Hey all,
Some of you have seen me post here before. For those who haven’t, I’m David, I’m a Canadian primary care doctor, worked in chronic pain, and I built a split ergonomic keyboard. It’s called the TAIKO-01 and it launches on Kickstarter on Tuesday (June 2).
For those who do know about this, yes it’s finally actually happening 😭. Appreciate everyone who stuck around.
The TL;DR is 5 years ago I got carpal tunnel and wrist tendinosis, built one for myself, serendipitously ended up selling dactyl-like variations to a lot of people over the years, took the feedback I got then created this based off it, quit my job to work on this, found out the hard way that injection mold designs are way more complicated than 3D printed designs, ended up working on this for a whole year.
Details:
Switches: Gateron browns. 4 switches are 1.5u in size and 56 are 1u in size.
Keycaps: Laser-etched ABS XDA profile keycaps
Connectivity: Wired USB
OS Compatibility: Linux, macOS, Windows
Firmware Compatibility: QMK, Vial, VIA
Keycap Compatibility: XDA, DSA, MOA, SA Row 3 and MA
Keyswitch Compatibility: All MX-style keyswitches
Prelaunch waitlist here is still open until Monday if you want the early backer price.
Happy to answer any questions.
*It is NOT wireless
If I wasn’t still trying to get used to the Glove80, I would totally give this a try. It looks amazing!
Thanks!
9/10, only thing left wanting is a trackball or some sort of mouse input in the thumb cluster. Really love the design, especially the angle on the thumb cluster. I have a Charybdis from bastard KB and sometimes I wish the tilt on the thumb cluster was more pronounced.
Yeah I’ve definitely heard from quite a couple people that they’d like a trackball on one of the thumb cluster. Probably will explore this in the future but not anytime soon.
This is still a really nice design though. I think it looks leagues better than the Charybdis I have.
That’s the only thing I don’t like about my Dactyl, the next one needs mouse control of some sort.
Its peak no doubt. Never having to move your hands is a unbeatable
TAIKO Tuesday!
Lol! Thats genius
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Never thought I’d see a Kinesis Advantage labelled as a traditional keyboard ;)
Nevertheless, good luck with the campaign. It seems like a well thought of design. I haven’t used one of these split concave keyboards, but the angle of the thumb cluster looks way better on yours than on the Kinesis.
Haha yes that was originally a typo but I suppose Kinesis Advantage has been around for a while 😅. Thank you for the kind words!
solid offering. good luck on the campaign.
i didn’t see any tenting options listed, are any planned or is that up to end user?
is there a split distance maximum listed am I missed it?
Thank you. In terms of tenting right now it’s up to the end user but we’re planning something afterwards.
Basically we see that some people still want to use a rest of some sort. But because wrist rests increase pressure on the carpal tunnel one of the options we’re exploring is a tenting kit that makes it so you can use a wrist rest without putting pressure on the carpal tunnel (instead the wrist rest would hit the furthest part of the ulna bone, which can be seen here.
This one agrees with Sanctus that some kind of mousing access without lifting hands would be good. Maybe an expansion port on the device?
Curious about how much of the space you looked into? These ones have a glove80, which has been a significant improvement to trying to use a laptop keyboard, but which does have any imperfections. From here these ones expected that the next major interface move, if there was another, but this has basically the things that were missing in the g80, from these ones perspective, and these ones would like to confirm details:
The switches are hot swappable, not soldered? The keyboard is entirely wired, with no wireless mode?
Expansion port is a possibility, but it would require a redesign. Not something we’d be able to do with this Kickstarter.
Yes it’s hotswap. Not soldered. Yes the keyboard is entirely wired. No wireless mode.
I understand this is a big deal for people who want to keep their desks clean. We’ll release a wireless one later on. We’re just trying to keep it simple and keep risk low right now. We also don’t know whether there’ll be hiccups with doing a wireless version. We plan to use a pre-certified FCC module but the product itself still needs FCC certification (though it should be easier than not using a pre-certified module). It just so happens the US recently changed regulations on certification so Chinese labs cannot be used. But similar to most hardware products, we need to make our PCBs and do our injection molds in China. From what I’m aware, getting FCC certification can take a few iterations. So as you can imagine, if it takes 2 weeks to ship from China to a non-Chinese lab each iteration, it might take longer than we expect. I don’t want to disappoint backers, so that’s why no wireless. Sorry it’s kind of a long answer.
Edit: Forgot to answer the other part of your question.
“No wireless” is in fact a selling point in this case.
Thanks for answering ^_^
You’re welcome! I’m just curious but is there a particular reason why no wireless is a selling point?
I may be wrong but wireless interference with nearby devices and ports, possibility of higher input latency, and comparative closed source firmware nature of wireless devices makes me want to never buy a wireless keyboard.
I made the mistake of buying a wireless Logitech (I know, buying Logitech itself is a mistake) MX Vertical already, never again.
Wow yeah that lines up. I think at some workplaces they don’t allow Bluetooth gadgets for the same reason.
Security mindset; the convenience of wireless does not outweigh a preference against radiating everything you type for some entities. Cables can generally be had to any preferred length, so they aren’t a problem for this specific use case.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for letting me know.
A nice addition to the 3d ergo keeb roster, i wish you luck on your campaign!
are the halves connected by wire? If so, with which connector?
Thank you!
The two halves are connected by wire. It’s a TRS connector (but compatible with TRRS as well).
Woo hoo! Hope the campaign goes well. I’ve been thinking about getting a curved keyboard for years now, this just might be the one.
Thank you for the well wishes! Yep we got a 30 day return policy too so you can always try it to see if you like it first.
