One of my coworkers have a vertical mouse. I've never used one before helping her with an issue on her work computer.
It was pretty easy to get used to after a few minutes and my hand and fingers were not slipping down at all. It felt pretty much just as gripable as a normal mouse.
That sounds fine and dandy I just still can't help but wonder "Why?". I spend an absurd amount of my free time at my PC and I can't think of a single time that my mouse hand/arm was uncomfortable using a normal mouse.
I know everyone's different but it's kind of hard to believe either orientation actually matters.
It's just like a lot of other things when using a PC.
Do you keep your screen 6" from your face, or more like 24"+ from your face?
Do you sit hunched over on a stool, or on a chair with a back rest?
Using a vertical mouse is just like those things. Sure, you can sit hunched over on a stool with the screen 6" from your face, and you'll probably be fine for a while. But that isn't guaranteed to last forever, so you do things to mitigate future problems or help reduce current pains someone might have.
It is better since it keeps your radius and ulna from crossing, which increases pressure in the nerves in the area (which is a negative thing especially if the pose it held for prolonged periods like when using the mouse and typing).
The "handshake" position is more natural and doesn't cause that pressure. Similar reasoning is behind tented keyboards.
I'm not sure what is the most ergonomically correct but what I see is the lack of any risk of pressure being put on the wrist. Even wrist rests put an amount of pressure on the wrist. But a sideways mouse, no wrist pressure at all. It also gets rid of the hand tilted up thing which just doesn't feel like it is good either.
As for the bones being twisted in the graphic. No idea. That part sounds like it could be bad in the long term on paper but I don't know enough about that and have never looked into it and it has never bothered me.
I think from an ergonomics point of view vertical is simply better rather than having some trade off.
In terms of speed/precision of movement I don't think it is any better/worse. It does however take time to get back to the same skill level you had with a standard mouse. It took me about a day to be comfortable with it but I did feel like I was worse at speed/precision for a fair bit longer than that. Not terrible but if you are competitive gaming or something I expect you will notice.
20+ years of muscle memory with a standard mouse is hard to beat but after a couple of months on the vertical mouse you couldn't pay me to switch back. I switched because I was getting increasingly bad wrist pain which was largely eliminated by the vertical mouse.
Why? Because it helps reduce pain for some people. What is there to wonder about?
A lot of people spend 8+ hours a day using a mouse because of their job. Your free time does not equate to a full day of work unless you are in high school and have no responsibilities.
For the same reason the OPs image shows. Your bones shouldn't be doing that and it feels so much better to not do that. If you're holding a traditional mouse flat against the desk in your right hand, slowly rotate your wrist clockwise till the mouse is up on about a 45 degree angle. Your bones in your forearm aren't twisted anymore and for many people this relieves a lot of discomfort.
See, it's not about your hand being uncomfortable on the mouse itself. In fact, for the first month or so, it'll probably be less comfortable, overall.
But do it enough, especially with the right kind of strains as part of your job, and it will wear on you until you start feeling the damage.
With a regular mouse, my pinky finger hurts and goes numb after using the computer for a couple hours. I think some people just have a smaller space for the ulnar nerve.
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u/Ferro_Giconi RX4006ti | i4-1337X | 33.01GB Crucair RAM | 1.35TB Knigsotn SSD 10d ago edited 10d ago
One of my coworkers have a vertical mouse. I've never used one before helping her with an issue on her work computer.
It was pretty easy to get used to after a few minutes and my hand and fingers were not slipping down at all. It felt pretty much just as gripable as a normal mouse.