#42

i use a magic trackpad 2. it really is nice! it’s my only pointing device for everything i do–web, desktop, audio, video, graphics.

doesn’t hurt my hand or wrist even after multiple long sessions. it’s so low-profile that i don’t have to keep my wrist elevated the way i would with a traditional mouse. also: it can easily be set anywhere, and doesn’t need special surfaces, pads, or large spaces. which is super-handy when i’m moving around the studio, and still need to toggle ableton live’s record when i’m over at the piano or modular.

downside: the multitouch gestures are limited to what apple provides within macOS. there’s no assignable middle click/tap option (such as a 3-finger tap for tabbed browsing). for that, you have to run popular third-party utilities that rely on undocumented/private APIs, so they may break with a future OS update. e.g. bettertouchtool, magicprefs.

#43

I got an Anker vertical mouse as a present (this one) about a week ago.
It’s got the dreaded rubber finish, I hope it will last longer than on the Logitechs, but I doubt it.
Apart from that I’m positively surprised by how much I like it. The basic act of left clicking stuff needs some adjustment, since one does not have the table surface opposing force to it anymore. So at the beginning I was moving the mouse a bit when double-clicking, but it’s just a matter of getting used to it.
For the rest it’s of course a bit early to tell, but I might report back in a month or so.

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#44

I’ve consistently enjoyed the Logitech Performance MX. I’ve had one at home for a long time, then got a new staff job that had me set up with a standard Magic Mouse. After getting some pretty awful (and scary) arthritis pain in my mouse hand, I got them to get me one of the Logitechs for my machine and the pain went away.

Granted, I don’t use any of the fancy functionality :upside_down_face:. It’s just very nice from an ergonomic standpoint.

#45

Well, more than a month has passed, actually, it’s now about a year since I got that mouse and I can say that I’m quite happy with it and am still using it daily. It’s not a magic cure (or prevention) for problems deriving from too much computer use, but for me it does feel better. When I sometimes have to go back to a normal mouse, I can totally feel the difference. My hand quickly gets into a more tense state, which doesn’t happen with the vertical mouse.

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#46

I can also attest that a vertical mouse has alleviated much of my wrist problems, going on 5 years. Not cured, but made it much more managable.

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#47

I’m using that same Anker vertical mouse now for a few years and it really helps with the hand pain. Sometimes I switch it up with a different (Horizontal?) mouse or a trackpad, the regular old flat mouse is the worst for me.

#48

I’m using an Evoluent vertical mouse and it’s worth every penny of the $90. It’s basically eliminated the wrist pain of a decade of CAD work. The Anker seems like a good way to demo the concept first.

My only complaint is that the weight of my hand sometimes hangs on my thumb. Tired thumb beats searing wrist pain, though.

#49

during quar I switching from a thumb-operated Logitech trackball to the Kensington Expert trackball, which supports a wider variety of hand movements. it’s been a lot easier on my wrist. It has the abilitiy to set up a macro to slow down the speed - I use it to really finesse draw the Pro Tools automation.

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#50

I have had RSI a long time and switched to Dvorak 13 years ago and a kinesis advantage 3 years ago. They really help a ton! But for the mouse, my solution was just to switch using my regular wireless mouse to my left hand instead of my right. I’ve never seen anyone else mention this as a solution. my RSI is only in right arm and maybe other folks it’s in both? But I can’t figure out why no one else says to do this. I don’t think I’m naturally ambidexterous but I found it pretty easy, maybe a few days to adjust at most. I’m saying this and am thinking how it only took me a week or two to adjust to Dvorak and a day or two to adjust to kinesis so maybe my arms are wired different than other folks, but I’ve always just considered it an issue of dedicated hours of practice the first day or two when I make an ergonomic switch. My other caveat I should mention is that I’m a heavy keyboard / command line / tiling window manager user, so I think I use the mouse way less than other folks as well.

#51

Another vote for switching up your hands as well as pointing device! I’ve had to get more and more creative over the years.

The (admittedly insane) setup for my desk has 3 points:

  1. Rotate around input devices, make it easy to do so.
  2. Switch hands (left hand Kensington Expert trackball and 3D mouse, right hand for Logitech Master MX and vertical mice, also a small graphics tablet — forcing me to use different muscles groups)
  3. Make easy, disposable macros for repetitive things - e.g. a Stream Deck triggers things including Keyboard Maestro for Mac (which has an excellent quick macro recorder).

That said, this is not for everyone; I’ve just painted myself into this corner and found some principles which let me keep working. The number of alternate input devices I’ve trialed… ugh.

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