The Dactyl was partly modeled after the Kinesis. It has the key wells and a curved thumb cluster. Still, the thumb cluster isn't perfect and its hard for most people to reach all of the keys.
However, the Dactyl Manuform keeps the amazing key wells and has a completely redesigned thumb cluster.
Its also designed to be easily customizable. There are versions with 2,3,4,5 and 6 keys per thumb cluster. Unlike the original Dactyl, the Ergodox, and the Kinesis, I have no problems at all using all 6 keys per thumb cluster on the Dactyl Manuform. IMO its the best split keyboard unless you want to go for something smaller and use layers to gain access to more keys.
Unfortunately if you can't 3d print the case yourself and hand-wire it, its pretty expensive to acquire one. I just built mine recently and it almost instantly replaced my Ergodox-EZ as my favorite keyboard.
I ended up going with the Logitech ergonomic keyboard. It’s honestly not that different than a regular keyboard but it does the job.
Thanks for letting me know about dactyl though! For some reason that one flew under my radar. I guess I kinda gave up spending time looking for a perfect solution after I decided the Kinesis wasn’t working for me, but it looks like something that might work for me.
I realized I might have worded the above in a confusing way. You may have already understood in spite of that just in case there are 2 primary families of Dactyl keyboards, the Dactyl, and the Dactyl Manuform. The Manuform version has the better thumb cluster IMO.
The Dactyl is a beautiful piece of design and engineering, I've been thinking about getting one. What variation of Dactyl Manuform are you using, i.e. 4x6, 5x6?
I'm using the 5x6 layout. For me it seems like the fewest amount of keys (64) I can drop to without having to use layers. I pretty much only use layers for the function keys.
I just ordered a 5x6. I came to a similar conclusion. The 4x6 looks really cool, but I felt I was already pushing it in terms of the amount of change I was talking on, i.e. going from rectangle to a split, going from 75% layout to ~60%, etc. I may try out a smaller model if I really love the Dactyl and want to experiment more with layers.
The Dactyl was partly modeled after the Kinesis. It has the key wells and a curved thumb cluster. Still, the thumb cluster isn't perfect and its hard for most people to reach all of the keys.
However, the Dactyl Manuform keeps the amazing key wells and has a completely redesigned thumb cluster.
Its also designed to be easily customizable. There are versions with 2,3,4,5 and 6 keys per thumb cluster. Unlike the original Dactyl, the Ergodox, and the Kinesis, I have no problems at all using all 6 keys per thumb cluster on the Dactyl Manuform. IMO its the best split keyboard unless you want to go for something smaller and use layers to gain access to more keys.
Unfortunately if you can't 3d print the case yourself and hand-wire it, its pretty expensive to acquire one. I just built mine recently and it almost instantly replaced my Ergodox-EZ as my favorite keyboard.