Hi,
I'm looking for a mouse for someone with arthritic wrists. There are no issues with using a normal mouse at the moment but they are finding it sore after prolonged use. Range of motion is fine at this point. Do these products exist and what is recommended?
yup i have the logitech ergo trackball too and i feel no more pain in the wrist but wanting to try MX vertical when price is right
+1 for the vertical mouse. Helped with my RSI. Logitech, Evoluent etc sell good ones. Another one which works for me is the Apple magic trackad but it is pricier.
My wife wasn't real keen on the full-vertical mouse options, but instead opted to a 'fat' one which was the J Burrows Comfort Mouse for $20.
It's not flash, and you have to click to wake it every single time you want to use it (which I hate) but she likes it and is nationally available to have a play with instore.
this is awesome! thanks for that - are there places that allow you to try them out before buying?
You could try a Wacom tablet with finger input, similar to laptop input but much bigger. A stylus is also an option if holding a pen is comfortable.
Maybe check out Leap Motion. It failed but new replacements might exist.
Xbox 360 Kinect might be an option. Wii mote has a driver.
You can use your phone or tablet as a computer mouse.
If you know a programmer, there are amazing microcontrollers available for $5-$10 that can use a whole range of different sensors for input. There are multiple different methods you could input control without contact. Camera computer vision is quite possible. Ultrasonic or infrared. Human produced microwaves. Pressure. Tilt. Accelerometer. Gyro. Only takes effort as the parts are very cheap. The cheap Arduino Leonardo clones have native USB and can work as a mouse and only tutorial/example level of difficulty.
wow have never heard of microcontrollers before - that's so fascinating. I'll look it up and expand the options
It takes a knowledge of programming, but the hardware side is so cheap these days. For example, an ESP32-CAM has a capable and quite fast dual core processor, wifi or bluetooth and camera for about $5. Knowing how to use it is the hurdle, but the hardware itself is cheap. Another option is a raspberry pi zero (~$11) and cheap camera ($4). Bluetooth module ($3). That would be enough hardware for quite capable motion tracking that can control mouse input. It is only the programming work involved that is any stopper.
Also very exciting in this space are STM TOF sensors. They bounce laser light off a surface and count the nanoseconds to return and measure distance quite accurately. Recently they have been improved to cover different zones, so gestures and hand tracking is improving every generation.
An example of a simple Arduino setup is here. Cost of those parts is only a few bucks for accelerometer mouse.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6JaBOukshD8
PixyCam is more expensive but demonstrates motion tracking quite well.
I think i will stick with a normal mouse because there's programming involved but omg this is so cool - love the pixycam
If I ever find a programmer, I would consider this for the cool factor
Old man has bad wrist issues due to arthritis and used the Logitech MX Vertical mouse.
Brother broke his wrist years ago in an accident and now finds the Logitech MX Ergo trackball mouse more suitable to his wrist issues.