Our keyboards are different. That’s probably why you got one. But that also means there is a learning curve: Getting used to your new keyboard takes time and practice.
Live Training is here to help. With Live Training, you get an interactive view of your layout, as you use it:
Live Training shows everything from individual keystrokes, to multiple keys pressed at the same time, to layer changes. You get a complete view of your layout, as you use it.
You can start Live Training and switch to a different window. It’ll keep working, and you can use the interactive keymap as a reference. This is great when just starting out, and for developing muscle memory for layout changes you make over time.
Live Training uses the WebUSB standard, which is currently supported by Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, such as Brave. It works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It requires no drivers, and no administrative privileges. Live Training does not work for ChromeOS, unfortunately, due to security limitations built into the OS. It will also not work for Windows 7 and other legacy operating systems that are past official EOL (“End of Life”) such as OS/2 Warp etc.
A note to Linux users, follow these instructions to set the appropriate udev rules.
For a video tutorial, please watch the following:
Clone and modify your keyboard layout, and include the new Oryx key. You can place it anywhere you like:
Using Google Chrome or another Chromium-based browser, click the Train link on the Oryx navigation bar:
Click Connect your keyboard, and follow the on-screen prompts, tapping the Oryx key on your keyboard to confirm the connection when required:
That’s all there is to it! You are now in Live Training mode. You can switch to other windows or use the built-in training area. When done, simply close the window.
If you are unable to connect to Live Training, follow these troubleshooting steps in the order listed. Please don’t skip any steps. Remember, you can always also email us at contact@ergodox-ez.com.
Some USB hubs misbehave when Chrome tries to enumerate the keyboard as a USB device. The first thing you should do is unplug the keyboard from the USB hub and plug it directly into your computer. A computer monitor with pass-through USB counts as a USB hub too.
Then, continue with the steps below.
Some recent updates of Windows 10 have another driver issue, which you can resolve like this:
(Others will say “HidUsb” instead.)
(It may look like nothing happens, but that’s fine.)
If you’ve gotten this far and still no joy, download and install Brave. This is a Chromium-based browser and we’ve had some people report success in using it where Chrome did not work for them.
If you’ve carefully followed the steps in order and you’re still unable to connect to Live Training, please write contact@ergodox-ez.com and we’ll take it from there. Thank you for trying out Live Training!
Live Training uses webUSB technology, which allows the browser to directly communicate with the keyboard, once you initiate the connection.
No. Live Training does not send any information about the characters being printed. The protocol only sends the physical positions of the keys being pressed.
The code that runs on the keyboard is open-source, and available to review and use here.
Please email us anytime! contact@ergodox-ez.com is where we’re at, and we’d love to hear from you. Thank you for trying out Live Training!
Erez Zukerman is the CEO and Co-Founder of ZSA Technology labs.