Why this beast of a keyboard did not work for me and what I ended up using instead.

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A developer shares their experience switching from Microsoft Sculpt to the Kinesis Advantage 360 ergonomic keyboard after 9 years. Despite the keyboard's reputation and ergonomic features (split layout, thumb clusters, orthogonal keys), it didn't work due to forced customization requirements, tall key shapes causing pinky strain, lack of tactile home row markers, and awkward arrow key placement that hindered code navigation. The orthogonal layout also degraded productivity on standard laptop keyboards. Increased mouse usage for tasks previously done with shortcuts ultimately led to abandoning the keyboard after 2 months. The author switched to Kinesis mWave, a Microsoft Sculpt clone with improved features like wired/wireless switching and customizable layouts.

Buying the Kinesis Advantage 360 keyboard was a mistake

# Why did I buy the Kinesis Advantage 360?

From what I understand, after completely reading the article, she had essentially two problems.
<ol>
<li>You don’t like customisation, at all. It must work out of the box.</li>
<li>You got so used to the traditional layout, two months of trying to make this hyper-ergonomic setup work wasn’t enough and maybe the will wasn’t all there, we don’t know.</li>
</ol>
To be honest, the root cause of everything is actually point two. All the points in the article are all based on what she got used to over so many years.
That’s why she ended up with a clone of the model she already had used since forever. It’s what she got used to and probably never will change.
Its simple to prove, that this is the root cause. For example, if there wouldn’t have been the Sculpt to begin with, but she would’ve started with the Kinesis Advantage 360 decades ago (if it would’ve existed already), she would’ve gotten used to that and it would’ve been the primary comfortable model. She would’ve gotten used to the arrow keys, if there was nothing to compare it to, previously. It is simply more ergonomic, so it is not objectively worse. It’s better.
Same thing for the large keys, which perhaps feel far away. It’s still more ergonomic and better to use than a more traditionally built keyboard. The sculpt had probably more keys that are as difficult or even more difficult to reach.
Long story short, this is a classic case of someone not willing to change habits. So human.

I have used the Microsoft sculpt my self and loved that keyboard, but have moved to the Logi Ergo K860 for work. I do not like keybords with long key travel for working, but as many other things, most people have a personal taste for what works and what does not work.

when programming - US layout, for everything else my own language layout (only downside is that i am so used to US one that on my native language keyboard often write y instead of z and vice versa)
tried out different sized keyboards (from standard down to 60keys - no big difference) but never tried ergonomic ones, it just doesn’t look ergonomic to me at all despite obviously being ergonomic, but that’s just me i guess.
on the other hand i had so many different gamepads and joysticks and it took like 20 minutes to get used to them despite having completely different key set.
It all goes down to how much willingness or need you have to adapt to the new stuff and challenge the status quo (comfort zone).

I own and use that KB. It does have a steep learning curve. I used it for 6 months before it started to feel comfortable. Because as much as they cost I was determined not to let that money go to waste!
I found myself switching back to a standard keyboard when ever time was a factor (or if I was sharing a screen in a zoom call, didn’t want people seeing me fumble around on a live call) It took about 3 months before I felt comfortable enough to ditch the backup KB. The next 3 months was a mess but it got better everyday once I stopped using the other KB as a crutch.
I just wonder if she didn’t give it enough time to really learn to love it? I get the key mod issue too, I’ve only swapped the enter/space and BS/delete keys because I’m left handed and I found myself reaching for the space bar with my left thumb more often. only other issue I want to change is the Alt and tab keys are awkwardly far apart when trying to change to new windows and I have large hands too, so Idk what smaller people hands might feel like, it would seem to be extreme for them imo. but idk, maybe I just suck at spreading my pinky and thumb apart!?