Questions about the UHK80

General
1

I just stumbled upon your new design. And it could be exactly what i was hoping for in a keyboard. Split, mechanical, ISO layout + function row and arrow keys.

I switched from my poorly built cheap Matias Ergo Pro to the Dygma Raise in 2020. But when buying, I was puzzled, if I will be able to handle to lose the function row and arrow keys. It was a hard road, but I manage. But I still miss em both. So when I saw your new product I thought: Wow, this could be it.

But then I noticed, that you butchered the ISO layout on the right side. This is my first question: Why? You did 50% of the work (left half looks great), why not go the whole mile? I know, you write about the ergonomics. But if the argument is ergo, then you should switch to ortho. My reasons to use ISO is muscle memory. I have to use different computers with their keyboards as an admin and I don’t want to unlearn my muscle memory. I’m just curious on this one and it is the greatest hurdle ordering the keyboard right away.

The second question is about your software. You say you are still working on it. How finished is the software, when I get your keyboard? Is it normally usable, but for example it is not as polished as you would like to have it (battery optimiziation and such)? Or are there still major hurdles using the keyboard as the daily driver?

Cheers
hamu

2

At the moment there are still some bugs that may be considered a major hurdle.

Namely:

  • we still need to improve bluetooth reliability (pairing, host switching, etc)
  • we have a bug that occasionally causes a key state change get lost somewhere - leading to either a stuck key, or missed activation.
  • in order to optimize the firmware for battery consumption, we have been through some extensive refactors, meaning that I dont doubt that we have quite a few not yet discovered bugs, but these should concern advanced functionality only

Stil, we (at least me and Laszlo) have been using UHK80 as our daily drivers for something like the past two months, without major issues.

There are many other things that we want to do, but nothing that would be essential for a daily driver. I.e., full uhk60 feature set runs on uhk80 at the moment, up to bugs.

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Actually, regarding major daily-driver hurdles, if you find any, you can have my telegram and nag me about them every morning until I fix them ;-).

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I’ve also been using it 14+ hours daily since the beginning of last month. I don’t do a whole lot of complicated stuff with smart macros or anything; mostly just normal typing, browsing, & gaming. It’s pretty stable over USB, and IMO, it’s definitely in a usable state as it is.

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Thanks for the honest answers about the firmware. Is the stuck key only on wireless? And if that happens and a key spams, how to fix it? Press it again to get into a known state or do you need to replug the keyboard?

And no answer for the ISO-Enter? Was it really just the “ergonomics”, that let you down that route? Or was it manufacturing, too? I’m just curious. And I saw another potential customer mentioned it in this forum as a close to deal breaker.
And for your curiosity, how I use the key: As my hands are on the palm rests on my raise, I just rotate my hand and use my ring finger to press the upper part of the enter key. Sometimes even my middle finger. As Enter is often also a pause I don’t mind the longer travel time for it.

Two new questions popped into my head. As my Raise is all metal on the upper half and glowing plastics on the lower (which i turned off), it was pretty easy to pinpoint how it is build. With your tiny images in shop, no additional images and/or videos from review samples, it is hard to image how this keyboard is built.

  • ABS bottom plate/case I assume?
  • The metal plate is always silver? Even when ordering another color?
  • The palmrests are integral and screwed into the metal plate?

And cudos for the dummy agent to mess around in, I could directly see how you envision your layers to be used and how you configure everything.

Cheers
hamu

6

It happens over USB as well, but in my experience, it’s pretty rare. It only happens once or twice a week for me. Tapping any key will stop it from spamming, so not really a huge problem.

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7

Thanks for the honest answers about the firmware. Is the stuck key only on wireless? And if that happens and a key spams, how to fix it? Press it again to get into a known state or do you need to replug the keyboard?

As said, usb is affected too. You fix it by tapping the key again.

And no answer for the ISO-Enter? Was it really just the “ergonomics”, that let you down that route? Or was it manufacturing, too

I have no idea. This is a question for Laszlo (@mlac?).

(I have those scancodes bound in easier-to-reach locations (in layers), so I actually don’t care much. I assume you have read ANSI or ISO? Which keyboard layout is more ergonomic? - Ultimate Hacking Keyboard ?)

  • ABS bottom plate/case I assume?

Probably yes.

  • The metal plate is always silver?

Yes.

  • The palmrests are integral and screwed into the metal plate?

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Thank you very much for the images, now the whole construction makes sense. Nice, you can remove the palm rest easy for cleaning, good to know. Height of the palm rests seem roughly the same compared to the Dygma Raise.

Now I would buy it immediately, if the Enter key would be ISO, too. Maybe @mlac could shine a light on it. I assume it is modifiable to use the ISO-Key, because the right is narrower than normal with the shrunken backspace/shift/enter?

Cheers
hamu

9

The referenced ANSI or ISO? Which keyboard layout is more ergonomic? - Ultimate Hacking Keyboard article explains our view of the issue. I’m sorry, but we don’t plan to provide an L-shaped Enter, and there’s no way to modify the physical layout.

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Given this, why don’t you simply bind the enter to the ansi pipe key and the iso key to the ansi enter?

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11

Also, assuming there was a UHK variant that would fit the L-shaped enter into the current UHK layout, which means a custom enter whose upper part would be 1.0U wide, and lower 0.75U wide, would you find it usable?

(To be clear, I am just exploring possibilities. I have no say in this matter and don’t plan to try to push it.)

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Apple keyboards use this.

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(Source: Magic Keyboard mit Touch ID fĂĽr Mac Modelle mit Apple Chip – Deutsch - Apple (AT))

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@maexxx When it comes to ergonomics, I wouldn’t copy Apple. I consider their mouse ergonomics and the way it’s charged especially bad. I plan to survey the L-shaped Enter eventually.

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I hope you won’t! I just wanted to show that others have also built keyboards with shorter right-side keys, and even with an ISO-Enter.

That said, I’m a convert. Years ago, I used to type on ISO boards. But today I use either ANSI or the UHK-variant of ANSI-Enter plus ISO leftShift and ISO extra key.

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Given this, why don’t you simply bind the enter to the ansi pipe key and the iso key to the ansi enter?

The # / ’ key lower left of the ISO Enter is used on the regular basis (writing english, programming, social media). This had to be rebind to enter. And where to bind this key then?

As explained before, I can’t control every computer I am forced to work on. I need to be able to work on a default ISO keyboard without switching things up in my brain. I am mainly typing on split keyboards for 20+ years on my own equipment, besides the laptop on the go. But even when on my laptop, I struggle with the keys I rebind on my Raise. I have the accent key left of backspace as delete. And ESC left of the 1. And I am hitting them constantly, when on my laptop. Not to mention on different equipment.

Not so with the thumbcluster, but without arrow keys, I use 4 of those 8 as arrow, 2 as space (yeah, I know, strange to use both thumbs for space), so only 2 are bound to different stuff (layers).

Thats why I was so hyped with your design including arrow keys and the function row, besides the Enter. So don’t get me wrong, I think your product is really great. As mentioned before, my top priorities for my personal keyboard are:

  • Split
  • mechanical
  • ISO layout

And, since using the Raise, I would add:

  • function row
  • arrow keys
  • thumbcluster

And by the responses I get from you guys here, I realize, what a nice bunch of people are around here. Helpful and focused on solving the problem. <3

The referenced (…) article explains our view of the issue. I’m sorry, but we don’t plan to provide an L-shaped Enter, and there’s no way to modify the physical layout.

And yes, I’ve read the explaination in your blog, even skimmed through the comments. But as I said in the first post:

I know, you write about the ergonomics. But if the argument is ergo, then you should switch to ortho. My reasons to use ISO is muscle memory.

And I think most people, who really want to have and stay on the ISO layout, want the full ISO experience. And if you’re the person, who want to swtich things up and have the real ergo way: go ortho.

I plan to survey the L-shaped Enter eventually.

Count me in! :slight_smile:

Cheers
hamu

16

Some thoughts: I used to type on an ISO-keyboard as well and did not like the need to type on an ANSI-keyboard, because of the Enter key and one key position changing. Then I moved to a country where ANSI keyboards are standard. After a bit of adjustment I much preferred to use the long Enter key of ANSI.

When you mostly type on your laptop keyboard and want to have the same functions like with your external keyboard just use Kanata. It is really great. It works so good that I even did not bother to program my external keyboard (now a columnar staggered one) and just have it on qwerty, but make all magic stuff in software. Will still program the keyboard (so it works in the Bios, login screen), but was busy … Kanata can also run from a USB-stick or Internet download as a portable program, in case you have a longer typing session on computer from someone else.

Regarding bugs with UHK. From my experience the UHK team was by far the best to answer my questions, implement ideas and fixed bugs quickly when pointed to them. So I am confident the UHK80 will work without bugs relatively soon. So either wait with your order or live with some niggles you now know are still existing.

Dygma seem also to be active, but my experience with Kaleidoscope (they use as a basis) has not been great. Possibly they will iron out the problems over time. Others like ZSA are not willing to really help to solve customer needs – that was my experience at least.

Finally. The Enter key is in a bad position when you think about it. I do not use it at all any longer now. A bit more than a year ago I changed my layout to a custom one (which you do not have to) but also came up with a layer system which is compatible between a standard and most keyboard types. I will upload a video and publish the UHK config and a Kanata file (for laptop use for example) to test it, hopefully in the coming weeks. But you can read about the concept in my post here.

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17

I wanted something like the UHK 80 but it wasn’t available when I pre-ordered a Dygma Raise 2.

One thing I am noticing is that Dygma appears to put more energy into their marketing and YouTube videos than bug fixed and adding more polish to their overall software.

I only wish the right side of the 80 had a full sized shift key. Gonna be keeping my eyes on the progression of this.

Is the overall design / Palmer’s integration set in stone yet or is it still up for debate?

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I meant this:

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You say that you tap upper half of the enter key, so you should not care whether its lower part belongs to the enter key (extended downwards) or the iso # key (extended rightwards). If this holds, then everything is where it should be on an iso keyboard.

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19

Just looking at that thing is gonna give me nightmares! :laughing:

20

The current version of the UHK80 does not have a removable palm rest, that is for sure. If there ever might be a version without you have to ask the UHK team.