nanoCH32V305 VS yaemk-split-kb

If you are willing to try r/RISCV ones, then nanoCH32V203 (with two Full-Speed interfaces) and nanoCH32V305 (with one Full-Speed and one High-Speed interface) might be enough.

There are dual USB r/RISCV boards with GPIO pins exposed, like nanoCH32V203 and nanoCH32V305.

There are RISC-V MCUs that have two USB interfaces, but those are not supported by QMK yet. I tried some of those boards in kite project.

Kite has standard shortcuts option too, but it runs on dedicated MCU board, not host PC.

RISC-V boards cost $3-$6 depending if you want high speed USB or full speed one.

u/Bounty1Berry is exploring RISC-V nanoCH32V305 board, but it's a new board that is not supported by (Q|T|Z)MK yet, so not really go-to option at this stage.

Their earlier boards like nanoCH32V203 and nanoCH32V305 were more user friendly, one could flash those via USB without WCH-Link.

Muse Lab has MCU boards like nanoCH32V203 and nanoCH32V305.

It runs on nanoCH32V305 dual USB r/RISCV MCU board.

First u/KarlK90 ported QMK, TMK and ChibiOS to GD32VF103 and used it in YAEMK.

yaemk

The YAEMK is one I've been considering myself lately, but you've got a lot of options for split boards. You can look at and directly compare a lot of them here. If you want choc switches, without going to the sub 40% size range then the main options it looks like you have are:

There is the YAEMK

It would probably be cleaner to just put silicone stickers on a regular case like here: https://karlk90.github.io/yaemk-split-kb/

I was actually most intrigued by the Yaemk, but I think it's a too much DIY for a beginner such as I (no kits available AFAIK, has a disclaimer that it can be challenging for someone with no soldering experience).

My YAEMK supports both ARM and RISC-V MCUs. Schematics, PCB and an extensive build guide is available here -> https://karlk90.github.io/yaemk-split-kb/

Here is his YAEMK, a split, ergo keyboard that can use the same MCU, or an ARM MCU: https://karlk90.github.io/yaemk-split-kb/