Kinesis Advantage360 Professional Split Mechanical Keyboard

Product Information

I turn each half off after use as otherwise it has a tendency to wake my Mac back up and I with they were a little easier to toggle.

Going to curved key wells helped me a lot because it lets me freeze my wrists in a comfortable position and still hit keys far from the home row. I have an Advantage2 with a magic trackpad in the middle (like maximilianroos), and a tilted tray with raised platform for mice. I remember the first time I saw an ergonomic keyboard being used by someone - it was in the Google Deep Mind documentary about AlphaGo. One of the programmers working on the project was seen programming on an ergo keyboard, and it struck me as odd, really.

Functions keys are located in the number row and accessed via the Fn Key for reduce reach and enhanced portability. I’ve been alternating days on the 360 and the Moonlander boards, and find the flatter profile of the Moonlander thumb area seems to suit me better. The bizarre separation of the arrow keys into left-right and up-down on two different hands was the very first thing I fixed. There are other little absentees that are not deal breakers in themselves, but are definitely ticks in the against column.

You press Mod + Hotkey 1 or Mod + Hotkey 3 keys, which mounts the halves and puts the keyboard into Bootloader mode. The moment you have more letters in the alphabet than 26, you have to readjust your typing habit for the other language. I have never used Brown switches in my life, but I have used Kailh Red, MX Red Silent, and MX Clear. I thought it was a gimmick, but you can combine it with Keyboard layers, and it provides a nice feedback loop when you switch layers. It’s very subtle but I do think it helps to distinguish those keys, especially as most people tend to stick their utility and meta keys on the outer edges.The design and construction feel a step above the older Advantage keyboards; they got rid of the off-center logo and updated the status LED icons, and even included a couple of nice braided USB cables in the box.

The keys are arranged in vertical columns (rather than staggered) to better reflect the natural motion of fingers when typing. Has a smaller footprint than most keyboards because there is no numeric 10-key so the mouse can be placed closer to the body, reducing “over-reach”. The Advantage 360 Pro looks in contrast to other ergo split keyboards to be build more like a stable, industrial manufactured product here.And there is a handy on/off switch if you are travelling with your keyboard or want to ensure that it goes into deep sleep for maximum power conservation. While the company does warn its users that the 360 Professional is meant for power users and values configurability over user-friendliness, the actual instructions—which are scattered throughout several PDF instruction manuals on the site—involve forking a GitHub repo, hooking into Github Actions for firmware builds, and depending on how comfortable you are hacking firmware, modifying the code directly or using their hosted open source GUI to handle remapping keys and layer definitions 6. And use the integrated tenting mechanism to choose from one of three heights to reduce forearm pronation. The one strange design decision I found was hiding the hardware reset buttons on the circuit board itself, and the official documentation suggests either removing keycaps or angling a bobby pin in-between key crevices to hit 2 very tiny buttons—one for each side.

The style of keyboard makes it hard to have a lot depth on the keyboard so it’s safer to just cut the row off now and use layers. I also found it an improvement over the ergodox, because the clusters are more thought out and the tenting has less degrees of freedom so is easier to get just right. There’s even a company that sells after-market PBT keycaps for the Advantage keyboards; the set is non-standard.

Standing desks are becoming much more affordable (I actually have two for my work and gaming rigs), yet a more ergonomic setup for the mouse and keyboard is something I never seriously considered until I saw that documentary.