The Elim Elytra: Ultralight Wireless Split Keyboard Launching on Kickstarter

Elim Elytra ultralight wireless split keyboard launching on Kickstarter. Portable, ergonomic, and Bluetooth powered.

It looks like there's a new upcoming contender for the position of best, wireless split keyboard with the Elim Elytra. Unlike other split boards that still rely on a cable between halves, Elytra is designed to be fully wireless, giving users more freedom to position each side wherever it feels most natural. Connecting to computer is done fully wirelessly through Bluetooth.

One of the design principles appear to be portability, and their design principles reflect it, with it weighing 420g (0.93 lbs). In terms of weight, this is almost as light as the Keychron K11 Max. It is certainly 50% lighter than the NocFree &, the other upcoming contender which I hope to have in for review around January.

The keyboard has 63 keys, and does not have a function row. It uses mechanical low profile keys, which should keep it nice and small. However, the layout omits the right Shift key. I can imagine this would annoy some users who rely on right shift as their main modifier activation key.

The lack of symmetry in the middle of both sides at first put me off, until I saw that if you pushed them together, it becomes a de facto Alice layout, which is ingenious. I'm not too sure how to feel about the back though, which appears to be an open, honeycomb like design. I'm guessing this is how they'll save on weight, but if it opens up the board to the elements, we'll have to see if it's a good idea.

The keyboard is about to launch for crowdfunding on Kickstarter. We'll continue to monitor and see if we will invest in this upcoming keyboard.