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Has Anyone Tried the Quill Mouse?

Posted by Cliff on from the unusual-hardware-designs dept.

Anonymous Coward asks: "Has anyone at Slashdot has heard of or used the Quill Mouse? It's an odd shaped mouse that's supposed to reduce repetitive stress injuries like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." Rather than grabbing and moving the Quill mouse with your hands, you rest your hand in the Quill's "nook" and move the entire assembly with your arms. Since the palm of your hand is facing inward, you can then click the buttons which have been rotated to match the "nook". The web page says this hand position is less likely to cause RSI than the position a standard mouse requires. Anyone with (or who have used) a Quill Mouse care to comment?

10 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Repetitive Stress by Enrico+Pulatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's an uninformed question: is RSS actually cured by changing the position of the hand, or is this treating the symptoms? I've got nothing against selling relief for a problem, but does it really fix the problem?

    1. Re:Repetitive Stress by qengho · · Score: 4, Interesting


      is RSS actually cured by changing the position of the hand

      Since it removes the "Stress" part of Repetitive Stress Injury, it prevents further damage. Probably won't cure anything, though.

      I was developing problems in my forearm, so I tried the Anir Vertical Mouse. Made a huge difference. After using it for a few years, I can handle a normal mouse again without discomfort. Hey, maybe these things do cure RSI...

  2. i like vertical mouse better by sweet+reason · · Score: 5, Informative

    i bought an Evoluent Vertical Mouse from ergo recently, and i like it a lot. (that's a canadian store, and the price is in canadian dollars. for those from the US, that may be attractive.)

    unlike the Quill, it has 5 buttons (including the wheel button), and thus easily replaced my MS explorer trackball. using a Quill i would really miss those other two buttons. it also has a smaller footprint, since your hand surrounds it, rather than being surrounded by it.

    --
    Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
  3. Gorilla Arm by Boglin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I wish this firm the best of luck, I believe there is a flaw in their system. I remember somewhere about one of the reasons why the touch screen failed (is still not in common use) is that it, like the Quill, relied on the muscles of the upper arm to move the hand around the screen to click (technically touch) the controls. Well, the muscles of the upper armed are designed to provide great force, as opposed to accuracy. The end result was that peoples upper arm got tired far more quickly than the wrist would, and people felt like they had "gorilla arm".

    Now, I have not used this product, nor will I ever; a childhood injury prevents my wrists from rotating in the way necessary to use their mice. Therefore, they may have a perfectly reasonible way of handling the moevments. I'm just worried about their blanket assumption that the shoulder is superior tot he wrist.

    1. Re:Gorilla Arm by kruntiform · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You might like to try a graphics tablet. I've got a Wacom Graphire II, and it works well. You do move your fingers, and there is not much repetative motion. You can use it with your hand very relaxed (assuming you hold a pen properly -- many people don't); so it's pretty easy on the hands. There are some bad points: you need a decent level of fine motor control to use it. A lot of that come with practice though. But I always wince when my friend uses my computer because he is likely to accidentally and randomly drag-and-drop stuff all over the place.

  4. Change Hands by keynet · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Some years ago I worked in a really bad setup that caused pain all along the upper arm and through the shoulders and neck. I had to shift the mouse to the left hand because I almost literally could not use my right hand for the task. Not only did the pain go from the right arm, but it has never, after 6 years, appeared in my left arm.

    I suspect the reason is that my right arm, being dominant, applies too much force for the task, which then requires counterforce from other muscles top control the fine movements needed for the mouse, resulting in unrelkeased tenmsions through the whole muscle group. Meanwhile the non-dominant left arm just gets on with the job. It takes about a day to reprogram your hand for the buttons and then forget it. Better still, work smarter, use the keyboard shortcuts wherever possible.

  5. Danger Will Robinson by crmartin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Changing positions like that may well help, but be warned that the explanation they give is, well, crap. RSI isn't really well understood, but (in the case of carpal tunnel disease) it's pretty certainly not because of lack of blood flow.

    As to the issue about moving the arm rather than the fingers, those of us who are old enough to have had real penmanship classes remember that this is the way we were taught to write, too. After my own bout of RSI (caused by playing rogue for about 36 hours straight during grad school) I retrained myself to keep my wrists straight while typing (instead of resting them on the keyboard) and to use my armj rather than my hand for the mouse, and have since had no trouble.

    Knock wood.

  6. ExtremeTech has a review... by questionlp · · Score: 3, Informative

    ExtremeTech has a review on the Quill Mouse along with a vertical-split keyboard. The reviewer found that the mouse was comfortable to use... but the thing does look funny :)

  7. Arguments and Pen Pads . . . by Dausha · · Score: 2, Funny

    Okay, so if I put one ounce of pressure on my thumb tip it is the exact same as ten ounces on my thumb--and ends up being tens of tons a year?

    I use VI in the console and ALT+Tab my way to various different screens, so I doubt I do 10,000 mouse clicks a day; let alone 2 million a year. So, I suppose, in following their arguement, that I don't walk two kilometers on my hands.

    My eyelid blinks once very two seconds, 16 hours a day--or 28800 blinks. That's 10.5 million blinks a year. Again, following their logic, the amount of weight moved is, let's say two grams a blink. Oh, my God, my eyelids lift 21 metric tons! No wonder they hurt looking at their web site!

    And, my hands hurt using a damn mouse, so I use a pen pad. Unfortunately, now I have a scribes callous.

    --
    What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
  8. Yes as a matter of fact... by techstar25 · · Score: 2, Funny

    A cool website called Slashdot.org recently had a link to an article at extremetech where it was reviewed along with a vertical keyboard.
    Slashdot's original story about them is here...
    Seriously, though, the extremetech article was a good read.