Some experience and thoughts about Sofle V1
Two months ago I built a Sofle V1(Zealios 67g, DSA caps) that is my daily driver, but I have to admit that I am not as happy as I think I could or should be…
The reasons are the following:
This is my first column staggered keyboard, I had a few split afore because I am starting to suffer from RSI. When I switched from the Quefrency keyboard to the Sofle keyboard, I got quite a bit of pain extending from my thumb to my neck, which surprised me quite a bit because I thought it would be more ergonomic. The pain lessened and typing also got better over time.
The reason for me to be keen on a Sofle was
- Rotary encoder
- OLED display
- More ergonomics as Quefrency.
Somehow I got a little disappointed or my hopes were dashed:
Rotary Encoder
In the end, I don’t find the rotary encoders as useful as I initially expected. I use one for scrolling (pgup/ pgdown), which is nice, but not essential. The volume control with the other encoder is nice, but not as advanced as the two buttons. So it’s a nice feature, my next keyboard won’t have more than one encoder though.
OLED
I found the OLED display helpful and necessary when working with multiple layers. The bottom line is that I only have one additional layer, and so the display is a bit overkill.
Ergonomics
I wouldn’t recommend using version 1, but version 2. The stagger could be a bit more for me, and I somehow don’t really know which fingers to use to operate the lower buttons. I think version 2 has a better solution for that.
Don’t get me wrong and I haven’t written anything positive about the sofle so far…
It’s a good keyboard and I definitely want to thank Josef for this great project, but I was hoping there was more potential for me - even though it’s my daily driver now.