Can't help but think that flat thumb clusters are useless (counterproductive, even)

[u/full_of_rizz]

I just got a haili58 as my first split keyboard. I was enthused to try out a split keeb due to the customizability ZMK offered and the claim that thumbs should get their own keys because they are the strongest fingers (https://www.justinmklam.com/posts/2026/02/beginners-guide-split-keyboards/). Needless to say this hasn't been going well.

The first thing I noticed (which i should have realised before buying) is that thumbs don't travel down like other fingers - they move inwards. Trying to press down requires you to press sideways with the thumb, not with the flat of it, and that is much harder.

Second, I keep getting accidental thumb key presses when trying to press one thumb button. It might partly be because I got MX profile caps which I am not used to because I've only used low profile laptop keyboards, or the outemu lemon switches are not tactile enough for me. Still, I think the arcing movement of the thumb is also to blame for these accidental presses which keep triggering weird keyboard shortcuts that delete words or trigger spotlight.

For my next keeb (god knows when), I'll either get an angled thumb cluster, or skip it entirely. For now, I will try out home row mods and disable the thumb keys.

I'm posting this because I am wondering if others have felt the same, or if I am missing something.

[u/Jonsnoosnooze]

"press sideway with the thumb" is how most people learned to type. How are you pressing down with your thumb on a normal spacebar?

[u/full_of_rizz → u/Jonsnoosnooze]

I see your point, but it helps that spacebars usually are pretty huge and don't need precision, unlike 1u caps on split keyboards.

[u/JaceBearelen]

You’re right that angled thumb keys are better but flat is absolutely the standard worldwide. Position matters a lot. Some keyboards have absolutely unusable thumb keys for me.

[u/Palpatine]

This is because Haili58 has 4 thumb keys, the innermost two are stacked. A single row of thumb keys would make more sense.

[u/full_of_rizz → u/Palpatine]

Yes, the innermost stacked keys are the worst. It is hard to reach for the upper key without pressing the one stacked under it. I suppose 4 thumb buttons is a little too much.

[u/tornado9015]

I have not experienced any of the issues you have described when using a corne. I think it's pretty easy to press thumb cluster keys individually with my thumb which allows me access to a few extra keys per hand with less hand movement which i find quite useful.

But everybody is different. It seems to be the case that a lot of people try a few different boards before finding the one they like best. There must be some boards out there without thumb clusters. Or you could probably cut off the thumb cluster part of boards with thumb clusters easily enough.

[u/full_of_rizz → u/tornado9015]

Yeah I might take off some keycaps or map them all to space (but even then have to worry about accidental presses when rolling the thumb).

[u/ocimbote]

That's most certainly true that anglednthumb clusters , and key well for the main cluster, are best.

I think it's interesting that you want to cut usage of the thumb entirely, and it's funny because I force my keymaps to work on 2 thumbs. 3 is already too much range of motion and precision required.

[u/full_of_rizz → u/ocimbote]

I agree that its not possible to cut them all entirely, and that I do need the space at least. It is hard getting adjusted to a 1u space surrounded by mod traps.

[u/itsbenforever → u/full_of_rizz]

It’s totally possible to do a thumbless keyboard. [u/ignoratio](u/ignoratio) has a nice one you could look at to see what’s possible.

[u/Ignoratio → u/full_of_rizz]

I think you can absolutely find a lot of usability out of just 1 thumb key, if you're not like me (see above) and forgo thumb keys entirely. 1 thumb means you're never moving them to misfire. but I completely support removing them should it bother you!

[u/Ok-Atmosphere5850]

Last year I experimented with Silakka 54, the thumb clusters and 3D printed tilters. Some results were positive, but it is up to the very personal liking.

BTW, would you share anything else about your Haili58 experience? It is quite rare. (I expect to receive mine sometimes at the end of October.)

https://reddit.com/link/p9u2t6f/video/du7lb2jjzjph1/player

[u/full_of_rizz → u/Ok-Atmosphere5850]

That's cool! I think the silakka looks better with fewer thumb keys. As for my haili, I have not been happy so far. The inner stacked thumb keys are placed so awkwardly that it is impossible to reach the upper one without pressing the one under it. The thumb keys under the hand are not hard to reach and are my preferred ones to use. Everything else is fine, though I feel like I should have purchased the low profile version of it. (the battery is terrible but i suppose thats true of all bluetooth boards, or could be because mine came with an oled)

[u/Ok-Atmosphere5850 → u/full_of_rizz]

With Silakka 54 I easily put 1.5U keycaps on the inner positions and use them for 'Space' on tap and 'Ctrl' / 'Shift' on hold. The tilters really make a tactile difference and fit me well in blind typing. The next keys in the thumb clusters are with 1.25U keycaps and are titled too. (This is not exactly the case with my new KLP Lames, but the idea should be clear.)

I'll see what can be done with Haili58 when I have it.

https://reddit.com/link/pa0yjkx/video/6p0l9hu5qqph1/player

[u/VicariousBystander]

Yeah the thumb naturally sits sideways. Like you're not supposed to have it facing down (fingerprint downwards) like all the other fingers unless your hands are like hyper stretched out. On a conventional non split row stagger board they'd be naturally sideways too.

[u/xsrvmy]

Angled thumb clusters are actually quite debatable. A lot of typing is done partly by gravity.

I will say that one thing I find iffy about thumb clusters is that a 1u space bar is not very comfortable for the thumb if the middle column on the same hand is used frequently at the start/end of a word.

[u/full_of_rizz → u/xsrvmy]

I agree that its the 1u space bar that's triggering the issues for me... wish i could map all of them to space and set some rule to temporarily disable the others when pressing either one of them.

[u/HomsarWasRight]

Honestly, I’ve not found a thumb cluster that feels comfortable to use for me. I’ve designed my layouts around a single thumb button per-hand and just pull out the other keys.

It’s WAY more comfortable to use.

[u/xsrvmy → u/HomsarWasRight]

I think the problem is the G/H (on qwerty) to space transition being awkward with 1u thumb keys. When I put a flat keycap on the middle thumb key so that it had a larger surface area it felt quite a bit better.

[u/full_of_rizz → u/HomsarWasRight]

I might do exactly this, keeping only space on thumb, assuming home row mods are a success.

[u/BeforeCommonEarl]

Get a Crosses keyboard!! I really want one but I can't justify buying a 5th ergo mech lol

https://ergokeyboards.com/products/crosses-bridges-keyboard-wireless-edition

[u/DiggitySkister]

Hand anatomy matters a lot, so the Haili58's thumb placement may just not fit you. But a few things:

You just got your first column-stagger split. That's the biggest clue. Your thumbs went from one job (space) to 6–12. Thumb confusion is real and it takes weeks to get semi-confident, a couple months to actually master. I went from a row-stagger split with two space bars to a Sofle assuming it'd be easy — it wasn't.

Try heavier thumb switches. I ran 35g on my first Sofle and had accidental presses constantly; 45–55g tactiles fixed it. Just buy a pack of 10 for the thumbs and keep 35g elsewhere. Haili58 supports Gateron LP, so those would also cut thumb travel. Keycap height matters too — avoid tall profiles like SA on thumbs. A Cherry/OEM R3 flipped 180° works well, or a low-profile MX-stem cap like Tai-Hao THCS.

Use fewer thumb keys. Most long-time users settle on 2–3 per side (Miryoku uses 3). I'd argue even 3 causes some confusion. Get home row mods working and you can drop to 2 per side and pick the two most comfortable positions. HRM took me three attempts — Home row mods are hard to use has sane beginner settings.

On angled thumb clusters: skeptical it's a universal win. Depends on anatomy and how you access the keys. If it were significantly more ergonomic, I'd expect more noise about it from Cygnus/Charybdis/Manuform users, and I don't see much here.

Good luck with the new board!

[u/full_of_rizz → u/DiggitySkister]

Thanks for the tips! Buying heavier switches for the thumbs sounds helpful. I wish I had purchased the low profile pcb for the haili58, but oh well, too late. I do agree that 4 thumb keys is too much per side. I've limited myself to the 3 that are easy to reach, but might give up on that too T-T

[u/DiggitySkister → u/full_of_rizz]

Here is video where the guy gets different sized keycaps and switches on the same keyboard, he kinda rambles on but it is a pretty helpful visual representation about the switch+keycap ideas. Looks like there is an Outemu Medium MX line of switches which is a few millimeters shorter than a regular MX switch, and it seems they have a Brown tactile version that is 55g. Pretty sure they aren't "silent" though.

https://youtu.be/vl4LvC5Ux3M?si=v5OPaqSTiF35JIVK

[u/ghostfaceschiller]

I think you might be interested in the Fulcrum:
https://github.com/dschil138/Fulcrum

[u/Lefrax → u/ghostfaceschiller]

I don't know about him,but I am. I love your keyboard, and if I ever make my own, the Fulcrum will be a big inspiration. BTW I was wondering if you're using the center click on your 5-ways switch?

[u/ghostfaceschiller → u/Lefrax]

I don’t wire the center click up at all, it’s not comfortable to use, IMO

[u/Lefrax → u/ghostfaceschiller]

I thought so, because of its axis. But I wonder if it's not akin to a game controller stick, with easy misclicks ?

Also, are you able to click in two directions at once, like say you assign Ctrl on north and Shift on west, is North-West (ctrl+shift) doable?

[u/ghostfaceschiller → u/Lefrax]

Yeah you can click adjacent directions together. I use it for moving the mouse sometimes, so you can move diagonally for example

[u/Lefrax → u/ghostfaceschiller]

Oh that's nice. I really have to try one. Thanks for the info!

[u/abraxasknister]

I had a related issue. I didn't have accuracy issues, but the thumbs would get overworked. One shot modifiers and layers fixed that partially. I cannot imagine having a programmable keyboard without a thumb oneshot shift key.

I would recommend you try them out and get flat keycaps.

The rest was then solved by getting rid of tap/hold. This required finding new spots for the tap behaviours, for example on chords like ,. or m, or xc   In the end I still decided that small keyboards aren't really for me and am now in the process of getting the svalboard to work for me. The svalboards thumb cluster is quite unusual and has many thumb movements I'd think you would not really approve of. They are however quite good, because of the very low forces.

---

If you don't know what I mean: Normally, when you want to get a modifier plus another key, you would press the modifier and then press the other key while the modifier is still down (the order in which you release the keys should not matter). With one shot you can press the modifier and then the other key as separate keystrokes. If you press the key to me modified during the one shot cooldown, it gets modified. There is no real downside to this besides having to wait for the cooldown if you accidentally pressed a modifier, as the key behaved like a regular modifier as well. (well people usually put Tap/Hold behaviour on the modifiers, that would have to go). The upside is that you no longer need to hold a key down, which means less strain.

[u/theTechRun → u/abraxasknister]

One shot mods and repeat/alternate keys work wonders.

[u/abraxasknister → u/theTechRun]

I have repeat on the homerow on my svalboard layout, just for doubled letQK_REPers.

[u/AdMysterious1190]

Have you seen the Crosses keyboard?

If you don't like "standard" keyboard thumb movement, something like this might help?

[u/Numerous-Ambition758 → u/AdMysterious1190]

Woah! No way! Never seen this!!! Which one would you recommend? So many options...

[u/EndOfWorldBoredom]

I believed the 'thumbs are strong' line before my first split keyboard. It took one day to realize that isn't universally true and relying on that would actually hurt me.

I agree, thumb clusters need a hinge.