I find it really odd that the OP is staring down the barrel of an RSI that's going to inexorably lock them (presumably) out of their career and passion, but the learning curve for a proper ergonomic keyboard seemed to high. I was up to an acceptable 40WPM on the Ergodox a week after switching, and his complaints about "the Cherry MX" switches fall a little flat since there's about a dozen different kinds, all with different noise and tactile characteristics.
I just can't fathom all that unused space on my desk (two halves of two keyboards, going totally unused!) when the investment in some natural-feeling typing infrastructure was relatively small given how much pain I've avoided, and will continue to avoid.
There's absolutely zero clinical/valid evidence that Cherry MX switches do a shred of anything for RSI.
It's all hype. There's nothing medical behind any of it.
I find the extra key travel of those switches fatigues my fingers/arms far more and makes me feel far more like I'm going to have RSI.
I did have full blown RSI, and ditching mechanical keyboards was a key part of getting past it. Now that's just my anecdote, there's no evidence the mechanical switches are actually worse. But there's no evidence they're better either.
No one knows whether it's hard rebound or key travel or anything that actually causes the issues. And different RSIs are totally different. It's possible Mechanical switches could be better for carpal tunnel but worse for tendinitis or vise versa. But it doesn't seem like it has been studied.
My experience with medical treatment was doctors and PTs don't even know what the different types of keyboard switches are at all. They know about desk positioning and ergonomic shaped keyboards but switch type was not something that they had any advice on.
This subthread highlights one of the things that seems true about RSI: what works for you may not work for me.
I find that having longer key travel works better for me - typing on laptop boards or those shallow Mac keyboards tears up my forearms. I use Cherry switches without the tactile bump and they work great for me.
One benefit with mechanical keys though is that there's a massive variety of types, so you can easily find something that works for you. You can get short-travel (i.e. Kailh speed series), soft bottom-outs via something like the Boba series or by using o-rings, high resistance or low resistance with varying spring weights, tactile vs clicky vs linear for feedback.
With a membrane keyboard you have zero choice beyond moving from one brand/model of keyboard to another, but with a hot-swappable keyboard you can try multiple switches until you find one that suits you and doesn't aggravate any existing RSI or trigger new forms of RSI.
I second (or third now) that travel on typical mechanical switches is anecdotally sub-optimal for my RSI. Membrane dome switches with a lot of travel are worse, but membrane dome switches with almost no travel seem to be better.
Ironically the worse keyboard I've used for it also happened to be an "ergonomic" keyboard (from the 90s, or maybe early 2000s) with keys tilted outwards. I think partially because of the positioning, and partially because it had membrane switches with a lot of travel.
Try a short-travel or low profile mech switch. I believe both Cherry and Kailh have a Speed series with a short activation distance. The Kailh Choc line of low-profile switches has something like a 1-2mm travel which might work too.
> I find the extra key travel of those switches fatigues my fingers/arms far more and makes me feel far more like I'm going to have RSI.
I just can't bear the thought of using mechanical keyboard where I have to lift my fingers too much to be able to move them and press another key. For me, the less I need to move my fingers up/down, and the less pressure I have to apply, the better - as in, hurts way less
I think that's the main benefit of a mechanical keyboard with hotswap sockets -- you can change out the switches for something better (for you).
There are switches with lighter springs, so you can apply less pressure. And if you forgo the MX style mechanical keys you can get a keyboard with low profile "choc" switches, which have less travel.
My injury was multi-factor. It started with a cycling injury. Medication taken from the cycling injury was partially a cause of the RSI coming on. It was also just a really stressful time with a lot of work.
But I had been in the field for ~15 years with no significant RSI, and those injuries and RSI weren't too long after I had switched to mechanical keyboards. I struggled for a few years. There's so much momentum behind mechanical switches it was really hard for me to convince myself they could be the problem, but I never got rid of it till I stopped using them.
I do think key travel is part of it. Playing piano is/was 10x worse than computer keyboards, even though nice piano actions have a softer "bounce" than any computer keyboard. The piano keyboard has huge travel. Meanwhile playing guitar the fretboard has absolutely zero give or cushioning, but the finger travel is extremely small, and it's never given me an issue. (I gave up piano to reduce chances of having an RSI again.)
There's no real proof/study of travel vs bounce anyway with respect to fatigue and injury.
The key to Cherry and similar mech switches is that they activate well before they bottom out. With a bit of practice you can type by just lightly floating your fingertips across the keys, seldom getting the impact of hitting the bottom. There's not much travel that way.
My problem was finger joint pain, which was getting bad enough to affect my productivity. This completely fixed it for me. I just had to put up with a few weeks of inaccurate typing while I learned. Sometimes I get complacent and type too much directly on my laptop, and the pain starts coming back, but the mech fixes it every time.
I'm not sure if I'd consider it all hype, at least not when talking about the force required to press down a key. When using regular 55g switches (brown, red, or something else), my fingers get tired rather quickly. But when using 35g red switches, I can go all day without any problems (finger wise at least). I've tried lighter (20g), but I ended up accidentally pressing keys too often.
I will say this: clicky switches serve no practical purpose. The same goes for tactile switches, _especially_ when using light springs as you'll bottom out most of the time. Whether you buy Cherry switches, Kailh or something else doesn't really matter either ergonomics wise.
I had the same experience with ultra-light switches, I couldn't use anything heavier than reds. Then I tried very smooth lubed linears (Alpaca v2, which are 62g), and they were totally fine.
I am not sure if they helped ergonomically but I found I was accidentally pressing keys far less.
I've got a pair of Ergodox Infinity keyboards with good mechanical keys (not clicky) and SA keycaps because I got tired of carrying one back and forth to the office. My RSI is gone and so I feel that the $800 investment is nothing when looking at the ROI of continued use of my hands.
I'm very happy with Cherry MX Brown switches - a good tactile feel with very little noise!
This is a vast underestimation. There are now hundreds of Cherry MX compatible clones, many of which are considered better than Cherry's original designs.
For example, I'm typing on a switch called the Gazzew Boba U4T, which is much more tactile and sharper than anything Cherry has ever made.
It took me 16 hours of targeted practice on monkeytype and keybr.io to reach ~50 wpm on my first split keyboard, including a new keyboard layout. The second time I changed layout it was even faster.
There is some effort here, but in the context of an entire programming career it barely even registers.
I've been using a Moonlander exclusively on my desktop since November 2020 while having no trouble continuing to use a Macbook Air or my old Acer laptop.
The differently placed modifier keys on the laptops screw me up infinitely more than going from an ortholinear split to a laptop and back.
I can second this - my main driver is a Dactyl-Manuform (ortholinear), and I have zero problems on any of the other four non-ortho keyboards that I use.
I also use Dvorak as my main layout and have no problems when going back to a QWERTY one.
I've also been using a Moonlander since late 2020 and going back to a laptop has been fine. The fact that on my two Lenovo laptops, the Ctrl and Fn keys are not in the same order (whoever thought this was a good idea?) is anecdotally also a much more frequent cause of issues.
With a programable mechanical kb you should be able to match the Mac layout. There are a few split versions that should have sufficient keys, especially if you're not using a ten-key frequently.
In my experience, you learn how to use a regular keyboard. Then you learn to use an ergonomic keyboard. Then you finally also need to learn how to switch back and forth.
Three separate skill sets. But all very learnable.
This resonates with me. I purchased a Moonlander around a month ago. I'm finally starting to reach the typing speed I had on a regular keyboard, but I haven't learned how to switch back to a normal keyboard yet.
That said, I don't really want to use normal keyboards anymore. This feels like how computer keyboards should've been designed from the start.
I've used an ortholinear keyboard as my main keyboard for the last four years (Keyboardio Model 01 and occasionally Atreus as my travel/backup). Using a regular layout keyboard slows me down for a bit, but that often has more to do with the placement of modifier keys, Enter, Backspace, and so on rather than the ortholinear vs skewed layout. Still, I can readjust after an hour or so. Oddly, I find that I have almost no readjustment period when I use the keyboard on a laptop. The catch might be that I've never felt comfortable typing on a laptop keyboard, even before I started using ortholinear layouts. I see people sitting at cafes working on their laptops for hours and I just could never do that and don't really understand how other people can do it without destroying their wrists and necks.
I just can't fathom all that unused space on my desk (two halves of two keyboards, going totally unused!) when the investment in some natural-feeling typing infrastructure was relatively small given how much pain I've avoided, and will continue to avoid.
Edit: clearer word order