I love my Voyager. But I noticed that it’s a little too noisy to use in the middle of a bunch of people quietly reading. Plus, while it’s fairly compact, it’s still larger than I need it to be. There are a number of keys I don’t use that much, especially the widest thumb keys, which are spaced out a little too far for my small hands. I could easily go with a smaller footprint keyboard and move certain rarely used keys to another layer.

No, I’m not going to go as extreme as Ben Vallack. But there are a number of compact 42 key and 36 key keyboards out there.

I decided to get used to those layouts without spending any extra money, first. I configured 42 key and 36 key layouts for my Voyager (these are still very much works in progress). To do this, I had to get used to home row mods, which took a bit to find the right configuration where I’m not mistyping a bunch. Now I’m pretty used to them. They definitely result in a more ergonomic setup, too – I had been reaching a bit too much for those mod keys.

I’d love to get comfy with the 36 key configuration, to unlock all the ultra-portable keyboards out there. But I’ve found I mistype a bit too much on them, and my typing accuracy goes way up once I switch back to the 42 key layout. This means I wouldn’t save all that much in terms of keyboard size if I switched. Plus, the Voyager is extremely well built and pretty. Unless I have a desperate for wireless support, I’ll stick with the 42 key layout on my Voyager.

I did want to get rid of the clackiness, however. After a little searching, I found these silent switches… There’s a sound comparison video, but in person, I found the difference even more stark. These are even quieter than my laptop keyboard keys! Now I’m ready to take the keyboard out without worrying if I’m annoying everyone around me :)

Edit 2025 July 19:

The 36 key layout is pretty much busted for me. It’s the shift keys sharing the z and / keys that break it – I keep typing the characters when I want to shift and vice versa. Even when I get the flow while normal typing, for some reason nvim will interpret my capital W as a /w. Total non-starter.

However, this post got me thinking. The num keypads shown would work well for a 38 or 40 key layout. Just adding 2 more keys to the 36 key layout would let me move the shift keys to dedicated keys; two more keys and I could keep my esc and ' keys in their usual locations.

Trying out the 40 key layout now. If it works I may try the cheap num keypad option for my wireless/travel solution :)