Been using a ZSA Voyager as a travel keyboard for work and very satisfied with it. Used a Sofle V2 prior to that but I was concerned about how well it was (or rather wasn’t) holding up to the rigors of travel so I replaced it with something designed for travel and a little more robustly constructed.

I use a Workman layout and a few years ago switched to using homerow mods so I found the modifier keys on the Sofle to be redundant so I decided to downscale to something a little more compact. Because my usage is for work the number keys get used heavily so I wasn’t willing to give those up by going to something like a Corne. On the flip side I wouldn’t use the Voyager for gaming due to those same missing modifier keys since keys like shift and ctrl are used in a non-modifier pattern when gaming.

This is the only place I’m aware of, but I’ve hardly done a thorough search. There are some fediverse/lemmy community search tools out there you could probably hit up. One thing that’s most likely true is that there’s no official QMK community on Lemmy.

So, the answer is it’s complicated. I have two very distinct use cases, one is gaming, and the other is work.

For gaming I pretty much need something like a traditional keyboard. I could do a split ergo, but easy access to number keys as well as shift and control without having to remove fingers from the WASD cluster is a must, so anything that moves numbers into a different layer, or that puts shift and control in a weird place is a no go. Because of this I’m currently using a 65% non-split keyboard, although I’m considering other options as well.

For work on the other hand the situation is very different. I started with a fairly tame choice by going with a Lily58. I didn’t really like the placement of the keys on the Lily58 due to my hand size so I replaced it with a Sofle which is nearly the same but slightly different positioning. While using the Sofle I discovered homerow mods which I really like which led me to stop using the modifier keys on the Sofle. Recently I’ve had to do a lot more traveling for work and that’s been rough on the Sofle, so I picked up a Voyager to replace it as a more durable easier to transport board. So far I’m very happy with it.

I’m not sure I could have jumped straight into my current keyboard as my very first split-ortho board. I think rebuilding the muscle memory was a necessary part of the process. That said I wish I could have skipped the Lily58 and gone straight to the Sofle, but that decision is entirely down to how well it fits my particular hand shape, nothing technically wrong with the Lily58.

1. It depends. If you get one that uses a bluetooth capable MCU (like a nice!nano) then yes generally, although last I looked none of them supported QMK so you’ll most likely be forced to use something like ZMK. That could have changed by now though, I know it was being worked out.

2. Yes, but be aware that you should never plug/unplug the TRRS cable used to connect the two halves while they’re powered on. Some Bluetooth models don’t use a TRRS cable but instead have both halves connect wirelessly. Also I know sometimes the firmware can be setup to always expect the half that’s plugged in to be the right or left half and plugging in the opposite side can sometimes do funky things to the keymap.

3. classic or cherry I think. Definitely not chocolate, that’s exclusively for chocolate switches, not cherry. Also switches aren’t hotswap, the sockets are, so there’s no such thing as a Gateron hot-swap switch, that’s just a Gateron switch.

4. usually no. If you get a chocolate switch board you need to be careful about the caps, but finding chocolate caps is already a royal PITA. Some exceptionally large or unusual cherry caps could cause problems but that would be true of any keyboard not just a corne. One thing to be aware of is you’re going to want a ortholinear cap set, not the standard one as you’ll want square modifier keys and things like enter/space that are normally rectangular.