A year ago I went down the rabbit hole of looking into custom trackball-keyboard integrations. Ploopy, Charybdis, Dactyl, CCK-ball, etc. My final boring conclusion is that what I had already been doing for the past 20 years is much cheaper and gets me 99.99% of the way:
All you need is a regular ~$50 trackball and a regular ~$100 keyboard without a numpad. (You can have an overlay for that, if you need it.)
As someone else pointed out, this new trackball will make you move your fingers (and wrists) significantly off home row. If you do that in one direction or the other doesn't really matter.
If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool". We've had this technology since the literal 1990s guys.
> If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool".
Most people never saw a trackball, let alone used it.
Mainly because either your PC comes with a mouse, or you use a laptop which comes with a touchpad.
Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around. If you grew used to one then you don't notice the poor form factor, but it's awkward and still forces to move your hand away of a keyboard.
The Charybdis, Dactyl, and CCK-ball kind of address the problem by making it reachable by a thumb, but they don't eliminate it completely because it still forces you to follow an awkward user flow.
This product feels like a trackball that lets you place it where it makes sense. I think it's an improvement.
I have faith that keyboards with embedded touchpad such as the Kinesis Form fix this issue, but I'm not willing to shelf ~$300 for an experiment. I'd rather try out a split keyboard and have a boring touchpad where it feels right. Multi-finger touch gestures kind of eliminate any other flow. Hopefully keychron will consider that too.
Yes, seeing this product's very angular non-3d-printed yet-prototype design brought back memories of the days when the default portable hardware interface didn't always include a pointing device and thus there were these clip-on trackballs, like below.
Maybe some of the weirdest were things that looked like small mice that were linked and position-sensed by a bar linkage to the laptop. I can't find a reference to one tho, so maybe I'm mis-remembering?
Is there something similar with a lower profile? I use a Logitech MX Keys keyboard and the trackball seems too high to use it comfortably. Either a trackball or a trackpoint (like the one on Lenovos) would be OK.
I'm not sure if a standalone trackpoint really makes sense, the main benefit of those is being accessible from the home row, which you lose if it's not integrated into the keyboard. If you're moving your hand anyway then you may as well use something more precise for pointing.
If you're willing to replace your keyboard, Lenovo does make a standalone version of their ThinkPad keyboard complete with trackpoint though.
People have been putting Blackberry trackballs on QMK builds for quite a while.
I'm odd - what I want is a stupidly big trackball, like 4 inches across or so. And it should be able to detect rotation about the vertical axis. It infuriates me how optical tracking systems are designed to provide just translation and no rotation when there's a whole other DoF in play.
This [0] is pretty close. IBM made a version of the Model M with Trackpoint but those are rare. Lenovo also sells [1] a keyboard that's basically a Thinkpad keyboard with trackpoint in a separate chassis.
>Fun design and internals aside, the new trackball module seems to have a 1/4-20 threaded tripod mount on the bottom, a common addition for ergonomic split keyboards that opens up a lot of options for angular mounting and similar ideas.
Referring back to the Nape Pro picture from CES, this appears not to be the case. One thing these 1/4-20 mounted ergonomic keyboard designs need is a locking mechanism that prevents the keyboard from gradually pivoting during regular use. For the Nape Pro, I wonder how feasible it would be to drill the hole into it's exterior?
If you're thinking of mouting these at the edge of a surface, then make sure your 1/4-20 mounting arms use the ARRI pin lock on that end. It's annoying when your keyboard pivots, but if the whole mounting arm pivots, then you might be in trouble (i.e, a loosened mounting arm swings 180 degrees down towards the ground, potentially damaging your keyboard).
Here are some examples of those types of arms from SmallRig:
I'd hope that if they're releasing the 3D files, then swapping the baseplate out for something custom or aftermarket won't be too hard. I assume there are fasteners under the rubber feet.
A year ago I went down the rabbit hole of looking into custom trackball-keyboard integrations. Ploopy, Charybdis, Dactyl, CCK-ball, etc. My final boring conclusion is that what I had already been doing for the past 20 years is much cheaper and gets me 99.99% of the way:
All you need is a regular ~$50 trackball and a regular ~$100 keyboard without a numpad. (You can have an overlay for that, if you need it.)
As someone else pointed out, this new trackball will make you move your fingers (and wrists) significantly off home row. If you do that in one direction or the other doesn't really matter.
If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool". We've had this technology since the literal 1990s guys.
> If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool".
Most people never saw a trackball, let alone used it.
Mainly because either your PC comes with a mouse, or you use a laptop which comes with a touchpad.
Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around. If you grew used to one then you don't notice the poor form factor, but it's awkward and still forces to move your hand away of a keyboard.
The Charybdis, Dactyl, and CCK-ball kind of address the problem by making it reachable by a thumb, but they don't eliminate it completely because it still forces you to follow an awkward user flow.
This product feels like a trackball that lets you place it where it makes sense. I think it's an improvement.
I have faith that keyboards with embedded touchpad such as the Kinesis Form fix this issue, but I'm not willing to shelf ~$300 for an experiment. I'd rather try out a split keyboard and have a boring touchpad where it feels right. Multi-finger touch gestures kind of eliminate any other flow. Hopefully keychron will consider that too.
The Form is $199, not $300. So, smaller gamble but it sure looks like a gamble.
Yes, seeing this product's very angular non-3d-printed yet-prototype design brought back memories of the days when the default portable hardware interface didn't always include a pointing device and thus there were these clip-on trackballs, like below.
Maybe some of the weirdest were things that looked like small mice that were linked and position-sensed by a bar linkage to the laptop. I can't find a reference to one tho, so maybe I'm mis-remembering?
http://xahlee.info/kbd/logitech_trackman_portable_trackball....
I think the trackpoint nub would have been a better choice.
Nice, I want one! Assuming it works great (Keychron products usually do)
But where?
Is there something similar with a lower profile? I use a Logitech MX Keys keyboard and the trackball seems too high to use it comfortably. Either a trackball or a trackpoint (like the one on Lenovos) would be OK.
I'm not sure if a standalone trackpoint really makes sense, the main benefit of those is being accessible from the home row, which you lose if it's not integrated into the keyboard. If you're moving your hand anyway then you may as well use something more precise for pointing.
If you're willing to replace your keyboard, Lenovo does make a standalone version of their ThinkPad keyboard complete with trackpoint though.
Not exactly trackballs, but Magic Trackpad can be considered an alternative. Or roller mouse slim (crazy expensive)
Seems like the Ploopy Nano with buttons.
https://ploopy.co/nano-2/
https://github.com/ploopyco/nano-2-trackball
People have been putting Blackberry trackballs on QMK builds for quite a while.
I'm odd - what I want is a stupidly big trackball, like 4 inches across or so. And it should be able to detect rotation about the vertical axis. It infuriates me how optical tracking systems are designed to provide just translation and no rotation when there's a whole other DoF in play.
It's been a while since laptops came with trackballs, but it's a cool idea nonetheless.
Mnt reform and the mini both feature optional track balls. Might be more of a niche but still, you can buy a new laptop with a trackball.
Call me when they make a thinkpad-like trackpoint
Unicomp, which inherited the IBM Model M tooling, still makes a keyboard with a trackpoint: https://www.pckeyboard.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Cate...
This [0] is pretty close. IBM made a version of the Model M with Trackpoint but those are rare. Lenovo also sells [1] a keyboard that's basically a Thinkpad keyboard with trackpoint in a separate chassis.
[0] https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CS1FVF2
>Fun design and internals aside, the new trackball module seems to have a 1/4-20 threaded tripod mount on the bottom, a common addition for ergonomic split keyboards that opens up a lot of options for angular mounting and similar ideas.
Source: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Keychron-Nape-Pro-wireless-tra...
I'm glad they implemented this! Checking the photo of this particular feature, it seems the 1/4-20 thead is paired with another hole: https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc5/...
I was very hopeful that the hole arrangeemnt would be for an ARRI pin-lock: https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/320202/04f5271d1d21f8c7db...
Referring back to the Nape Pro picture from CES, this appears not to be the case. One thing these 1/4-20 mounted ergonomic keyboard designs need is a locking mechanism that prevents the keyboard from gradually pivoting during regular use. For the Nape Pro, I wonder how feasible it would be to drill the hole into it's exterior?
If you're thinking of mouting these at the edge of a surface, then make sure your 1/4-20 mounting arms use the ARRI pin lock on that end. It's annoying when your keyboard pivots, but if the whole mounting arm pivots, then you might be in trouble (i.e, a loosened mounting arm swings 180 degrees down towards the ground, potentially damaging your keyboard).
Here are some examples of those types of arms from SmallRig:
https://www.smallrig.com/Rosette-Magic-Arm-11-inch-with-ARRI...
https://www.smallrig.com/Rosette-Magic-Arm-7-inch-with-ARRI-...
https://www.smallrig.com/SmallRig-Magic-Arm-with-Dual-Ball-H...
And a clamp that has the ARRI holes:
https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-super-clamp-2220.html
I'd hope that if they're releasing the 3D files, then swapping the baseplate out for something custom or aftermarket won't be too hard. I assume there are fasteners under the rubber feet.
3D files would be fantastic.
Maybe one day we'll see a group buy with an all-aluminum case and PVD brass bottom weight.