github repository linked in the video. I guess they are up to twiddler 4 now. I read the linked chordite page and I agree that a problem with the twiddler is you are kind of trying to hold the thing steady so you can chord with the same fingers you chording with.
https://wearables.cc.gatech.edu/projects/twidor/screens.html
I don't have a program at the moment. The layout I currently use is in the codebase, starts here: https://github.com/akavel/clawtype/blob/96980f68427eb1089112... Personally, I just edited this layout description into a more compact form and printed it on a sheet of A4 paper as a cheatsheet. I do intend to make this aspect more scriptable, but didn't get to it yet.
For learning, I personally just try to slowly code simple hobby things in vim, with the cheatsheet in the other hand... I tried to make the layout relatively intuitive wherever I could. I also patiently went through all the possible combinations of presses, and tried to group them into categories of easy<->medium<->hard<->impossible, then tried to put esp. the more frequently used keys on the easier combinations/chords.
This is really cool, is it OK if we iterate on the design?
Which part specifically are you asking about? To summarize as of now:
- the code in the repo (https://github.com/akavel/clawtype) is under AGPL-v3, so you're totally fine to iterate on this part, as long as you keep the license and it terms - which means you should be able to sell it all fine, just also providing users the iterated code, so they can further iterate on their own; - the 3d-printed parts & structure design (https://www.printables.com/model/1231156-clawtype) is CC BY-NC-SA, so you can iterate on that part as long as you keep those terms - let me know (https://merveilles.town/@akavel/) if you want to negotiate the terms with the designer, or just reach out to him by yourself; - in the US, some aspects of the design are covered by A PATENT by the original inventor & designer John W. McKown, as explained on the original Chordite page: https://web.archive.org/web/20220201061603/http://chordite.c... with an exception for personal use - the patent is http://www.google.com/patents/US6429854 - though IIUC the google page seems to claim it's expired, whatever this means in the legal system, and google claim IANAL on the page too. - or do you mean some other aspect?
This would be good for trying to get something done on the computer while managing a toddler