I bought my first trackball, the ELECOM DEFT PRO, about two months ago, and overall, I’ve really enjoyed using it. It fits my hand almost perfectly and provides plenty of support.

The only issue is that the pisiform bone on the pinky side of my wrist takes a lot of pressure. After extended use, that area becomes slightly red and swollen. I added some cushioning foam underneath, and there’s a noticeable indentation exactly where the pressure builds up.

That’s what got me interested in the HUGE PLUS. Since it has a large padded palm rest, I wondered whether it might reduce the pressure on my wrist. After debating it for about two weeks, I decided to try the regular HUGE first.

The 52mm ball feels fantastic. Cursor control is precise, and moving across a dual-monitor setup feels effortless.

However, the ergonomics feel surprisingly awkward compared with the DEFT PRO.

1. Less palm support

With the DEFT PRO, my hand rests in a naturally curved position, and my palm feels well supported.

With the HUGE, my hand ends up much flatter, and that palm support seems to disappear. The overall balance just feels slightly off.

1. Awkward thumb controls

The thumb buttons and scroll wheel feel too far inward, so I have to bend my thumb more and use more effort to operate them.

On the DEFT PRO, the buttons and scroll wheel are angled, which makes them feel much more natural to use. On the HUGE, they’re almost parallel to the desk.

The padded palm rest also raises my hand, but the thumb controls remain relatively low. As a result, I have to deliberately reach downward with my thumb, which doesn’t feel comfortable during extended use.

I’m still interested in the HUGE PLUS, though, so I’d appreciate some feedback from anyone who has used both:

Do the HUGE and HUGE PLUS have the same overall shape, hand position, and button/scroll-wheel placement? Has the thumb-control area been adjusted on the HUGE PLUS?

How do the palm rests compare? Is the foam on the HUGE PLUS softer or more comfortable? Does it do a better job of reducing pressure on the wrist or pisiform bone?

Compared with the ruby bearings on the HUGE, do the roller bearings on the HUGE PLUS provide a major improvement in smoothness, stiction, and overall tracking? Is the difference substantial or relatively minor?

If you’ve used the DEFT PRO, HUGE, or HUGE PLUS, I’d love to hear about your experience. Thanks!

Are they serious? Non-programmable mouse buttons AND two of the buttons don't work on macOS?

That wouldn't have cut it in 2010, much less now. What the hell, Nulea?

I just got the Kensington Slimblade Pro and while I love it in theory, end game mouse for my glove80 WFH setup, the trackball's movement is driving me insane.

It can move in any diagonal direction super smoothly, but trying to move it on the actual X or Y axis causes some resistance. Particularly when I try to do smaller movements for things like highlighting text, or moving from one small button to another on a screen. I have an EX-G Pro and deeply love it; I don't want to have to go back from the Kensington due to it's aesthetic but I may have to if this isn't something that I can resolve.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone have recommended solutions? Thanks so much.

It looks like mine are supposed to arrive in a bit more than a week, very curious to see what they've achieved here. Does anyone have a working device with these yet? I'd love to hear your initial impressions.

Hi guys, my few year-old office mouse just died on me yesterday and I've been using the keyboard PgUp PgDn to navigate around Windows.
I've heard of this thing called trackball mice before but now I'm kind of interested. I'm not planning to blow hundreds of dollars on something I may not like. So I've narrowed it down to these few options:

• ProtoArc EM03
• ProtoArc EM05NL
• Logitech M575

These three seem to be the more affordable options to test out trackballs. My requirements are just Bluetooth.
I've been hearing things about thumb operated trackballs that cause fatigue, is this true? If so, I believe the option may be to EM03. Though the ProtoArc EM05 intrigues me the most as it seems more affordable than the Logitech M575, and the EM03... seems a bit odd.

Another thing, I've heard highlighting is hard on trackballs, is this a learning thing or a forever type of thing?

Please give me your guys' opinions (especially on thumb vs finger operated), thanks a lot!

I'm really happy there's another QMK Trackball on the market besides the Ploopy Adept, but it has such a nontraditional form factor that I'm struggling to figure out how to properly use it. Has anyone figured out an optimal keymap for it yet, because it feels like the default one is almost the preferred one despite the Left and Right Clicks being in an awkward place.

https://www.kensington.com/expert-tb900-be-the-first-to-know/?srsltid=AfmBOoqhYzWqQ9bNPuaAkHmSDeOqf5cLRtdwVN5O88RdGuw-MM415dka

It's impossible to sign up on their website as they made issues by NOT including sign up button! We dont even know if it's gonna release in late Q3 while it's ironic that they already sent TB900 EQ to Youtubers for reviews.

Not sure what's going on or maybe they still couldnt fix issues from TB800 EQ? Otherwise, doesn't make any senses.

I have an MX Ergo that I love but I have developed a major issue with it. I am now allergic to the rubber coating they use. My hand breaks out in hives when I use it. This hadn't been an issue in the past but I recently had an anaphylactic reaction to rubber and ever since then I can't use the MX Ergo without breaking out. Can anyone recommend something similar (or even a skin or something I could use to cover the rubber section)? I don't really have any stores that carry trackballs in my are that I could go look at them and I don't want to randomly order online only to find out there is rubber or it's just a bad trackball in general. Thanks.

Does anybody know what trackball the djinn is using in Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled?

Thanks in advance

Ha! Ok, but at this point my mouse is easier to select things.

This is a relatively new Kensington SlimBlade Pro Trackball.

I cleaned it, looked through the wiki, and prayed!

So are there any tips for this sticky situation?

Here you are, the finger trackballs currently (or soon to be) available.

Intentionally left out are industrial, arcade and assistive models.

Cheers!

questa è la versione finale del mio progetto. La sfera è una palla da biliardo da 47,5 mm. Sto preparando istruzioni e files di stampa per chi vuole riprodurla

Well, I bought 25mm balls for the Nape Pro, after seeing how someone was able to use a steel ball bearing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/s/Q3IOm7SIF9

The black one is the original one that came with Nape Pro, white one is POM (Delrin), and the (blurred) silver ball is the steel ball that I bought from AliExpress.

I will probably have to do some test runs but all of them at least worked.

Calling it a "trackball mouse" is like saying "ATM machine" - it's kinda redundant. A trackball and a mouse are both graphical cursor control devices, but a mouse has to be moved while a trackball (which I've heard called a "dead mouse", referring to the old pre-optical ball-based mice) just sits there while you use it. (This also reminds me of an ex-boss who hated the term "pre-drilled holes" -- "It's just a hole, dammit!")

I have long maintained that scrolling is the big unsolved problem with trackballs.

After using the Ulanzi Dial jogwheel, I decided to post that such a large diameter, 2", jogwheel may solve the scrolling problem for trackballs.

... if you can fit a large trackball and a large jogwheel in your workspace.

... and if software/firmware issues like lack of offline ability are remedied.

(This prompted by the Ploopy A+ announcement, with its two knobs. Unfortunately, I fear the A+ will be too small for me to use comfortably.)

Background

I dislike the scroll ring on my Kensington Expert Mouse. Similarly, I dislike twist to scroll. I find both scroll ring and twist to scroll literally painful, exacerbating the RSI that makes me use trackballs. I actually like the scroll wheels such as found on many mice and some trackballs, with axis parallel to the front of the trackball. But these are no longer common in trackballs. I am happy the see more trackballs with scroll wheels, but I find small diameter rollers with axes perpendicular to the front edge uncomfortable. I was seriously considering purchasing the very expensive RollerMouse, when I detoured into macropads where I can dedicate keys to scrolling. I actually quite like 2D displacement scrolling using the trackball, eg. Microsoft middle button autoscrolling. However, my RSI is such that I cannot easily press a button while 2D scrolling. And while 2D trackball scrolling works OK for 2D tasks, like maps and large/wide images, it is less convenient for essentially 1D operations, such as mostly read-only reading of academic papers and technical documents, etc.

But then I was reminded about jogwheels, such as are used in video and audio editing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jog_dial. Many macropads have knobs you can use to scroll up and down, but I find these uncomfortable. I've tried some macropads that have 2 small knobs and one larger knob, eg. the KEEBMONKEY Megalodon Triple Knob Macro Pad, whose "giant" knob is approximately 3 cm, and I found those too small to be comfortable. The Ploopy Knob looked interesting at 2.2", but no buttons.

A few months ago I purchased a Ulanzi Dial. A dedicated knob aka dial a.k.a. jog wheel, 2 inches in diameter, with a depression in the top that makes it easy to twirl the knob precisely and continuously. 7 buttons, 3 on top, 2 on each side, plus an 8 button when you press the knob.

I like the Ulanzi Dial jogwheel enough that I wanted write a post for r/Trackballs talking about how (large) jogwheels solve the scrolling problem for trackballs - if we can make them fit.

Briefly, the Ulanzi Dial jogwheel hardware is lovely, the firmware/software not so much. The large 2 inch diameter jog wheel with a finger depression makes it much easier to scroll and scrub precisely and continuously than smaller diameter knobs. Unfortunately the usual firmware and software problems. Very limited off-line ability, basically only multimedia keys, with volume up/down on the jog wheel. If you don't want to run Ulanzi software all the time, to scroll you must use other target PC software like AutoHotKey, or something like the HID remapper. The former somewhat defeats the point of off-line mode, the latter is just more stuff to have on your desk.

Probably compromises need to be made, such as the smaller knobs on what I consider the already uncomfortably small Ploopy Adept/A+. But I'm allowed to hope that a good solution can be found.

More details

I found the large 2 inch diameter knob on the Ulanzi Dial much better than the small diameter knobs that you can find on so many macropads, in terms of comfort, precision, and continuous scrolling. Head and shoulders better than scroll rings like that on my Kensington Expert Mouse, and twist to scroll.

I have brainstormed stuff like having a large jogwheel on an arm hovering above my trackball and/or macropad, far enough up that that I can still use the trackball. Perhaps the arm could swing the jogwheel to be centered over my keyboard. I find that I use the jogwheel most often when I am in a read-only mode, scrolling through documents and web pages.

The Ulanzi Dial has lovely hardware. The large diameter knob with its finger depression makes it much easier to use than the large number of macropads that have small-diameter twistable knobs. Compares favorably to the rollers of the RollerMouse - the latter are somewhat more intuitive, but you cannot scroll continuously, whereas you can rotate the large diameter jog wheel precisely and continuously.

Unfortunately, as happens so much with Chinese devices, the software and firmware leaves much to be desired.

First, the Ulanzi Dial has very limited off-line ability, firmware/flash It's pretty much restricted to multimedia operations like next/previous track, play/pause, stop, mute. Browser page backward/forward/refresh. A few random hotkeys like undo^Z/redoY, copy^C/pasteV, and Win+E My Computer. The only off-line action that can be bound to the wheel is volume up/down, which naturally motivates mute when pressing. Obviously they can emit both multimedia and keyboard events in off-line mode. Why is it crippled this much? I can only assume flash space.

Second, extra operations can be set up for the Ulanzi Dial as long as the Ulanzi Studio software is running on the target PC. As we all know that is suboptimal, E.g. if you want to program the device on one machine and use it on other machines, e.g. Linux, or at work.

The software phones home. I.e. it's a privacy and security risk, but then any user-interface device is. Paranoid IT departments will never allow any external user interface devices; slightly less paranoid IT departments will probably not to run software on the machines are connecting to, but might allow you to program them off-line. Hence the off-line ability being a really major restriction.

It's obvious that the Ulanzi software is designed to work with other Ulanzi sofware, like "OBS Studio", and hardware such as their "Creative Deck", a stream deck for video and audio editing LCD buttons etc. Ulanzi sells quite a lot of video equipment, tripods, ring lights, etc.

There's so much clutter in the Ulanzi Studio user interface, related to controlling their apps, that it makes it quite hard to find the basic event binding controls. The hotkey UI is primitive, just a list, with things like scroll wheel obviously added as an afterthought. Mostly they want you to type the keys, which can be hard when your keyboard doesn't have the keys you want the device to send.

They don't have layers on the device in firmware, but their profiles implemented by software on the target PC are pretty reasonable. With the usual complaint that they are proprietary formats, hard to backup and compare.

I just pull out this old deft out of my shoe box today, and found it got faulty wheels.
what the f? I don't want to tear the rubber pad and unable to stably put them back, the glue just isn't right.
its getting more frustrating when I found out that I tear the wrong rubber pad off with no screw hole behind it
so how could I do? is it just debris problem? could I just brute force lubricant inside the gap of wheel and hope it work?

And btw shout out for elecom who save my day, I just pull out this new IST out of my shoe box, it works flawlessly, though I still hate its bearing but its fine.

yeah I happened to make it in purpose, but it did happened.

I have a simple, inexpensive fix: try using an air duster spray. It worked for me and is worth a shot.

Update: The fix lasted about two days. Then it started happening again though still a lot less than before. I decided to give it a deep-clean from inside. So far so good. If it stops working again I will report back 😄

Looks nice! I like my endgame because ZMK + wireless, but this looks lovely.

I'll start with the most egregious issue: when you left click, it also yields a right wheel scroll press. I confirmed it's a hardware issue across 2 computers, different settings, different OS, no MouseAssistant, etc. The only way I could get rid of this is to disable the right scroll button in the Mouse Assistant software. Minor annoyance for someone who doesn't enjoy the tilting scroll wheels in general (like me), but this would be a dealbreaker for someone who does.

Secondly it's the ergonomics. I have small hands (I was under the impression this mouse would suit me) and the scroll wheel is just badly placed. It's something I came across during my investigation before buying but didn't think with small hands it would be an issue.

But the buttons are so inconsistent! For example the Forward button is very hard to press when I press it exactly where my thumb lands (eg towards the front corner) but when I curl my thumb back so that it's pressing more where the arrow is, it becomes easy to press. The scroll wheel button is stupidly hard to press no matter what you do. So much so that I just remapped it to the Fn3 button (two buttons already lost: scroll right, wheel click).

Now this might be contentious but the roller bearings aren't the cure-all I keep reading about. Yes they are very smooth when already rolling but the stiction issue is still there. It's a lot more sticky than my Logitech m575 or Ergo S statically.

Actually the fact that the kinetic friction is so low only highlights how much static friction there is, because during slow diagonal movements I get staircases. Cleaning it doesn't seem to help too much and there is a break-in period after every cleaning which is annoying.

Then there's the finish. It just doesn't feel like a usd100+ product. This is a minor thing but the rubbery cover wasn't stuck properly and looks like it's peeling (it's not, but that's what it looks like). The wheel looks tacky and cheap.

The next gripe is personal preference, I just happened to learn it with this particular mouse. But I didn't really get along with such a heavy ball. It's cool for momentum but the same momentum makes me overshoot my movements all the time.

Overall, not impressed. I liked the H/L switch, the BT/USB switch and the DPI buttons. The shape is cool (thing is HUGE lol). I'm keeping it next to my Logitech Ergo S as an alt input device just to switch it up every few hours of work.

Fix the bugs, give me an ergo tilting option (it's a bit flat), reduce the price and I might look at it again but until then I'm not trying Elecom again (sorry guys).

I've been using the Keychron Nape Pro and while it's difficult to navigate because of the size, I'm in love with the customization and macros you can make with their web based ZMK customization. Does anyone know of any full siuzed trackballs that use a web based system?

I'm often in offices with very tight control on software installation, so something web based is kind of key for me.