This Split Keyboard Drove Me Mad… Ergodox 76 Hot Dox V2 Review

I have spent no less than a week trying to get used to this stupid keyboard, and honestly I’m no closer to being able to quickly type on this thing than I was at day 1, meaning all of my impressions and views on this thing are filtered through a layer of anger and frustration – so be warned. With that said, this incredibly unique board is still really cool so let’s take a look at this thing.

This is the Ergodox 76 “Hot Dox” V2. It’s a split keyboard, which yes means half the keyboard is in one piece and half the keyboard is in the other. Those two halves are connected via a USB C to C cable, and then you can use either of the other USB C ports to connect to your PC. In theory you can just connect each half to your PC separately, although that might be a bit overkill. Each half is made up of a clear acrylic shell which looks really nice, especially with the RGB LEDs – some of which are actually downward facing to create a proper underglow effect. They’ve also got a display in each half, with the left display telling you what layer you are in, and the right telling you what your most recent inputs were. 

Since we’re doing a bit of a physical tour, the switches themselves are Kailh’s speed copper variety on my board, although you can opt for Kailh’s Rose Red switches instead if you’d prefer. These are tactile switches which feel pretty nice, perhaps on the lighter side compared to what I’m used to, but feel nice enough nonetheless. They are topped with DSA profile dye sublimation keycaps that feel really nice, and give the board quite a nice sound profile too – have a listen.

That is with the stick on rubber feet in place, damping the sound a little. Although that brings me nicely onto one of my first gripes about this board – or should I say these boards? Eh, singular is fine. You can’t tilt this board up. For me, having an elevated keyboard is a must for comfort – a problem considering this is meant to be an “ergonomic” board. Sure, you can angle each half independently which does give a little bit of wrist support, but without a wrist rest and a bit of tilt, this isn’t super comfortable for me. Moreso though, the flat design means I can’t see the damn display at the top of the left board, which is a necessity when the layer switch key is right where my muscle memory says the Y key should be, and then you end up wreaking havoc in the “code” layer unintentionally. If it were lifted I could at least see the display telling me I’m in layer two! I did end up remapping the layer switch button away from that key anyway, although it seems a shame to use of the larger keys for Y, but there you go. 

That definitely didn’t help the learning curve’s immense steepness, but by far the worst thing was that the majority of the damn keys aren’t even labelled – and a lot of them don’t even show up in the screen on the top right side! The only “manual” included with the board is a QR code to a two page PDF which mostly just says “use VIA to customise it”. No layout guides, nothing. And when you do get into VIA, a lot of these mapped options are unintelligible. What does “A(KC_TAB)” do? Well it turns out that’s ALT + TAB in QMK language, but to have to look that up instead of like every other custom board like this and have a pre-labelled keyboard layout SOMEWHERE would have been real nice. Honestly, between that, the layer button, the lack of keycap markings, and the fact that my muscle memory for where the backspace and space keys are being really really ingrained in my brain made the learning curve an absolute cliff for this thing. I can’t describe how frustrating it is to try and re-learn a new keyboard layout like this, especially effectively on hard mode. 

I think I personally have a few gripes for the layout itself – if I were the one designing this I’d have the space bar horizontal rather than vertical, and I sure would like some home key markers on the key caps – you know how J and F normally have a little bump on them so you can feel your way around the board? Well these caps don’t have any, which means I frequently found myself a column over – especially when reaching for one of the extra thumb buttons. Those generally felt too far for my hands without having to move – but then I found it difficult to reset back to where I was. 

If I’m honest though, I really like a full size keyboard. Lots of programs actually distinguish between the standard enter key and the numpad enter key – like Photoshop when doing text input. To not have that enter key – or at least to have it buried in a second layer I can’t remember – is pretty annoying, and so this kind of mega-compromised design just doesn’t do it for me. All this is to say that I really can’t be trusted to give you an objective verdict on this board. I think it’s clear that I don’t like it – and the $225 price tag doesn’t help considering the multitude of considerably more feature rich alternatives cost considerably less (I’m looking at you nuphy Air60 HE) – but I’m sure there’s a keyboard nerd out there who’d absolutely love this thing, so I’ll keep it simple. Most of my complaints are around the learning curve, which if you can get over, you end up with a really nice quality, great typing feel, and unique board. It isn’t the most feature rich – there’s no hall effect switches or high polling rates – and to me it isn’t as ergonomic as it claims – but it is quality and certainly unique. If that appeals to you, who am I to say otherwise?