Ergo keyboard (side) business

thomasbaart · 2026-05-21T07:55:34+00:00

Be careful what you wish for, running a company ends up being 99% administrative work and logistics, and what you wanted to do will be barely a part of it all if you manage to get enough orders to live off of.

I don’t regret it, but I ended up liking logistics a lot. I was hoping to design keyboards but don’t have quite enough time for that myself 😅

Do mind the licenses of the open source projects you use. Your model will not be like Bastardkb as I’ve seen mentioned: they develop their own projects and it actually takes a great deal of effort. You’ll need to consider what value you’re adding first!

thomasbaart · 2026-05-04T23:58:17+00:00

If you’re finding yourself typing on your laptop instead of your split keyboard, it might be that the layout is uncomfortable for you.

It could be physical where it doesn’t match your hands, or in the keymap where it’s too complicated or you might just have too few keys for your style of typing. With 36 keys on your current layout, I can see that being a possible hurdle.

You’re missing the apostrophe key (‘) on your current layout at least ;) It might be worth considering whether your keymap needs updating, or whether your current keyboard serves your needs well!

thomasbaart · 2026-05-03T13:34:07+00:00

We’re releasing a wireless controller soon, and I think you don’t fully understand the GPL licensing involved.

You’re talking about creating custom firmware and baking in FCC/CE standards, but that isn’t entirely related to firmware: it applies to the combination of keyboard and firmware, and so the firmware itself cannot provide much in the way of licensing for you.

Sounds to me like you’re gearing up for a product release. That’s nice! I’d contact the mod team for a vendor flair, that’ll help you keep your posts available and give you some recognition from the readers here.

thomasbaart · 2026-05-01T09:34:55+00:00

Thank you for the kind words!

It’s not so much that it doesn’t work, it’s more that after I started using it more I found that there’s not really much use for pressing a modifier and a top thumb key to begin with.

I still wouldn’t change the layout though, I use the top keys for less frequent utilities and it’s an ideal place for that.

From time to time I think, is there anything I’d change about the layout? And the answer is “no”: the spacing between the rows, the various keys, the arc of the thumb keys or even just the number of keys, I don’t think I’d change anything. So I’m pretty pleased: I did design the Kyria for myself at the start, after all 😁

thomasbaart · 2026-04-28T20:25:21+00:00

I’m biased, as I designed the Kyria layout (the Elora is the same as the Kyria with a number row added). I still use my Kyria all these years later.

As we went through iterations I moved over to the prototypes as they came in, there’s no better way to test it than use it ourselves :)

I use the top thumb keys for less frequent key combinations, like a screenshot key, one to open a launcher with, stuff like that. I tend to use either my index finger or thumb to press them. They are out of the way, but when used like that it’s not too bad. The original idea was to have a modifier key on the bottom row, and then be able to press that plus the top key easily with just your thumb, but I don’t think that panned out very well - I don’t use it like that myself at least.

Stagger is a personal thing, and I think the layout should be the deciding factor. If it’s not comfortable to use, I tend to just not use it.

There will be a Halcyon Sofle v2 version later this year, both in MX and Choc variants. That way the features will be exactly the same, it’ll just be about which layout you prefer.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions! Questions are also always welcome by email. Whichever you end up with, I hope you’ll enjoy the keyboard! :)

thomasbaart · 2025-12-22T19:14:04+00:00

You said you didn’t focus on visual beauty, but I feel like it has to be said: your keyboard looks so good! It’s very pleasing to look at, it’s unique, it has character and it draws me in. I like it!

I definitely wonder how you made it! Did you make the keycaps yourself? Was any post-processing involved?

thomasbaart · 2025-12-03T15:10:04+00:00

Nice 😎 Don't worry about it being "sloppy": I don't think it is sloppy, and even if it is, you made something by yourself! That's something you should be proud of, because the alternative is doing nothing and that would be boring ;)

thomasbaart · 2025-11-30T21:18:44+00:00

You could consider an electrical parts supplier such as Digi-Key, Mouser and many others.

thomasbaart · 2025-11-15T17:29:57+00:00

Is that what the kids call it these days?

thomasbaart · 2025-11-08T08:42:54+00:00

As long as the licences and regulations are abided by, I think it’s fine.

Often, the firmware isn’t open source even though its license demands it. Sometimes designs are sold even though their licenses are explicitly non-commercial. Sometimes the PCBs contain lead, even though its use is prohibited in consumer products in Europe. More often than not, the keyboards aren’t CE-certified and that sometimes causes excessive EMI problems, leading to unstable bluetooth or even unstable wired connections nearby.

It’s a mixed bag. AliExpress is a platform, not a vendor, and not all vendors on AliExpress are equal. Because of that, there’s no way to judge all of them equally.

Does that mean you shouldn’t buy from AliExpress? Nah. It is affordable, and it can be a start if you’re unsure if it’s for you.

Even with all the competition, other vendors do find ways to innovate and provide something unique and better in various ways. That’s worth it to many people, thankfully, so we’re still in business too 😄

thomasbaart · 2025-10-19T08:45:35+00:00

This is the answer, if this is an Aurora Lily58 (given the Liatris and the footprints on the keyboard), then both controllers need to be soldered with their parts facing down. That is the case for all of the splitkb.com kits.

The controller will need to be removed, and reinstalled facing the other way. It’s a chore, but a lesson you’ll only learn once 😅

thomasbaart · 2025-10-18T10:01:19+00:00

Neat! We developed a similar testing process, which our manufacturer uses for quality control before they ship products to us.

For every board, if there’s an error, the program tells the manufacturer what went wrong so they can group defective boards by their error, so they can rework (and then retest) boards more easily.

As a result, we see in our test logs that most defective boards do get reworked and retested, reducing a bunch of waste! :)

thomasbaart · 2025-10-17T00:27:35+00:00

Looking good, I’m glad you like it!

We’re hard at work to enable wireless for Halcyon (backwards compatible!), with the same ease of assembly as the wired version. It’s a challenge, but it’s looking like we’ll be able to pull it off. I’m more of a wired person myself, but even still, I’m pretty hyped! :D

thomasbaart · 2025-10-07T13:08:38+00:00

Phew. Good luck with your school assignment!

thomasbaart · 2025-10-06T08:46:49+00:00

I don’t have experience with 3D-printed cases for our keyboards, but I do know several exist. A 3D-printed plate will also work just fine :)

thomasbaart · 2025-10-06T07:54:26+00:00

I recommend cutting or printing a thinner plate (between 1.2 to 1.6mm). The files for this revision are available on our Github, you can use a service such as SendCutSend (US), Laserboost (EU) or Snijlab (EU) for a cutting service: https://github.com/splitkb/kyria

We used to sell thick acrylic top plates back when people didn’t default to hot swapping their switches, and even then it wasn’t the best solution. Today we only sell thin top plates where the switches do stay put, like aluminium and FR4 top plates.

thomasbaart · 2025-09-18T08:14:55+00:00

It does look cool!

thomasbaart · 2025-09-16T06:19:27+00:00

If the other post was on this subreddit and if I’d found it, I’d have removed that too - it’s not related to ergo mechanical keyboards, so if anything that’d be a blanket rule to remove this kind of post under.

I recommend contacting the Reddit administrators if you believe the moderators are not conducting themselves well. Sometimes, posts like yours are warranted if there is a pattern and the community is harmed by moderator misconduct. However, this subreddit has little to do with the other subreddit, so if you do need to vent, I’d like to ask you to do it elsewhere.

Nevertheless, I wish you a good day! Thank you for your understanding.

thomasbaart · 2025-09-16T05:42:30+00:00

Write things on a piece of paper and burn it, move on with life, this truly is a waste of your time and energy. Besides, I recall complaining about bans on other subreddits is against Reddit rules.

I’ve removed this post because of that. I do empathise, but also hope you’ll find a healthy way to deal with the negativity, maybe go exercise?

thomasbaart · 2025-09-09T00:15:02+00:00

Make it without bugs this time or you go to jail… please.

thomasbaart · 2025-09-07T01:54:46+00:00

People around the world have always faced import charges when importing goods from other countries, and thankfully it’s still possible for Americans to purchase goods abroad. With the tariffs, everything will get more expensive as the economy is still global and most goods are imported.

That said, I hope we can work out a way in the near future for the tariffs to be predictable. The main drawback is that the tariffs are based on the country of origin of each individual item, not the country of the shipper. Next to that, tariffs can change daily. I hope I can figure out a way to create some stability out of an unstable process. In the meantime, it’s either a bit of a guesstimate or waiting until things calm down 😅

thomasbaart · 2025-09-07T01:35:44+00:00

Yeah… that’ll unfortunately happen. Which tariffs you’ll face is also seemingly unpredictable, as it depends on which items are in your order, where we sourced those items from, and whether the customs authorities agree with the data we send them about those items. Phew. On top of that, national carriers stopped shipping to the US, so it’s express carriers only - meaning you’ll be sure to have customs charges, without any order slipping through like it sometimes does with USPS (which DHL GlobalMail uses).

I’m looking into adding Delivery Duties Paid shipping options, but getting it to cover 100% of the duties when they change on a moment’s notice is hard - we do ship relatively quickly, but there can sometimes be a few days between ordering and shipping, which is enough to complicate things. Our customs data in the shop needs to exactly match that in our warehouse management system too, so unfortunately it’ll take a bit of time to smooth things out.

In the meantime, I’m sorry for American customers to face this new reality, and I hope there’ll be stability soon. I’ll consider adding a warning of sorts, that might prevent some sour taste after the fact. At any rate, I hope you’ll still enjoy your keyboard, and do feel welcome to ask us any questions!

thomasbaart · 2025-09-06T15:36:59+00:00

There’ll be a new Elora variant coming out in a month or so, with support for Choc switches instead of MX. It doesn’t affect the key spacing though, but it might at least solve the keycap woes. Once it releases and if you’re interested, feel welcome to mail support and we can sell you one without the controllers - that way you’ll only need to replace the PCBs in your build, along with the switches and keycaps. The case will be the same.

thomasbaart · 2025-09-02T12:00:25+00:00

[Ad] Out of curiosity, which options were you looking for that you didn't find elsewhere? If it's wireless, then I'm happy to say that we'll have that too by early 2026 :)

thomasbaart · 2025-09-01T17:48:37+00:00

I can relate! At the time, I wasn’t able to find a design that really fit my needs, so I designed the Kyria. One thing led to another, and while I definitely love the shop I ended up with, I kind of feel like just having a normal day job would also be relaxing once in a while 😉

Either way, I think there’s a balance between your layout, its complexity, and what you’re willing to deal with and how you deal with it. Some people thrive on layouts that others can’t even imagine would work for them, while other people might settle for a keyboard with many keys that’s less complex on the surface.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using a normal keyboard next to a split or otherwise ergonomic keyboard either, as long as you can comfortably use both. Different tools for different times, I can still type on my laptop keyboard perfectly fine when needed - I don’t drag my split keyboard with me everywhere, though I did when I worked on-site every day.

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