Why You Should Try a Split Keyboard

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you type a lot; for work, for code, for school, for that one side project that has way too many keybinds. And yet most of us are still using the same basic keyboard layout that was designed to be cheap to make and easy to ship, not comfortable for actual humans.

A standard keyboard pulls your hands inward, twists your wrists toward the center, and makes your shoulders round forward. It works. We’ve all used it for years, but it’s not exactly ergonomic. After a long day, your hands tell you. Your wrists tell you. Sometimes your neck really tells you.

That’s where split keyboards come in.

A split keyboard basically says: “hey, what if you decide where your hands go?” Instead of one big slab telling your body what to do, you get two halves you can place where your arms naturally want to rest. And if you’ve ever finished the day with tight shoulders or feeling that little stretch in your forearms, well, hold your feathers. This is where things get better.

What I want to do in this post is walk through why split keyboards are interesting, but in a way that isn’t just “ergonomic good, normal bad.” I’ll show you where the comfort comes from, why portability isn’t actually worse, and then, why we made our own version, the Kamo Corne, because we were tired of telling people “well, first you order PCBs …”

So… what exactly is a split keyboard?

Let’s start simple: a split keyboard is just a keyboard in two pieces. That’s it. You still type letters, you still get your modifiers, you can still spam Ctrl+S like a responsible adult. The big difference is: you decide the spacing, the angle, and the position.

This sounds tiny, but it’s huge, because your body isn’t symmetrical in the way a normal keyboard assumes. Our shoulders are wider than our wrists. Our arms don’t point straight ahead forever and they come in from the sides. When the keyboard is one fixed rectangle, you have to adapt to it. When the keyboard is split, the keyboard adapts to you.

So you spread the halves out a bit and suddenly your shoulders aren’t fighting.
You rotate them slightly outward and your wrists are straighter.
You raise one half a touch and your hand sits how it actually wants to.

Same typing, less fighting.

And the nice thing is: if you’re coming from the keyboard hobby, this will feel familiar. It’s the same spirit as going ortholinear, or trying Colemak, or building a macropad. We’re always trying to get a layout that fits us better. Split is just one of the most immediately noticeable upgrades.

The big win: neutral hand and wrist position

Let’s talk about the thing most people feel first.

On a regular board, your hands kind of “dive inward.” Your wrists bend toward the middle and your pinkies stretch a bit more than they want to. That inward bend has a name: ulnar deviation. It’s one of those postures the body will tolerate for a while but not love over time.

With a split board, you just move the halves apart. That’s it. You stop making your wrists bend in and instead let your forearms point straight forward. Straight wrist means happier tendons, less tension, less “why do my hands feel tired when I didn’t even game today?”

And unlike some ergonomic gear that forces you into one weird position, split is flexible. You can put the halves close together on a small desk, or wide apart when you’re in focus mode. You can angle them more on bad-pain days. It’s ergonomics you can tune.

That’s the whole point: the board shouldn’t lock you into one position, it should give you room to find your comfortable position.

Shoulders, neck, and the “laptop hunch” problem

Here’s the part people don’t expect: split keyboards help your upper body, not just your hands.

If you’re typing on a narrow keyboard (or worse, the built-in laptop keyboard) your arms have to rotate inward to reach the keys. That pulls your shoulders in and makes your upper back round. Do it for a few minutes? Fine. Do it for 6 hours a day, every day? Hello, shoulder tension.

With a split board, you separate the halves to match your shoulder width. Now your arms are more or less straight in front of you, not folding inward. Your chest opens up, your shoulders drop, and your neck doesn’t have to compensate.

This is especially noticeable if you:

• work at a desk all day,
• switch between laptop and external monitor,
• or you already have that “I should really stretch more” feeling.

Again: the keyboard starts fitting you. And once you’ve felt that open-shoulder posture, going back to a single fixed board feels  cramped.

Angles, tenting, and micro-adjustments

One of the sneaky superpowers of split boards is how many little adjustments you can make.

Some splits let you tent. That’s where the inner edges are slightly higher than the outer ones, like two little roofs. That angle reduces pressure on the inner side of the wrist and can make typing feel more natural, especially if you’re coming from a vertical mouse or you’ve had wrist issues.

Even if your board doesn’t tent, just being able to rotate each half a few degrees does a lot. You can have the left half more rotated than the right. You can pull the right half closer if your mouse hand roams. You basically get to say: “this hand does this task and this is where I want it.”

It’s the opposite of a mass-produced keyboard. It’s closer to how we think about custom boards in general: adjust until comfy.

“But aren’t two halves annoying to carry?” (actually, no)

This is the part I love telling people, because it sounds wrong at first. You’d think: one keyboard means easy to move; two keyboards equals more stuff. But in practice, small split boards, especially compact ones like the Kamo Corne, are more portable.

Two small flat pieces tuck into a backpack, laptop sleeve, or even a messenger bag way better than one big 75% keyboard with a tall case. And because the halves are independent, you can arrange them around other things in your bag.

So if you do hybrid work, coworking, cafés, or work from multiple setups: split isn’t a step backward. It’s actually the first time you can have a proper ergonomic-ish setup anywhere without hauling a giant board plus wrist rests.

Not just for deep hobbyists

I’ll say it out loud: the keyboard hobby is full of amazing, slightly unhinged tinkerers (we say that lovingly). Some people love building, soldering, flashing, compiling keymaps, and arguing about MCU choices. We’re in that world too.

But a split keyboard is not only for people who want to DIY everything.

It’s genuinely useful for:

• Developers and designers who type all day and don’t want their wrists to be the bottleneck
• Writers and students who spend hours in front of a text editor
• Gamers who like better hand positioning and more space for their mouse
• Makers who appreciate modular gear
• Normal people who just want their hands to stop complaining at 4 pm

If a keyboard is something you use every day, it’s one of the few upgrades that gives you value every single day. You feel it more than a new keycap set.

 

Okay, but why Kamo specifically? 

Now we get to the “why did you make a board if there are already a bunch of open-source ones?” part.

We love open-source keyboards. We come from that side of the community. But we saw the same thing over and over: people would hear about Corne, Lily58, Sofle, etc., get excited, and then fall off when they saw the build list.

“Wait, I have to order PCBs from here, diodes from there, switches somewhere else, an MCU, maybe a nice case, and then flash firmware? And I need a TRRS cable? And a nice tenting kit? And what firmware do I even pick?”

That stuff is fun for some of us. For a lot of people, it’s the reason they never actually try a split. So we made Kamo Keyboards to remove that barrier.

Plug-and-play, out of the box

This is the core promise:

We know how challenging it can be to build a custom keyboard from scratch. With a Kamo Keyboard, you get a fully plug-and-play split keyboard that’s ready to use out of the box. It’s affordable, upgradable, and designed to save you time, so you can focus on what really matters: your next big project.

You don’t have to solder. You don’t have to debug USB. You don’t have to wonder why one half isn’t waking up. You just plug it in and type.

That way, people can actually experience a split keyboard and not just read about it in a Discord channel.

The Kamo Corne: small, nice, practical

Our main board is the Kamo Corne, based on the classic Corne layout that so many people love: compact, ergonomic, efficient. We didn’t try to reinvent the whole thing. We just made it friendlier.

We added:

• Plug-and-play setup → works out of the box
• Add-ons and upgrades → you can grow with it
• Sharp looks → if it’s on your desk all day, it should look good
• Portable shape → toss it in a bag, use it across setups

Split keyboards don’t have to be ugly. Hold your feathers, we made sure of that.

Affordable, but not locked down

One thing we really didn’t want was “if you want something ergonomic, you must spend 400–500€.” That price range scares off the exact people who need better ergonomics.

So we made Kamo boards:

• Affordable → so you can actually try split
• Upgradable → so your board can evolve with you
• Time-saving → so you don’t burn a weekend building the tool you need to work

Basically: you get the DIY benefits without the DIY homework.

Giving back: 5€ to the ZMK and QMK projects

This part matters to us alot.

We wouldn’t have any of this without the open-source projects that power the scene. ZMK and QMK are the invisible heroes behind so many keyboards. Maintainers, contributors, docs writers who keep this whole world alive.

That’s why:

With each keyboard sold, we donate 5€ to the amazing people behind the ZMK and QMK open source projects.

So when someone buys a Kamo board, it’s not just “I got a nice keyboard.” It’s also “I helped the ecosystem stay healthy.”

And yes - we’re just people

Kamo Keyboards isn’t a faceless “device brand.” We’re three friends who like to tinker, build stuff, and make the kind of gear we wanted ourselves.

That means:

• if something breaks, you talk to an actual person
• if you have a weird layout idea, we think that’s fun, not annoying
• if the community needs a feature, we can move fast

You’re not buying from a big corp. You’re buying from people who actually use this stuff.

Ready to let your hands fly?

Here’s what I always tell people:

1. Get a split keyboard: ideally a Kamo Corne if you want to skip the build step.
2. Set the halves where your arms want to be: wider than you think.
3. Use it for a week: seriously, give your body time to adjust.

What you’ll probably notice:

• your wrists stay straighter
• your shoulders don’t creep up
• your desk setup suddenly looks intentional
• and going back to a regular board feels cramped

Your hands will thank you. Your shoulders will thank you.
And the open-source community will thank you, too.