bergtrol / hillside

Split ergonomic keyboard with 3x6+4+2 choc spaced keys, aggressive column stagger and a generous thumb arc.

Hillside Ergonomic Keyboard

Hillside is a split ergonomic keyboard with 3x6+4+2 choc-spaced keys. It has the aggressive stagger of the Ferris but a longer thumb arc and a break-off outer pinky column.

So rather like a choc Kyria, minus two keys. With 42 to 48 keys it isn't minimalist, but it is compact on finger travel while still allowing roomy keymaps.

Features:

• 3x6+4+2 choc-spaced keys, aggressive stagger, four key thumb arc, break-off pinky column
• Tenting puck and trackball mount points
• QMK and ZMK firmware
• Nice!nano battery power switch and decoupling capacitor
• Encoder support under the ring fingers
• Haptic feedback header
• Underglow from five SK6812-MINI-Es
• Reversible 99 x 137mm PCB, which qualifies for AllPCB's free PCB offer
• Detailed BOM and default keyboard rational.
• SMT diodes, resistors, capacitors, and reset switch

Hillside is only suitable for choc v1 switches and keycaps based on an 18 x 17mm switch spacing, such as the MBK keycaps. Not MX ones, nor 18 x 18mm ones such as Work Louder.

Hardware

See the wiki for how to order the PCB and build the board. KiCad 6 was used to create the board gerbers.

See Forking and Modifying on whether it would be difficult to modify this design, for those that are interested.

Firmware

QMK includes firmware for Hillside.

For ZMK, firmware access is at Hillside ZMK Firmware.

The default keymap is shared by both and is described in QMK.

Why

I wanted choc spacing but a key or so more than the Ferris and an outer pinky column. Instead of tweaking the 3x6 choc Corne I started a new PCB for more flexibility, though it grew to fill its footprint....

Moving around the switches of the Choc Corne did seem the easiest approach. But learning more than blind KiCad modification seemed a better idea, so I created a new PCB matching the Ferris column and thumb spacing.

I liked the bottom row keys of my Atreus, so I added two under the middle columns, where they seem unobtrusive. Then one shifted to the thumb arch, which seems more versatile. An upper thumb key seemed useful and combo-able without pushing the footprint. It has more keys than my initial idea, but that makes keymap evolution feel less tight.

It is like a Ferris Sweep on steroids, which wound up close to a Choc Kyria but requires board fabrication and SMT soldering. Naming ideas included FeistyCorne, LongFir and LongSweep, but Hillside seemed the most fun.

Acknowledgments

The awesome Low Profile Keyboards and splitkb.com discord communities provided a fertile learning ground for my keyboard explorations. Several of the symbol and footprint files came from that community, as noted in the doc folder. The keyboards I have used and read about also influenced this board including the Atreus, Lily58, Kyria, Corne and Ferris.

Images

To test if the key layout suits your fingers, print these in landscape mode.