I personally like trackballs with a large central ball where I can use all my fingers. I am aware Ploopy offers one. This style however has fallen out of popularity, but I've been using them since the mid-90s.
Just using your thumb for all navigation seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
Also I don't know who in the last couple years decided it's a "Trackball Mouse" it's just a Trackball in the same way it's just a "Trackpad" and not a "Trackpad Mouse"
I have purchased a bunch of trackballs, trying to find the best one for me. The Kensington Expert is as you describe, but maybe not quite to my liking. If I did graphic design work, it'd be the one I want for sure - the level of granularity is great.
For my money (clicking with thumb/pinky, using ball and scroll wheel with index and middle fingers) the Kensington Orbit is my daily driver. I even use it for shooter games, since I'm much more accustomed to trackballs these days than mice. As an added bonus, it seems a lot easier on my tendons than a mouse.
I bought a Logitech MX Ergo a couple of years back and genuinely love it for many of the reasons other trackballs users cite in this thread - but I have noticed in the last few months that my thumb joint will get 'stuck' and makes a click when I unstick it. Definitely related to the MX Ergo and the thumb navigation like you say. I'm an older gentleman which likely contributes.
So might be tempted by an all finger alternative - at the moment I'm attempting to up my use of a terminal window manager to minimise pointer use
I'm prone to RSI, and I started using a logitech trackman in '99 or '00. I've occasionally had periods of using mice or trackpads, and extended use of either causes flareups. I've never had flareups with a thumb ball, even with pointer-intensive use like CAD, FPS and graphics. So I keep returning to them -- I've been using them more or less continually for around 25 years. So for my body, it's a clear win on ergonomics; ymmv.
I can second this. Same story, been thumbing it for 25 years or so. I've also used it through some fairly painful ligament injury ('gamekeeper's thumb'), and if anything I think it helped with the recovery.
I remember someone telling me 20ish years ago that, as opposable thumbers, we have more nerves/muscles dedicated to each thumb than we do for the other 4 fingers combined. Not sure how true that is, but it stuck with me.
> Just using your thumb for all navigation seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
I have a thumb trackball. It's been a blessing to my RSI. I can fully rest my hand and fingers on it. With a central ball, I need to keep tension on my fingers otherwise they roll on the ball and move the cursor. That seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
I wanted to try one of those, but I was put off by the scroll bar being above the ball. It seems unnatural to have to reach over to scroll. What as your experience been, if you (or anyone else) has one?
I have deformities in my wrist and I have small palms (dwarfism) I’ve tried various kinds of mice; none of them were comfortable and settled on using a Wacom tablet as a trackpad.
Recently I started using Logitech Ergo M575 trackball mice and it has been total game changer, I can even play FPS games quite well with it. I highly recommend trackball for those with accessibility issues like me and certainly welcome more open hardware competitors in the space like Ploopy as customisation is crucial for accessibility.
These types of mice are just not for me but I looked at some of their other products and honestly the thing I like most about them is how everything is open source.
Ironically I think the fact that they open source their designs probably helps sales. My first reaction is to scoff at the $144 price tag but I know that if I go look at what it will take to build one myself I’m sure the $144 price tag will become much more reasonable.
High quality human interface devices are expensive. There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest one is that very few people are interested in buying high quality devices so they are very nich product.
In terms of capabilities there isn't much out there that rivals Ploopy. So 144 is pretty reasonable.
To put it into perspective this particular trackball is effectively a clone of "Microsoft Trackball Explorer", which is no longer made despite being well regarded by many. Used ones are usually going to be over $100 with people selling refurbished or NOS or something like that on Amazon for $250.
Budget clones are from SANWA and Nulea and they go for about $40-50
Ploopy Classic will get a much higher optical sensor, fully programmable, and better bearings. Budget trackballs usually are going to use budget sensors and tiny little ruby static bearings and have limited programming options.
This is a problem because one of the weaknesses with track balls is trying to balance out very fine movement with being able to move the pointer quickly across the screen without wearing your thumb/fingers out or being annoying.
This isn't a problem with the mouse. Big movements are accelerated by the OS and you have a large object that is easily moved very finely. This is why mice dominate competitive first person shooters and other games that require both very high speed with pinpoint accuracy.
To compensate if you have a nice trackball you can crank the DPI settings up and turn the mouse sensitivity and acceleration settings down low and gain a lot of control. If your bearing suck then you can't really fling the ball and have to do a lot of repetitive motion to move quickly across the screen.
And if your sensor is low quality then when you fling the ball it won't be able to track the movement accurately. Like the effect of helicopter blades being recorded on a video camera.. The pointer will stay still for a bit, and even go backwards until the ball slows down enough to be tracked and the point shoots forward.
I have a Kensington Slim Blade pro, which is a popular trackball of a different style and it suffers from this. And that costs over $100 retail.
On top of all of this cheaper balls will tend to rattle around a bit. Which makes it miserable when you just _can't quite_ move the pointer over just one more character or hit that tiny corner of a window correctly.
So this is the sort of thing you do get what you pay for and Ploopy is pretty darn nice. It isn't perfect, but you can do a lot worse for the money.
Anyone use a trackball mouse on their laptop for use while sitting on the couch? How do you like it compared to the trackpad? How is it for light gaming?
I use a trackball for my laptop and desktop PC for over 20 years now and highly recommend it. I have one with the ball with the ball under the thumb instead of the middle like this one has though.
It works not just for light gaming, but also "heavy" gaming, like shooters. Just move your thumb instead of your whole arm. Works perfectly well.
And that's not even mentioning how relaxing it is. You can put the trackball anywhere. I like to stretch my arms sometimes and put the trackball away from me or lean back and put it on my lap. It works on any surface.
Back when I was a wee lad, around 1993 or so I’d guess, my uncle’s work laptop had a trackball that plugged into a special port on the side of it. Even though laptops of the time weren’t particularly good for, well, using on your lap, it was an exceptionally nice way to be able to use a mouse in a limited amount of table space.
I no longer compute on a couch, but if you like trackballs, I don't see why you wouldn't like trackballs while sitting on a couch. I used to be able to find somewhere to set it, and it was better than using the trackpad.
But if you like trackpads, you might like them more than trackballs. And if you dislike trackballs, you might dislike them more than trackpads.
Trackballs never disappeared, although they're not mainstream anymore; you used to be able to get a trackball to clip to the side of your laptop, or get a laptop with a built in trackball... But times have changed.
Been using a thumb trackball for a few months, it's definitely better than a trackpad for long periods of use. I've tried rebinding the mouse buttons so I could play most light games without touching the keyboard, fun but impractical as mine would need a few more buttons for that.
Tracking quality doesn't depend on the desk surface, though is noticeably smoother after occasional ball cleanings. Overall an interesting experience, and at least better than gaming with wrist/forearm pain.
Yes, I did for a while. Used an MX Ergo thumb trackball. Initial learning curve for sure, but if one sticks with it it'll become more natural. It was quite comfortable and I felt fast and accurate. FPS games were possible by the time I stopped, as my thumb started to hurt...
I use a trackball, you can set it next to you on the couch and just use it normal. As for gaming, I still freak out people when I tell them I use a trackball for gaming.
The only issue is games like Skyrim when lock picking requires moving the mouse around, doing it with a trackball is a painful experience.
I use a trackball almost exclusively. I will go back to mice for first person shooters. Mice can move faster and have easier time with pointer accuracy. This is where the sensor on a trackball is very important as it helps a lot with tracking, but mice will always have a edge if you are competitive. For stuff like Cyberpunk that isn't so hard core I have a fine time with my trackball.
Trackballs come in all sorts of different sizes, shapes, and layouts. Which works best is kinda up to your own physiology. That being said i find the thumb-style tend to work out a bit better for sitting on a sofa and plopping it down in random locations. It doesn't need a hard surface, being sideways or odd angles isn't going to bother it.
Another advantage for the trackball is you don't need much room for it. Just need enough room for it to sit on something without falling off.
If I have somewhere flat then I prefer to have the big center ball trackballs. Having a bigger ball with more mass is nice as more energetic movements doesn't cause it to rattle around and it is nice to be able to use multiple fingers.
Laptop trackpads are probably the worst devices ergonomically. It doesn't really matter how nice of quality they are as it is the size and position of them that make them bad to use. It is the repetitive twisting and bending of the wrists to reach them that make them bad.
If you have a very nice trackpad that is on the side of the keyboard then they probably can be very nice, though. I haven't tried them so I can't say anything from experience.
This mouse is very similar to the Protoarc EM03, which is the best trackball I have ever used. Unfortunately it seems it was discontinued recently. Still waiting on a reply from Protoarc as to why the shop page is down.
Dumb question but is this the type where you use your thumb or your fingerd to control? I see conflicting comments below. I have a few trackballs but prefer by far the centralised kind rather than the thumb kind.
I like that Ploopy are designing and building open-source hardware. I have their Classic (1) trackball, which has been great. I recently got their new trackpad, which is better for me. Having multi-finger gestures (pinch to zoom, swipe back) is nice.
Potentially dumb question; how well do these kinds of trackball mice work with games like Arkanoid of Breakout?
I've never been able to get used to those games with a mouse or trackpad, and there aren't a ton of rotary controllers being produced now as far as I know.
I play a fair amount of breakout with a Kensington Expert trackball, works fairly well and a considerable improvement over a mouse or trackpad. I do not see the ergonomic track balls working well here but never tried, the small trackball means control drops quickly as speed goes up.
A lot of modern trackballs are fairly small and lightweight. They don't have the sort of mass and quality of bearings, most of the time, that will make them move around properly and roll like classic arcade balls.
Arcade trackballs are kinda designed to hammered sideways and pushed by the bottom of your palm. Can't really do that with a computer trackball.
The Kensington Slime Blade pro is the closest in terms of physical size. The ball will go flying if you try to get too energetic with it, though. It is just sitting in a depression.
The Ploopy Adept is another possible option with similar issues. It uses a smaller billiard (1.75 inches) ball as its central ball. It does have high quality sensors, which makes a big difference. Since it is open source I thought about buying one and modding it for a full sized USA-style pool ball (2.25 inch). Which would be awesome.
Of course you can actually just go and buy a genuine arcade cabinet quality ball that will support USB. You'll need to make a custom gaming panel for it, though.
The Kensington Expert holds its ball much better and uses the same size ball. I found the Slim Blade Pro to be awkward in general, the ball sticks up too high above the buttons/body.
Just something that would be good to emulate a paddle controller from the arcade and Atari era, with a relatively fast polling rate, that can plug into USB.
I personally like trackballs with a large central ball where I can use all my fingers. I am aware Ploopy offers one. This style however has fallen out of popularity, but I've been using them since the mid-90s.
Just using your thumb for all navigation seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
Also I don't know who in the last couple years decided it's a "Trackball Mouse" it's just a Trackball in the same way it's just a "Trackpad" and not a "Trackpad Mouse"
I have purchased a bunch of trackballs, trying to find the best one for me. The Kensington Expert is as you describe, but maybe not quite to my liking. If I did graphic design work, it'd be the one I want for sure - the level of granularity is great.
For my money (clicking with thumb/pinky, using ball and scroll wheel with index and middle fingers) the Kensington Orbit is my daily driver. I even use it for shooter games, since I'm much more accustomed to trackballs these days than mice. As an added bonus, it seems a lot easier on my tendons than a mouse.
I bought a Logitech MX Ergo a couple of years back and genuinely love it for many of the reasons other trackballs users cite in this thread - but I have noticed in the last few months that my thumb joint will get 'stuck' and makes a click when I unstick it. Definitely related to the MX Ergo and the thumb navigation like you say. I'm an older gentleman which likely contributes.
So might be tempted by an all finger alternative - at the moment I'm attempting to up my use of a terminal window manager to minimise pointer use
I'm prone to RSI, and I started using a logitech trackman in '99 or '00. I've occasionally had periods of using mice or trackpads, and extended use of either causes flareups. I've never had flareups with a thumb ball, even with pointer-intensive use like CAD, FPS and graphics. So I keep returning to them -- I've been using them more or less continually for around 25 years. So for my body, it's a clear win on ergonomics; ymmv.
I can second this. Same story, been thumbing it for 25 years or so. I've also used it through some fairly painful ligament injury ('gamekeeper's thumb'), and if anything I think it helped with the recovery.
I remember someone telling me 20ish years ago that, as opposable thumbers, we have more nerves/muscles dedicated to each thumb than we do for the other 4 fingers combined. Not sure how true that is, but it stuck with me.
This is the only “Trackball Mouse” I know of: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Mighty_Mouse_W...
It's a pretty small trackball.
> Just using your thumb for all navigation seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
I have a thumb trackball. It's been a blessing to my RSI. I can fully rest my hand and fingers on it. With a central ball, I need to keep tension on my fingers otherwise they roll on the ball and move the cursor. That seems like an RSI waiting to happen.
Indeed I have a ploopy 1 on the drawer because it gives me strong RSI on the thumb.
I agree. I actually almost bought a trackball, thinking it was a mouse that also had a trackball in it, because of this misleading naming.
L-Trac is still in production, made by P.I. Engineering, "The No Slogan Company"
I wanted to try one of those, but I was put off by the scroll bar being above the ball. It seems unnatural to have to reach over to scroll. What as your experience been, if you (or anyone else) has one?
I'm working on an open source one for myself: https://github.com/ginkgo/trackball
Next step is adding QMK support.
Oh super cool! Pico powered and everything
I still miss my Trackman Marble FX. Never found a trackball design as elegant and useable as it was.
https://www.lenzg.net/uploads/images/Trackman_Marble_FX.jpg
I have deformities in my wrist and I have small palms (dwarfism) I’ve tried various kinds of mice; none of them were comfortable and settled on using a Wacom tablet as a trackpad.
Recently I started using Logitech Ergo M575 trackball mice and it has been total game changer, I can even play FPS games quite well with it. I highly recommend trackball for those with accessibility issues like me and certainly welcome more open hardware competitors in the space like Ploopy as customisation is crucial for accessibility.
These types of mice are just not for me but I looked at some of their other products and honestly the thing I like most about them is how everything is open source.
Ironically I think the fact that they open source their designs probably helps sales. My first reaction is to scoff at the $144 price tag but I know that if I go look at what it will take to build one myself I’m sure the $144 price tag will become much more reasonable.
Considering how much higher-end gaming mice can cost these days, $144 CAD for a niche mouse really isn't that bad in comparison.
remember how much the ibm model m keyboard cost back in the 80s? ($200 or about $550 in today’s money)
High quality human interface devices are expensive. There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest one is that very few people are interested in buying high quality devices so they are very nich product.
In terms of capabilities there isn't much out there that rivals Ploopy. So 144 is pretty reasonable.
To put it into perspective this particular trackball is effectively a clone of "Microsoft Trackball Explorer", which is no longer made despite being well regarded by many. Used ones are usually going to be over $100 with people selling refurbished or NOS or something like that on Amazon for $250.
Budget clones are from SANWA and Nulea and they go for about $40-50
Ploopy Classic will get a much higher optical sensor, fully programmable, and better bearings. Budget trackballs usually are going to use budget sensors and tiny little ruby static bearings and have limited programming options.
This is a problem because one of the weaknesses with track balls is trying to balance out very fine movement with being able to move the pointer quickly across the screen without wearing your thumb/fingers out or being annoying.
This isn't a problem with the mouse. Big movements are accelerated by the OS and you have a large object that is easily moved very finely. This is why mice dominate competitive first person shooters and other games that require both very high speed with pinpoint accuracy.
To compensate if you have a nice trackball you can crank the DPI settings up and turn the mouse sensitivity and acceleration settings down low and gain a lot of control. If your bearing suck then you can't really fling the ball and have to do a lot of repetitive motion to move quickly across the screen.
And if your sensor is low quality then when you fling the ball it won't be able to track the movement accurately. Like the effect of helicopter blades being recorded on a video camera.. The pointer will stay still for a bit, and even go backwards until the ball slows down enough to be tracked and the point shoots forward.
I have a Kensington Slim Blade pro, which is a popular trackball of a different style and it suffers from this. And that costs over $100 retail.
On top of all of this cheaper balls will tend to rattle around a bit. Which makes it miserable when you just _can't quite_ move the pointer over just one more character or hit that tiny corner of a window correctly.
So this is the sort of thing you do get what you pay for and Ploopy is pretty darn nice. It isn't perfect, but you can do a lot worse for the money.
Anyone use a trackball mouse on their laptop for use while sitting on the couch? How do you like it compared to the trackpad? How is it for light gaming?
I use a trackball for my laptop and desktop PC for over 20 years now and highly recommend it. I have one with the ball with the ball under the thumb instead of the middle like this one has though.
It works not just for light gaming, but also "heavy" gaming, like shooters. Just move your thumb instead of your whole arm. Works perfectly well.
And that's not even mentioning how relaxing it is. You can put the trackball anywhere. I like to stretch my arms sometimes and put the trackball away from me or lean back and put it on my lap. It works on any surface.
Back when I was a wee lad, around 1993 or so I’d guess, my uncle’s work laptop had a trackball that plugged into a special port on the side of it. Even though laptops of the time weren’t particularly good for, well, using on your lap, it was an exceptionally nice way to be able to use a mouse in a limited amount of table space.
Edit: thank you Reddit! https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/s/Lw3QQG9IY8
Which model do you use? Looking at the MX Ergo.
I’ve had an MX Ergo for several years (and other thumb trackballs for 28 years), while I like the shape and like the ergonomics, some issues stand out
- Rechargeable battery lasts 4-6 weeks. The 1 AA in the M570 lasted 6-9 months.
- No on device indicator that battery is low or about to die, it just dies mid use.
- Rubberized coating under palm gets guncky over time.
MX Ergo is the one I have as well.
I just bought the only left handed trackball mouse out there and the “huge” from these cats: https://elecomusa.com/
They were a lot cheaper last week. Maybe they have sales a lot or I just got lucky. But I’ve loved them.
Elcom Wireless Trackball (M-RT1DRBK) works great while sitting on a couch. I haven't tried gaming with it unfortunately.
I no longer compute on a couch, but if you like trackballs, I don't see why you wouldn't like trackballs while sitting on a couch. I used to be able to find somewhere to set it, and it was better than using the trackpad.
But if you like trackpads, you might like them more than trackballs. And if you dislike trackballs, you might dislike them more than trackpads.
Trackballs never disappeared, although they're not mainstream anymore; you used to be able to get a trackball to clip to the side of your laptop, or get a laptop with a built in trackball... But times have changed.
Been using a thumb trackball for a few months, it's definitely better than a trackpad for long periods of use. I've tried rebinding the mouse buttons so I could play most light games without touching the keyboard, fun but impractical as mine would need a few more buttons for that.
Tracking quality doesn't depend on the desk surface, though is noticeably smoother after occasional ball cleanings. Overall an interesting experience, and at least better than gaming with wrist/forearm pain.
Yes, I did for a while. Used an MX Ergo thumb trackball. Initial learning curve for sure, but if one sticks with it it'll become more natural. It was quite comfortable and I felt fast and accurate. FPS games were possible by the time I stopped, as my thumb started to hurt...
I use a trackball, you can set it next to you on the couch and just use it normal. As for gaming, I still freak out people when I tell them I use a trackball for gaming.
The only issue is games like Skyrim when lock picking requires moving the mouse around, doing it with a trackball is a painful experience.
Similar with Kingdom Come: Deliverance, especially with the combat that requires you to try and point at a certain limb.
Although I blame the lock picking mini games and the combat for that, since using a controller doesn't make them any less of an annoyance.
I use a trackball almost exclusively. I will go back to mice for first person shooters. Mice can move faster and have easier time with pointer accuracy. This is where the sensor on a trackball is very important as it helps a lot with tracking, but mice will always have a edge if you are competitive. For stuff like Cyberpunk that isn't so hard core I have a fine time with my trackball.
Trackballs come in all sorts of different sizes, shapes, and layouts. Which works best is kinda up to your own physiology. That being said i find the thumb-style tend to work out a bit better for sitting on a sofa and plopping it down in random locations. It doesn't need a hard surface, being sideways or odd angles isn't going to bother it.
Another advantage for the trackball is you don't need much room for it. Just need enough room for it to sit on something without falling off.
If I have somewhere flat then I prefer to have the big center ball trackballs. Having a bigger ball with more mass is nice as more energetic movements doesn't cause it to rattle around and it is nice to be able to use multiple fingers.
Laptop trackpads are probably the worst devices ergonomically. It doesn't really matter how nice of quality they are as it is the size and position of them that make them bad to use. It is the repetitive twisting and bending of the wrists to reach them that make them bad.
If you have a very nice trackpad that is on the side of the keyboard then they probably can be very nice, though. I haven't tried them so I can't say anything from experience.
This mouse is very similar to the Protoarc EM03, which is the best trackball I have ever used. Unfortunately it seems it was discontinued recently. Still waiting on a reply from Protoarc as to why the shop page is down.
Given the site has been hugged to death, here is the most recent Wayback Machine archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250330150603/https://blog.ploo...
Dumb question but is this the type where you use your thumb or your fingerd to control? I see conflicting comments below. I have a few trackballs but prefer by far the centralised kind rather than the thumb kind.
You control the trackball with the fingers of your right hand, and there's a scroll wheel and right and left buttons under your right thumb.
The Ploopy Adept is their central ball model. This is a top ball.
I like that Ploopy are designing and building open-source hardware. I have their Classic (1) trackball, which has been great. I recently got their new trackpad, which is better for me. Having multi-finger gestures (pinch to zoom, swipe back) is nice.
Potentially dumb question; how well do these kinds of trackball mice work with games like Arkanoid of Breakout?
I've never been able to get used to those games with a mouse or trackpad, and there aren't a ton of rotary controllers being produced now as far as I know.
I play a fair amount of breakout with a Kensington Expert trackball, works fairly well and a considerable improvement over a mouse or trackpad. I do not see the ergonomic track balls working well here but never tried, the small trackball means control drops quickly as speed goes up.
Kinda works ok for these types of games.
A lot of modern trackballs are fairly small and lightweight. They don't have the sort of mass and quality of bearings, most of the time, that will make them move around properly and roll like classic arcade balls.
Arcade trackballs are kinda designed to hammered sideways and pushed by the bottom of your palm. Can't really do that with a computer trackball.
The Kensington Slime Blade pro is the closest in terms of physical size. The ball will go flying if you try to get too energetic with it, though. It is just sitting in a depression.
The Ploopy Adept is another possible option with similar issues. It uses a smaller billiard (1.75 inches) ball as its central ball. It does have high quality sensors, which makes a big difference. Since it is open source I thought about buying one and modding it for a full sized USA-style pool ball (2.25 inch). Which would be awesome.
Of course you can actually just go and buy a genuine arcade cabinet quality ball that will support USB. You'll need to make a custom gaming panel for it, though.
>Kensington Slime Blade pro
The Kensington Expert holds its ball much better and uses the same size ball. I found the Slim Blade Pro to be awkward in general, the ball sticks up too high above the buttons/body.
I have both, kinda tend to forget about the Expert one. I like the slim Blade for normal stuff.
There are tons of rotary options these days, what is your criteria?
Just something that would be good to emulate a paddle controller from the arcade and Atari era, with a relatively fast polling rate, that can plug into USB.
One option: https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/spinners/sp...
Error establishing a database connection. The hug of death it seems
Is this just going to be a fortnightly article now?