Hey all, I type all day as many of us do and I’ve been finding some pain in my wrist and tingling in my fingers lately and want to know the best keyboard I can throw my favorite switches into and try to avoid/mitigate these symptoms. Hoping to keep it under $200 and I’ve never sodered before but willing to try it if the kits well laid out.
No keyboard will fix this issue or mitigate carpel tunnel. You need to start wrist stretches and exercises every few hours to stop it from getting worse.
I believe this video and a few others are what I found to work in the past. Stretching and strengthening your muscles will be better in the long run. https://youtu.be/n26CXK6xZek
This is true. That said, the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard is supposedly fairly good at preventing recurrence.
I disagree. I had bad Carpal tunnel. and eventually the pain was moving up my arm and side of face. The M3000 sculpted shape made a huge difference combined with vertical mouse. It is no longer an issue for me. Any keyboard that tents up to put wrist closer to the handshake angle instead of flat and a backward also a backward tilr removes a ton of wrist pressure on the nerve tunnels.
The vertical mouse addition is what finally fixed my shit, I used to have constant carpal pain and am now pain-free less than a year later.
It’s hard to say what will help each individual because everybody has different ergonomic needs, and obviously, nobody here can provide medical or occupational health advice.
That being said, some things to think about:
- If you haven’t already, make sure that your desk height and typing style are reasonably ergonomic. Conventional wisdom is that you want your forearms to be about level with the floor and your hands should be floating above the keyboard, not resting on your desk.
- For issues that are caused by wrist angle, there are two major features a keyboard can offer:
- Split, letting you separate the halves so that your wrists aren’t pointing inward
- Tented, meaning that you can change the angle of the keyboard so that you can get the most comfortable position rotationally
- Many ergonomic keyboards also use a column-staggered layout, which should be better for your fingers, but will require some learning curve to get used to
- Some also have keywell designs that are scooped so your fingers don’t have to stretch as far
You may want to compare different layouts before deciding on a board to try: https://compare.splitkb.com/
For off the shelf prebuilts, see things like Kinesis, Keyboardio, the Glove80, Ergodox, Moonlander
For something a bit more DIY, Keebio offers a range of split boards, and some of them are available prebuilt in addition to kit form. Some are hotswap as well. Splitkb also makes really good kits.
There are lots of other vendors, like Little Keyboards, Beekeeb, Falbatech, BastardKB, ohkeycaps, and others
Very interested in the tented Iris from Keebio, thank you for the detailed write-up.
A trackball.
Vertical if you can afford it, but a trackball is a must. People blame keyboards, but it’s the rodent and how strong we grip it that damages the wrists more. In addition, skip playing on gamepads. They are abomination, no matter how costly.
By gamepads do you also mean controllers like PS/Xbox? I always thought those were probably best for ergonomic gaming?
they are, idk why he said they’re a problem. some people hold them wrong, and that might cause issues, but generally they’re fine if you don’t use them for 8+ hours a day.
Unfortunately, yes. EVERYTHING, every type of a controller/input device that you have to grip or squeeze, considerably strong, will damage your wrists. Especially since we don’t simply use such equipment for a few minutes only.
My mouse has never really hurts unless I’m typing heavily but I always keep a loose grip and my mouse isn’t vertical but is very tilted which probably helps.
Your mouse don’t hurt. Your wrist does.
Set up an appointment with an Orthopedic specialist and consider occupational therapy. My wrists started killing me a few years ago and I’m now starting to get things together; took so long because I had kids and was laid off. I just took an MRI and have an appointment next week to figure out the next steps.
With all that being said; I use the Kinesis Freestyle Pro and an external trackpad.
You can’t really customize it, but the Kinesis Advantage2, is the best keyboard I’ve ever used. They’re expensive, but they last forever. My wrist pain completely went away when I started using one about 7 years ago. It also has a hybrid Qwerty/Maltron layout, so common support keys are placed under your strong fingers instead of your weak fingers, and the letters are all Qwerty. My typing speed increased from about 80 wpm to about 110 wpm after I got used to the new layout.
Edited Colmak to Maltron
What’s your layout?
I mean the letters. You said it’s a Colemak/qwerty mix.
Whoops, sorry! I meant Maltron. I only say that because of the blocks of keys under your thumbs, like a Maltron keyboard. Really it’s a proprietary layout AFAIK.
As others have mentioned, changing your keyboard alone is likely not enough to mitigate risk of injury.
For me, it was a combination of a height adjustable desk, adequate adjustable chair, a foot rest, setting my monitors to the appropriate height (as well as their arrangement), and an employer mandated ergonomic assessment.
The ergonomist did not have strong opinions on my choice to use a split keyboard but did acknowledge its a matter of comfort, preference, and overall how it fits properly into my workspace.
I definitely need to figure out how to get my monitor and two or three inches lower and 5 inches farther but other than a foot rest which I’d love I’m set up with a nice supportive chair and desk.
I’ve had the logitech ergo k860 for a little over a year now. So far everything got better after my first period of wrist and arm pain. However, now it’s getting back and I’m also open for new suggestions.
So far my research has led me to the conclusion that no all-inclusive ergonomic keyboard exists that fulfills all requirements to an ergonomic keyboard.
Also, perhaps you want to switch from a flat mouse to a vertical mouse or perhaps even a ball mouse or a bar mouse.
Glove 80.
If this is how you work you should extend your budget.
I had trouble justifying the cost of my Glove80 when my MS Natural broke, but I love it so far! It’s literally the tool of my trade and I use it every day, so from that perspective the cost is well worth it.
Is it that much better than a tented Iris from Keebio, $400 and I can’t even put in my preferred switch Boba U4Ts is pretty steep
I don’t personally have it, but looking at the issue I think a concave well is the best ergonomics. It even has different heights for different fingers.
Your symptoms seem quite a bit worse than mine, but I bought a Cloudnine c989fs and it mitigated a lot of my issues.
Don’t assume that it’s carpal tunnel syndrome or that you know best to mitigate it. See a doctor. My finger tingling turned out to be a pinched nerve in the neck (cervical radiculopathy), and the optimal postural adjustments to deal with it are only tangentially related to choice of keyboard. In a perverse way, it may be best to have a godawful keyboard experience that gives me an incentive to get up and walk away from the desk now and then.
One unexpected discovery for me was that my presbyopia had been getting worse, which led me to unconsciously compensate by holding my head in awkward positions, so getting a proper pair of computer glasses helped. That’s probably not your issue, but I mention it to illustrate that it’s difficult to predict what your issue will be.
That said, I have been happy to use neck problems as an excuse to spend enormous amounts of time and money on my keyboard hobby, and I don’t intend to stop.
