Glove80 Keyboard

Overview

This is my custom mechanical keyboard that I bought in 2024. After months of research, planning, and trying many keyboards (Keychron Q14 Max, ZSA Moonlander), I came across the MoErgo Glove80.

I was drawn to the unique keywell design of the keyboard, which mimics the natural curvature of our fingers when we extend and retract them.

Keyboard Specifications

Glove80 Gallery

Typing Experience

Here's what makes this keyboard special to me and how it enhances my typing and programming workflow.

Sound Profile and Feel

The keyboard has a muted sound profile due to the silent cherry blossom switches.

The typing feel is firm as the switches have minimal travel which provides excellent feedback while preventing fatigue during long coding sessions.

Ergonomics

The split design of this keyboard allows me to position both halves at shoulder's width, which for me, encourages an upright posture and makes slouching an awkward position.

Customizations

I've customized the keyboard with Sunaku's custom layout, the Glorious Engrammer layout. It uses Home row mods which either send normal keycodes (such as the letter A or the number 1) when tapped or modifiers (such as Shift or Ctrl) when held. An image of this keymap can be seen below.

Benefits of the Enthium Keyboard Layout

The Enthium keyboard layout offers several significant advantages for typists seeking greater efficiency and comfort:

• Superior Ergonomics and Performance - Enthium scores exceptionally well in keyboard layout analyses, with remarkably low same-finger bigram rates (0.818%) and the lowest lateral stretch bigram rate (0.319%) among comparable layouts. It achieves excellent roll statistics (45.274%) whilst minimising redirects, creating a smoother typing experience.
• Thoughtful Key Placement - The layout places letters strategically to reduce strain, particularly by moving B and V to home row lateral positions to avoid stretching pinky fingers. This adjustment notably reduces pinky/ring scissors from 0.49% to 0.35%, addressing a common source of discomfort.
• Optimised for Programming - Punctuation marks are cleverly clustered to benefit programmers:
  • Minus and equals are grouped for intuitive zoom shortcuts with Ctrl
  • Comma and semicolon are positioned for efficient prev/next jumping in Vim
  • Period and slash are arranged for convenient filesystem path navigation (./,../)
  • Special characters are positioned to facilitate coding patterns like -> and => arrows
• Familiar Design - Enthium combines the best aspects of existing layouts, maintaining the CIEA arrangement on the left hand's home row (like Engram 2.0) and HTNS on the right hand's home row (like Dvorak). This familiarity makes it easier for users of these layouts to transition.
• Quick Learning Curve - One can switch to Enthium with approximately six hours of practice spread over 2-3 days, particularly if coming from the Engram or Engrammer layouts.
• Balanced Hand Usage - The layout achieves a nearly equal distribution of work between left and right hands (roughly 45% and 46% respectively), preventing one-sided strain during extended typing sessions.

Future Upgrades

I'm considering the following upgrades or modifications to this keyboard in the future:

• Trying different switch types like MoErgo's newest Plum Blossom silent switches
• Adding a sidecar trackball
• Experimenting with different keycaps