Having a trackball on the keyboard itself, and not having to move my hands at all for anything… that was a dream. A dream that came with the cost of some wrist pain.

During the 2 months or so of using Keyball61, I’ve always felt something off about the ergonomics. I tried a lot of adjustments such as adding tenting (this magnetic stand is great if you are into it), but it never felt quite right. I thought I’d get used to it over time, but the pain never went away.

One thing I liked about the Keyball61, in terms of ergonomics, was the fact it was split. With traditional keyboards I experienced some shoulder discomfort when I typed for long sessions, but split keyboards seem to allieviate the issue.

First impressions

Before long, I decided to try out the Kinesis Advantage 360 Pro. This keyboard stood out among the rest for the following reasons:

1. Manufactured by Kinesis, a company that has been making ergonomic keyboards for a long time
2. Built-in ergonomic features - tenting, palm rests, and concave key wells
3. ZMK - despite of being a commercial keyboard, it uses open source firmware, making it very customizable

It arrived from Kinesis in a huge box. Nice packaging.

I immediately set it up, and tried some MonkeyType. Surprisingly, I was able to hit around 70 WPM on my first try (I was around 80 WPM on the Keyball61). The keywell and tenting felt just right.

Configuration

I’ve seen many comments online about how this keyboard is difficult to configure. After going through the whole process, though, it felt quite easy.

Just four easy steps:

1. Fork the repository KinesisCorporation/Adv360-Pro-ZMK
2. Connect it to nickcoutsos/keymap-editor
3. Make changes on the GUI, and download the firmware
4. Drag and drop the firmware file to the keyboard

My keymap

You can find my keymaps here: jywang99/Adv360-Pro-ZMK.

It’s basically just two layers, and the default layer has homerow mods.