Keychron and GIZMART tease a compact split keyboard with trackball

A compact split keyboard with an integrated trackball is exactly the kind of reveal that can pull ergonomic layouts out of the niche and into the center of the mechanical-keyboard market. The teaser that surfaced on May 30 pointed away from another conventional slab and toward a board built around separation, posture, and onboard pointing, with three teaser images visible by the May 31 update.

The project sits inside a broader partnership that Mediagene said began on May 28 between GIZMART, Keychron and Kopek Japan. That announcement said the collaboration’s first product would be the Keychron T1 HE trackball mouse, which was set to begin pre-sales in June 2026, and that the second product would be a split keyboard developed because many users had asked for one. Mediagene also said GIZMART and Kopek Japan had already run two crowdfunding campaigns for the jointly developed Nape Pro, which collected more than 400 million yen in backing. That kind of track record gives the new keyboard more weight than a one-off teaser: it points to an established pipeline turning user demand into commercial hardware.

The teaser matters because Keychron is not starting from zero in split territory. Its Q11 is already sold as a 75% split keyboard with QMK and VIA support, a full metal body, and the option to run as either a split board or a non-split board by linking the halves with a bridge cable. Keychron’s U.S. store lists the Q11 at $204.99, which shows the company has already placed split ergonomics in a premium mainstream slot. A compact model with a trackball would extend that idea in a direction that could feel more approachable to buyers who want less shoulder strain and fewer reaches for a separate mouse, without jumping straight to a fully custom build.

That ergonomic case is not theoretical. A CDC-published study of 90 experienced office workers found that commercially available split keyboards, when set up correctly, reduced mean ulnar deviation toward neutral compared with conventional keyboards. The same study noted that U.S. clerical work involved more than 18 million workers and roughly 50,000 to 100,000 keystrokes a day for a typical worker. Engadget’s February 26 guide to ergonomic keyboards also framed fully split, Alice, mechanical and ortholinear layouts as tools to reduce hunching, twisting and contorting at the desk.

That is why this teaser lands differently from a normal accessory preview. If Keychron and GIZMART follow through with a compact split board and trackball, they are not just adding another unusual shape to the catalog. They are helping normalize an ergonomic form factor that has spent years proving itself in small community projects, and they are doing it with enough polish to make the rest of the market notice.