Programmer Musings

3D Mice

Tim O'Reilly had an interesting little write-up called O'Reilly Radar > Report on visit to Sensors Expo over on O'Reilly Radar. Jonathan Gennick went to see this expo where companies were showing off some of the current advances in ZigBee based sensor technology.

One of the devices was a small "three-axis accelerometer about the size of your little fingernail." The demo involved moving this device around to select items on a menu. Jonathan made a suggestion that this could be used to make a ring that you could wear on your finger and use as a mouse in three dimensions.

The funny thing is I had an equivalent device in the mid-to-late 90s. It was called a "Ring Mouse" and it was ultrasound-based. My wife was looking at various alternatives to a traditional mouse, and this was one of the ideas we tried.

It sounds like a cool idea and the "ring toss game" that came with the mouse made it look like it would actually work. Unfortunately, in actual usage it was horrible. Any time you moved your hand (in the field of the sensor) the mouse moved, whether you meant it to or not. When you did want to move the mouse, you ended up with your arm up in the air instead of resting on the desk. I found my arm was always tired and using it was uncomfortable. I did give it a couple of weeks before giving up.

This is definitely one of those ideas that sounds better in demo-land than in actual use.