Switching to Miryoku

I used the Miryoku layout for just over a month, and I’m impressed!

Back in 2021, I started my ergonomic keyboard journey with a ZSA Moonlander. I had done a lot of research on keyboards and found this one to be the best for portability and ergonomics (I was working hybrid at the time). I would recommend this keyboard to anyone, and frankly, any keyboard from ZSA for that matter. At that same time I switched my keyboard layout from QWERTY to Colemak-DH. After a couple of years with the Moonlander, I 3D printed and hand-wired a 5x6 Dactyl Manuform, which has been my daily driver keyboard for the last couple of years. It addresses all the ergonomic needs I felt were missing from the Moonlander, mainly the wells for your fingers to rest in. That slight decrease in finger movement really makes a difference in long typing sessions.

During my research, I had heard of Miryoku before and thought it was a bit extreme. As a Vim user (Neovim btw), I thought there was no way I could be productive on anything less than 60%. I had hand-wired a Void40 and couldn’t stand that it lacked a number row. Fast forward to now, I wanted to try something drastically different. I stumbled upon Scotto’s YouTube channel and discovered his Scotto Ergo keyboard, which made me want to 3D print one and start using it. However, learning from the Void40 (which I never use), I decided instead to retrofit my Moonlander into a 36-key layout and start using it. So.

Why Use Miryoku?

As a Software Engineer, I type a lot! Because of this, I have been very conscious of the keyboards I use and how my hands feel after long coding sessions. I want to remain as healthy as possible and avoid getting RSI or Carpal Tunnel. Split keyboards have been my go-to because they allow my shoulders to be pulled back and my arms to be in a comfortable position, and columnar has been another allowing my fingers to move up and down in order to hit keys.

The main ergonomic benefits with Miryoku comes from shorter finger travel distance, seeing that you only have 36 keys. So, let’s explore the Miryoku layout.

Miryoku

Miryoku is an ergonomic keyboard layout designed for 36-key keyboards. The layout uses layers to handle all the keys found on a standard keyboard.

One of the major design decisions behind the layout is to prevent your fingers from moving more than a 1u distance with any given finger. I think the worst movement is from t to b (for QWERTY, it is f to t or j to y), which might be closer to a 1.25u movement.

Miryoku is symmetric for press and hold actions on the home row. arst and neio are all mapped to the same press-and-hold keys. a and o are mapped to Super, r and i to Alt, s and e to Ctrl, and t and n to Shift.

One of the final pieces of Miryoku’s design is to keep your fingers on the home row as much as possible. Having three thumb buttons allows all the strain of toggling layers to be moved to the thumbs, keeping your fingers on the home row as often as possible.

Overall Thoughts

After a full month of using Miryoku, I love it! I was skeptical that, as a Vim user, I would enjoy it, but I got used to it quickly and found myself enjoying not having to move my fingers very far to hit all the keys I needed.

I ended up running a few tweaks on the layout, though. I use Linux for home use and Windows at work. That pesky \ is a bit of a headache to remember where it’s located on in the layers, so I added a double-tap to the / key, so a quick double press sends \.

Having press and hold action buttons symmetrical on each half of the keyboard was eye-opening for me and something I plan to bring back into my QMK configuration for my Dactyl and even my ZSA Moonlander (when I finally get around to adding all the switches back).

I will say that the hardest part about using Miryoku is remembering where each of the symbols is. After you get your workflow going and know where your common symbols are I got really quick at typing.

So needless to say, I have now 3d printed a Scotto Ergo shell, and have plans to handwire the board in the coming weeks. Stand by for an update on that.

If you would like to see my keyboard configurations, here is my GitHub repo where I store my QMK configurations, and here is the link to Oryx for my Miryoku layout on the Moonlander.