Seems like a silly solution but I just use evtest to disable the keyboard. Did a tiny bash script to disable and re-enable the keyboard by just tracking the pid

I’ve got quite a few combos on my keymap while still typing in a standard way. More combos than keys haha https://keymapdb.com/keymaps/grassfedreeve/

26-key, column-staggered, wireless, reversable, split keyboard made with Ergogen and KiCad https://github.com/grassfedreeve/pueo/

Happy to answer as someone on the low key count side, simply put the benefit for me is comfort. Having a two key inner column reduces that awkward reach which is a pretty big improvement. I personally have pinkie pain so reducing pinkie keys completely down to just one key each lowers load and any reaches.

As noted you get rid of having dedicated keys as a side effect. By design those keys are low frequency or fit well with combos. Q and Z for example are super uncommon.

V is an almost a special case that works really well as a combo. V almost exclusively interacts with vowels, especially “e” and “i”. So with optimized layouts, it gets pushed to one of the worse positions on the consonant side. Usually top pinky or top inner.

The combo position is easier to reach and use over the pinkie or inner index. It is predictably preceded and followed by a vowel (or space), it is easy to keep a typing flow with the combo. (This V explanation is stolen and reworded from jcmkk3)

I’d say the same for / and quotes ring and middle move together and those combos are very comfortable compared to using your pinkies or at least my pinkies.

Ran out of battery today so central with trackball lasted almost 3 weeks. That’s work and personal use, I work from home so this keyboard does both.

Yup all MJF I love the look and feel. Yours looks great, I like how light this came out though. Yup ZMK with Nice Nano’s 3.5 has pointer support and a great community member just released a driver for the PMW3610

I’ve got VIA support setup on my Cheapino following this guide https://youtu.be/7d5yzBOup9U

Looks like he’s also got a guide for VIAL https://youtu.be/O8pdUPqPG3k