- Your keyboard looks like this. For the next 30 days, my
keyboard will look like this. (keys tapping) People (keys tapping) say that I'm... You type on a keyboard 40
hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Forever! Except for maybe vacations. This can lead to some major problems, including carpal tunnel,
repetitive strain injuries, or just pain, everywhere. I often spend time after
work days rolling out the painful spots, and I can't help but think,
will it ever go away? Or, am I stuck with this pain forever? I looked online and a lot of people said that this keyboard can
help out with these issues. Will this strange keyboard
actually fix all the pain? For the next 30 days, I'm
gonna test it and find out. To start this challenge, this keyboard was sent to me from RGBKB, and this is called the Sol 3. But first, I had to build it. (upbeat music) Boom, done. It's actually really cool. It's held together by a magnet. It took me a grand total
of 10 minutes to build and it even comes with
this cool tenting kit. It sort of felt like
Legos, but for adults. All right, time to get started I suppose. For reference, here's my typing
speed on a normal keyboard. Now, here's my first typing
test on this new keyboard. Boom. Oh. 35 words per minute. And then I realized this
challenge was going to be tough. Everything felt foreign. And I had no idea what some
of these keys even did. Typing at this speed
isn't exactly optimal. Why am I torturing myself
with this strange layout? This keyboard mixes two strange elements, the split aspect of it, and the ortho linear layout of the keys. Most keyboards come in a staggered layout. This comes from those typewriter days where everything was aligned a certain way to prevent the bars from jamming. When computer keyboards were made, they just followed the same design since that's just what
everyone was used to. There's really no reason why a staggered layout's needed anymore. In theory, the perfectly
lined up keys are better for a more efficient and
streamlined typing experience. Or, so I've heard. A split keyboard basically
takes a normal keyboard and cuts it right down the middle. Why on earth would you do that? It allows your wrist to be straight and not bend in either direction. This helps prevent wrist pain. Another thing you can
do is tent your keyboard lifting it up from the middle. This lets you improve the
position of your forearms. You can also move the
two halves any distance from each other to get the
perfect width for your shoulders. Basically, split and ortho
means better ergonomics, in theory, but I'm gonna test it. The first few days of the
challenge were really tough. Even common letters, such as N-P-M and C were difficult to press. I knew this was gonna be tough. Making mistakes was detrimental as finding the backspace
key and moving back to the home row resulted
in my hands getting lost. Anytime a mistake was made, I had to look back at the
keyboard to reorient myself. I didn't realize how much brain power and concentration I
needed to do basic tasks, such as writing a simple sentence. As I developed muscle
memory of the new layout, things slowly started to improve. I was typing a little bit faster. I made less mistakes. Keys that were originally
hard, started to feel natural. Then something magical happened. After a grueling five days, I felt like my typing
speed was mostly back. With 25 days left in the challenge, this was going to be
easier than I thought. The breakthrough in typing
speed came with a realization. I accepted that I had
to relearn everything. So, I stopped thinking
I have to touch type or else I wouldn't know where anything is. And that thought completely
changed my progress. I started to commit the distance between keys to muscle
memory and something clicked. Despite being able to type quickly, there were still issues. I was still uncomfortable. I needed to be conscious
of where my fingers were and that led to tightness
in my fingers and my traps. I felt everything gets harder from being so tense with
focus and frustration. Doesn't that defeat the
purpose of using this layout in the first place where
it's supposed to fix all of these issues? But at this point, I
wasn't ready to give up. This is when I started doing
my own tweaks to the keyboard. The first thing I did
was swap out the key caps to see exactly what some of
these blank keys even did. But, I found out that
turning it into a monstrosity of different sets made it easier
to see what keys did what, although it was a bit unsightly. I also found that the
tenting kit that came with the keyboard was too aggressive and it added to my trap tightness. I ended up removing the tenting kit and adding in pencils instead
for a better typing angle. While it wasn't the most stable, it was a lot more comfortable. Having numbers was also really difficult, but that's when I found
out something cool. With the space between the
two halves of the keyboard, you could slide a number pad in the middle and the amount of
customization you could do to this keyboard turned
out to be pretty fun. You could even fit a
cup of coffee or a snack in between the two halves if you like. I'm not that weird, I promise. But that being said, I had to play around with where I positioned the two halves on my table to make it more comfortable. Too far apart and it was awkward and too close together, well, I might as well be typing
on a regular keyboard. I found that an ever so
slight angle with a little bit of spacing was perfect for me. After really getting
used to the split layout and the lined up keys, I was
concerned I wouldn't be able to switch back to a staggered
keyboard very easily. I've read many forums where
people didn't recommend you go all in on a new layout
unless you could switch to it full time. I found that if I needed
to work on a laptop or use my husband's keyboard,
I made a lot of mistakes. I was too used to the split layout and a normal keyboard
started to feel foreign. Switching back to a
regular keyboard resulted in a lot of typos and slower typing speed. It was a pain and I didn't
know how long it would last. Then I found this guy
on YouTube called DT. He's been using this
layout for a whole year. - It can actually switch
between the Ergodox and a standard keyboard pretty well. Now, that that was not the case initially. Initially that took an adjustment period. And is completely comfortable
switching back and forth. This gave me hope. I wonder how long it would
take me to get to that level. I learned that the brain can adapt quickly and after several
disheartening typing tests I slowly regained the ability
to type normally again, but it came with lasting effects. Believe it or not, my typing style is completely different now. I now type with more of my fingers as being stuck to the home
row on the split keyboard made me adopt a more
traditional way of typing. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. I just didn't start
this challenge expecting my typing style to change, forever. So, were there any
benefits to this challenge? I know I can say a cop-out
answer such as the journey is all that mattered, or blah, blah, blah, but you probably wanna know
if you should try it too. I did feel some
improvements in ergonomics. My wrists felt less pain and it was a nice change of pace from the usual aches from typing. That being said, it did
feel like I made a trade. Instead of my wrist hurting, I felt more tightness
in my traps and forearms from getting used to the new layout. I think spending all day
typing isn't healthy, regardless of how
ergonomic your layout is. And the best bet to reduce pain
is to take frequent breaks. There's just no getting around that. I think for me personally,
a keyboard that's more in the middle ground
between a normal layout and a ortho split layout would be ideal. I felt the split aspect
was the main game changer where the ortho layout didn't
make a huge difference. Just keep in mind, everyone's
bodies are built differently. So, you won't know what's for
you until you test it out. I also learned that the
brain adapts way faster than I thought it could. Nowadays it takes merely
minutes to switch back and forth between different layouts. Now, this is all QWERTY still. So, the challenge might not be big enough. Maybe next time I'll switch
the layout completely, like the Colemak, Dvorak, or Workman, but that's a story for different time. If you're interested in
trying out this keyboard, you can find the Sol 3 on
RGBKB, link down below.
