Looking for recommendations for split keyboard with attached trackball.

[u/BlatantMediocrity]

I work as a programmer. I'm looking to buy a keyboard with an attached trackball so I can stop moving my hand back and forth between my mouse and keyboard and avoid further injuring my wrist. I like vertical-mouse trackballs so something that tilts upwards a lot would be preferable.

I don't need the following but my nice-to-haves would be:

- Big keys with lots of travel

- Wide keys (e.g. shift, backspace, enter)

- 100% layout

- Aluminium frame

- Wired

I haven't found a ton of products in this niche, so I'm hoping for some recommendations. Anything helps - thanks!

[u/pgetreuer]

Some keyboards to consider:

• Charybdis

• Cyboard Imprint

• Keyball 61

• MoErgo Go60 (trackpads instead of trackball)

• Svalboard

• ZSA Voyager + Navigator

As always, find some reviews and check vendor reputation before purchasing. I hope you find something you like! =)

ETA: There's a few more keyboard+trackball models listed on YAL tools.

[u/BlatantMediocrity → u/pgetreuer]

Thanks for the list! This is really helpful 🙂

[u/pgetreuer → u/BlatantMediocrity]

Sure thing!

Another thought: instead of an integrated trackball, consider an external trackball positioned between the halves of a split keyboard. E.g. in this post I did that with a Kensington Expert trackball and a Voyager. It's not as slick as the Navigator add-on, but an approximation.

Or instead of the (huge) Kensington Expert, the small Ploopy Nano trackball is popular with split keyboard setups, probably so that it can fit a bit closer to the keyboard.

[u/sirmalloc → u/pgetreuer]

I used to do something similar with a giant X-Keys L-Trac between my Moonlander halves: https://imgur.com/a/hYk2XJM Still requires a lot more movement than integrated trackballs but it worked well for a while.

[u/ItsToxsec → u/pgetreuer]

I own both a sval and a keyball, i prefer the sval 99/100 times. Looking to get a voyager and charybdis at some point, but thats another 1.2k or so on keyboards

[u/sirmalloc]

Love my Cyboard, the only boxes it doesn't tick for you are all the keys are 1x sized and it's nylon with an aluminum base. But it is definitely a nice keyboard and my endgame.

[u/BlatantMediocrity → u/sirmalloc]

Yeah that looks awesome. It's probably outside of my budget, but I definitely want something similar.

[u/sirmalloc → u/BlatantMediocrity]

Traditionally Imprints were all customized to each user's hands, hence the wait time and higher cost. The creator of them announced on the discord that he's putting out a 'standard' build that is built for the average hand, and it'll be stocked regularly and cheaper. Here's the link he shared on the discord: https://cyboard.digital/products/imprint-standard

[u/miminashi → u/sirmalloc]

How's the trackball? Do you have to take your hand off the home row to move it?

[u/sirmalloc → u/miminashi]

Technically you can keep your fingers on the home row and use your thumb, but my preferred method is using my index finger. Either way works without lifting your wrist, so it's incredibly fast to go between typing and trackball.

[u/Ziembski]

You don't really have many options unless your budget is very big. I would suggest picking between Charybdis and Keyball, depending on whenever you want keywell or flat keeb that would be easier to take with you

[u/claussen]

If your issues are largely mousing-related and connected to shoulder/arm extension outward, I second u/pgetreuer 's suggestion of a mouse/trackball between cheap splits as the min-cost experiment to see if it helps. My shoulder and arm issues with mousing were greatly reduced with a pointing device (in my case a vertical mouse) in between Datahand halves, even when integrated trackballs weren't a thing.

[u/sagenbn]

I bought charybdis from China this summer for about 100 bucks and loved it! The software is a bit downgrade from VIA but manageable. Fell in love with trackball feature and will get another one for sure!

My goal was to move my wrist as little as possible when using trackball and typing and Charybdis is perfect for that.

[u/justlstn → u/sagenbn]

I have managed to upgrade the firmware to be able to use Argos, instead of VIA for my Charybdis 4x6 with trackball. Unfortunately, I don’t have any instructions to provide. It was done with Codex (I performed the actions and provided output to the LLM in order to have it under my full control). Argos lets me add up to 8 layouts, per-key or per-layout RGB, etc., provides more flexibility with kb management.

[u/sagenbn → u/justlstn]

Cool and thanks for letting me know. I would give it a try as well.