Hey all, I just purchased a Moonlander and after using it for a day, I unplugged it and packed it back up because I noticed my muscle memory on my laptop was already deteriorating!

I want to be an ergomech user, but I also need to frequently use my laptop by itself with a standard keyboard. Is it possible to keep my muscle memory for both? Have any of you had success switching back and forth between a split ergo and a standard keyboard?

Any advice or reassurance is appreciated. This was a massive purchase for me and this issue has me very disheartened at the moment.

Update: I got it back out a couple days ago and it turns out all I needed to do was use it for a day and then sleep on it so my brain could do a firmware update. I’m back at the 70wpm I was with staggered, and yet my proficiency with staggered has only dropped about 5/10wpm.

  • anaumann@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    I‘m typing with 50WPM on a Moonlander with Colemak-DH Layout and still can type on a QWERTY MacBook keyboard with my usual 70-80WPM

    During the initial leaning phase, switching is hard. From my experience it’ll be easier once you are able to type subconsciously on the Moonlander as well.

    Speaking from personal experience here, your mileage may vary.

    • Necromnomicon@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      I have found keeping qwerty to normal staggered boards and colemak to Ortho/columnar staggered has kept my muscle memory for qwerty pretty intact. 2 different muscle memories for 2 different tools

      • epocsquadron@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        I recommend this method as well. I use a Hands Down variant on my ergo doc ez, while leaving my laptop keyboard standard QWERTY. Makes keeping them separate much easier. I initially tried to keep a QWERTY layer on the ergodox but found myself stumbling with zxcv keys a lot as the columnar positions are very different. Keeping the layouts different solved that entirely.