I recently replaced the controller on my advantage2 to support qmk[0]. Using multiple layers lets me avoid the tiny rubber f-keys and move the arrow keys to hjkl along with a few other tweaks.
I wish kinsis would make qmk support a default option. Custom layouts and layers are just too useful for me to give up.
Yea, I have an advantage pro but it's been collecting dust since I got a qmk keyboard. I'm not paying for proprietary firmware anymore, and since Kinesis' poor handling of their sticky modifier key bug (that existed and was well known for what, a decade or two?) I'm not keen on paying them anything at all anyway.
And in case anyone's wondering what I'm talking about, back when I was about to buy my Kinesis, just about every user report I could find online mentioned that sometimes the modifiers get stuck. I really hoped that was just a coincidence, but no, my new keyboard did the same thing, and when I asked other users I came across along the way, they all said it's a regular thing with the Kinesis Advantage.
Some tried to get Kinesis to repair it but response ranged from not acknowledging the issue at all and playing oblivious, or blaming the computer, sometimes offering to replace a circuit board in the keyboard (this does not fix the problem).
There's also this 2016 web.archive.org snapshot where Kinesis is blaming the computer for missing the upstroke (what a joke to anyone who has the slightest clue of how USB or the input stack in your favorite kernel works): https://web.archive.org/web/20160221095425/http://www.kinesi...
The reality is that it's all in their firmware and looks like it took them nearly two decades to fix (if not more, I'm not sure exactly how far back the issue goes.. I think some people claim it was also happening with the old PS/2 model!) with the release of Advantage 2.
I wish kinsis would make qmk support a default option. Custom layouts and layers are just too useful for me to give up.
[0] https://github.com/kinx-project/kint