Clojurians Log v2

I don't know where to channel this (the common word to follow would be "frustration", but I can't say I'm frustrated yet). I just don't know of any other place where I can share my thoughts on the matter. So, a year ago, I switched from Kinesis Advantage II to Advantage 360, making it the sixth Kinesis board I've had over the years. I remember how thrilled I was about Advantage 360, pre-ordering it without a second thought. My anticipation turned into a personal disappointment that I can’t seem to shake off. I simply had unreasonable expectations of this board. I have to admit, they did make some good decisions, like splitting the halves. But they also introduced some unwelcome changes, like adding an excess of new keys. A personal pet peeve of mine is that the Fn keys are now placed directly under Shift. In the earlier models of Advantage, Shift was the very bottom key. Even after a year of usage, I keep accidentally pressing the wrong key. Overall, I think my typing accuracy has decreased compared to the older Kinesis models and I can't explain why. The board seems too heavy and unnecessarily large. There’s so much pointless space near the inner top corners. It’s certainly not suited for travel— even moving it from the desk to the couch is a hassle. The ZMK updates are also quite painful in comparison with other boards and they often end up breaking my config. Upgrading the firmware without tampering with my own settings is almost never possible. With every firmware upgrade, I almost always have to reprogram my keybindings and macros from scratch. And of course, the infamous connectivity issues. The right half often just stops seeing the left one, and you have to keep turning them off and on, over and over again. It’s so egregiously annoying for a keyboard that costs almost $500. It's so annoying that I can't go back to the older Kinesis models because the 360 is not horribly bad. It's just not perfect. So, all of that annoyed me until I ordered the Glove80. Now, let me talk about this overhyped Glove80 for minute...

I've got a Glove80 and immediately tried setting up high angle tenting. That took me a while, but I figured it out, only to dismantle the whole thing after twenty minutes of trying. The whole thing felt shaky and not very solid. There was just no way of using it like that, so I got rid of it. My plan was to try mounting the board using their specialized mounting plates with quick release. They cost over $100, but I was planning to order them anyway, so I did. I have not tried them yet, since the plates have yet to arrive. I've seen people doing some crazy stuff like mounting the keyboard halves on their chairs. I don't want to do that, but I would like to try some different angles. The swivel ball heads, at least in theory, should allow you to be a bit adventurous. The keyboard itself feels very nice, the wells are nicely done and the thumb cluster keys are all reachable (unlike the 360). My typing accuracy immediately improved, even though I'd only tried using it for a minute. Also, programming it is much nicer than the GitHub based approach with Kinesis 360. Now, don't ask me why, but I ordered the board with white clicky switches. And even though I eventually loved it, after typing for a while, I realized my fingers were noticeably getting tired. These switches require a bit more actuation force. I talked to the founder and asked him if it would be possible to swap for different switches, and he said it would be more expensive due to shipping costs and restocking fees. He suggested it would be better to find a way to re-solder the switches and recommended a guy who could do it for a low cost. However, I decided to do it myself. So, I bought a bunch of things from Amazon, including new switches, and am now waiting for them to arrive. I spent over $300 on top of what I had to pay for the keyboard itself. I feel so stupid. I hope I don't end up damaging the PCBs. Otherwise, I'd feel completely imbecilic.

I kind of like the 360 (non pro), I use that one as daily driver now and atreus for when I am mobile. But I probably only use half the keys on it. My config on it is identical to the layout I use on the atreus, for instance I only use 2 keys on each thumb cluster. I bought a usb to usb hasu controllers to get tmk but I can get by with smartset alone.

(I also own an advantage 2)

I kind of wish they made a smaller more portable version as well

With kailh speed switches even