foreign
and that's pretty much how we imagine
this product came to be yes it is in
fact a real thing the the key
the key mouse and it really works exactly the way that you would think it
does uh hey james uh remember how i said
that i was really excited to try this out and learn to use it and tell our
audience about it yeah yeah i'm not and one and a two and a half have fun
the moss backpack is back in stock utilizing a removable sunglass pouch
longer straps for larger shoulders available power management to help
charge your gear and backed with a five-year warranty it's pretty sick
check it out at the link below if you've been following our escapades with weird
or ergonomic keyboards then you'll recognize some familiar features when
you look at the key mouse alpha for starters it's a split keyboard with each
side having a contoured integrated wrist rest and this of course lets you spread
your hands out as wide as your shoulders which is dank if you got wide-ass
shoulders and optimizes the position of your wrist to prevent the three amigos
the three main causes of repetitive stress injuries which are ulnar
deviation which is when your risk go like this is no good extension and
pronation which is when your hand is laying flat on the keyboard this kind of
handles all three next it has these thumb clusters which i personally after
having switched the ergodox over like a year and a half ago cannot live without now it just doesn't
make any sense to use one of your strongest digits only on the spacebar so
keymouse has four keys with cherry mx switches blue in this
case brown on this one accessible by each thumb
then there's the layout which is similar to the one on the kinesis advantage 2
another great keyboard first it's ortho ortholinear which means that the keys
are aligned instead of staggered which is a real pain if you're not used to
using your middle finger to hit c like a good little typist but i got used to it
eventually and it feels good now second the keys are in these concave key
wheels they're not as deep as on the advantage 2 but it still keeps your
fingers from stretching as far as they normally would on a traditional flat
qwerty and finally there's only about 60 keys in total which is obviously a lot
less than your typical 104 key layout so
you're gonna have to get used to switching between function layers using
these little blue and yellow keys kind of a drag now some secondary
functions like the arrow keys and the numpad are actually pretty easy to use
once you get used to switching layers because you can rely on the muscle memory that you already have to hit them
but other things you'll have to learn from scratch like since when are
parentheses over here and why is caps
lock on a secondary layer and while i'm at it where are all the number keys all
of those special characters have moved which can be really annoying when you're
trying to use your password muscle memory surely they could have included
the number row no well maybe not yes they could
technically do it but that would come with a trade-off of adding more weight
which is yucky because remember each one of these is a mouse
it's actually comical how bad i am with the left mouse uh especially since i'm
left-handed but this is actually pretty cool because for the first time in my life i can move the
mouse around without taking my fingers off the home row and if
you're the type to get a strained neck or shoulder then this is a godsend
because you no longer have to reach way out for your mouse
yes it does take some getting used to don't worry you still only have one
cursor on the screen but each module is a fully functioning mouse with its own
optical sensor its own left and right clicks and its own mouse
scroll wheel that you can even click so you're free to use whichever mouse you
want to and switch between them at will you can even use one on the far right
side of your multi-monitor setup and then kind of hand off the cursor to the
left when you get on that far side of your super ultra wide display like i
have um but you can't like move them together to try to
double your movement speed or anything crazy like that because Windows only
accepts really one input at a time there are a couple of extras though you can
hold this sniper type button to temporarily drop your sensitivity for
finer control and since you can't easily pick up the mouse when you get to the
edge of your mouse pad or an uncomfortable position this special
little snowflake button uh-huh pauses mouse movement so that you
can get your hands back in place without moving the pointer as for how well it
works as a mouse though the thing that was weird for me especially at first was
that with a regular mouse there's a certain intuitiveness to pointing around
at things on your desktop as if the cursor is an extension of your index
finger by comparison the key mouse felt more like fisting around and squeezing
because the mouse click is accessible by your thumb
one solution i had to make it feel more natural was to put the clicks up here
instead of on the side at least then first time users wouldn't find
themselves accidentally smashing the j key all the time like i did but
apparently earlier versions of the product did have them up there and then
customers reported pain after extended use plus some people actually like to
grip the palm rest instead of keeping their hands on the keys when they move
around so the buttons got in the way over there overall it definitely works
well enough but i think that it's safe to say that you're not going to achieve
the same precision as a regular mouse probably ever but what if you didn't
have to move the whole module introducing
the key mouse track now with this version you get a
trackball for each hand and because it's stationary
you also get a butt load more keys including the number rows which is
awesome and the front-mounted clicks that were on my wishlist which would be
sick except that they don't line up with this finger they line up with this
finger which is gash thankfully there's a third option as long as your hands are
big enough this little post guy up here is also a left click but wait there's
more keyhouse also sells mounting brackets
that
ah that let you strap these puppies to your
chair like you're on the bridge of the heckin starship enterprise
it's crazy your colleagues may raise an
eyebrow but only because they covet the splendor that you alone revel in
seriously though it does really feel like the inner base you've always wanted
and it's ergonomic af if only it weren't equally jank not only
are the mounting brackets attached with velcro straps that can irritate bare
arms but the brackets themselves sold for 45 dollars are plastic so the whole
thing ends up flexing under your keystrokes it's like having a mechanical
keyboard with no back plate or even negative back plate plus
one of mine straight up broke these suck they need to be metal and bolt to the
chair so i guess we're talking about the weak points now key mouse opted to go all in
on 3d printing which gives them an advantage in terms of rapid prototyping
and the ability to offer multiple skus like there's multiple sizes of the
kimonos outfits awesome but while none of the alternative keyboards i've tried
have matched the finish of mass market products from say Corsair or logitech
and well as far as 3d printed objects go these are actually pretty nice
there are still a bunch of irregularities or maybe artifacts in the
finished product it's not a deal breaker for me but it definitely contributes to a
cheaper look and feel hey but at least they give you nice braided cables
instead of cheaping out like ergo docks yes wow
but that said it's unlikely that you'll even never really need them because
these are the first ergos i've seen that are bluetooth with a usb rechargeable
1400 milliamp hour battery in each
module another strong point for these keyboards is their intuitive and robust
software that lets you customize just about anything you can imagine you can
remap all the keys all the buttons and even the mouse wheels on up to six
layers you can make each mouse module have a different dpi or make the mouse
motion a different function like using one trackball as a scroll wheel you can
make a single click register as a key combination like alt f4 and you can
program full on macros as long as you have the software running in the
background slight demerit there so then
is this the ergonomic keyboard to buy well
it's 500 bucks that's extreme for a
keyboard but to put it in context ergonomic keyboards are typically around
350 which merely makes it expensive in the
ergonomic space and if you take the mouse out of the equation i put the key
mouse about on par with the advantage too as far as ergonomics and features so
the question becomes really whether having an integrated wireless mouse is
worth 150 and i guess that depends on you and your rsi if it's shoulder
related and can't be solved simply by switching to a vertical mouse then the
key mouse could be your best and only
option unless you want to mess around with foot pedals or something
so my advice then is to poke around key mouse's forum where people many of whom
have tried a ton of the different ergonomic keyboards that are available on the market today
post reviews and are happy to answer all your newbie questions
so thanks for watching guys speaking of newbies
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below and make sure you enter Linus tech tips in the how did you hear about us
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