Modder Builds Split Keyboard With Built-in Joysticks and One-Handed Gaming Performance

The Tiwaz is an open-source break up keyboard product that began as a DIY venture and morphed into one thing a bit of extra concrete and complete. Unlike conventional break up ergonomic keyboards, just like the MoErgo Go60 and ZSA Voyager, which usually eschew any ideas of gaming prowess in favor of ergonomics, the Tiwaz was designed with gaming in thoughts. Specifically, its designer, Timo Strube, explains within the venture’s GitHub that “each half works standalone as a one-handed controller or macro pad,” permitting it for use by left-and right-handed customers. The keyboard makes use of hot-swap sockets appropriate with commonplace MX-style mechanical switches, giving it a wider diploma of customization.

The Tiwaz makes use of a break up ortholinear format, which means the keys are organized in straight rows and columns, as an alternative of the offsets current in each columnar stagger and row stagger layouts. Another attention-grabbing function within the Tiwaz is that it options two thumb joysticks—one on the inside facet of the keyboard itself. These will be configured to output cardinal instructions, analog instructions like a gamepad, and even mouse actions. The precise format of the keyboard can also be reasonably unorthodox, even for a break up keyboard, with a complete of 76 keys (38 per facet), which is already quite a bit for a break up keyboard, which often hover round 50-60 keys at most. It additionally has a gasket-mounted case design, which additionally runs counter to many break up ergonomic keyboards that forego options like gasket mounts in the hunt for thinner instances for ergonomics functions.

It makes use of open-source QMK firmware and is appropriate with Vial, the browser-based configuration instrument. Project information are presently accessible on GitHub, permitting DIY fans to construct the keyboard themselves with little greater than a 3D printer, a PCB ordered via a service like PCBWay, and a soldering iron. The venture additionally goals to launch as a complete kit on Crowd Supply within the close to future.

Tiwaz technical specs:

• Split ergonomic keyboard design
• Each half usable independently as a one-handed controller or macro pad
• Gasket-mounted plate
• Internal damping between plate, PCB, and enclosure
• Hot-swappable MX-compatible switches
• Per-key RGB lighting
• QMK firmware help (together with VIAL)
• STM32F401 microcontroller
• WS2812 RGB LED for each swap and auxiliary button
• Ideal-diode safety towards unintentional dual-USB connection
• Self-resetting energy fuse
• ESD safety on USB information strains
• USB Type-C connectors