Keychron's Nape Pro turns your keyboard into a laptop‑style trackball rig
yankodesign.com82 points by tortilla 20 hours ago
82 points by tortilla 20 hours ago
A year ago I went down the rabbit hole of looking into custom trackball-keyboard integrations. Ploopy, Charybdis, Dactyl, CCK-ball, etc. My final boring conclusion is that what I had already been doing for the past 20 years is much cheaper and gets me 99.99% of the way:
All you need is a regular ~$50 trackball and a regular ~$100 keyboard without a numpad. (You can have an overlay for that, if you need it.)
As someone else pointed out, this new trackball will make you move your fingers (and wrists) significantly off home row. If you do that in one direction or the other doesn't really matter.
If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool". We've had this technology since the literal 1990s guys.
> this new trackball will make you move your fingers (and wrists) significantly off home row.
Only if you use it off to one side or the other. Seems like it was built to live below the KB and be operated with thumbs. If that's the case, your fingers should never have to leave the home row.
Now it may interfere with KB wrist rests, but learning proper typing form (raised wrists) would solve for that.
I did build a charybdis, and I daily it. Its been great typing wise. I don't have any wrist issues anymore.
The trackball I don't use for any precision actions. Its useful if I want to hit a tab, or move to the other monitor. But trying to hit small links for example is painful. (That being said I am using the stock bearings, which don't seem to work well)
It was a significant expense for a keyboard, especially being a kit. Albeit my wrists are worth it.
I'm enjoying my ZSA Voyager and Navigator (trackball) combo.
Out of picture, I also have a Magic Trackpad (right) and Logitech MX Anywhere 3 (left). I like to switch up my hand movements.
Hello, fellow ZSA Voyager plus dual-weild aficionado! It’s great, isn’t it? I saw [this](https://evantravers.com/articles/2023/04/06/magsafe-tenting-...) here recently and promptly bought some mini-tripods and MagSafe adapters. Access to arbitrary tenting angles has been a big plus. I also have a 3D printed deck for it that sits over my MacBook keyboard and is quite nice. Don’t want to lose access to my Miryoku layout when on the move! Especially home row chording.
I also went down the switches rabbit hole and ended up with lighter weight switches under my pinkies, which I find quite pleasant.
I also dual-wield a Magic Trackpad (outside left) and Logitech Lift (which I have found to be vastly better for my wrist than a normal mouse, since it requires much less unnatural rotation).
I’m also looking forward to the ZSA trackpad attachment for the Voyager. Interested to see whether it’s an improvement on the excellent Magic Trackpad. As an avid Magic Trackpad user, what do you think of the trackball?
All in all, though, this kind of setup feels like something of final destination, don’t you think? No more desire to tinker and can see myself using it this way for decades - just replacing switches if / when they fail. I even have some spare keycaps which I bought from Tai-Hao (who manufacture the original keycaps, I believe). I bought the blanks from ZSA then sort of regretted it. They look so darn cool but made the transition to Miryoku harder than it needed to be.
Goodness gracious look how much I’ve written about my keyboard. My wife would find this very amusing.
I love the the Voyager when I want to really focus or if I'm going to code for a long time (limits my arm movements and I'm more intentional). When I'm doom scrolling or being creative, I end up using the mouse (I'm looking at the Lift too) or the trackpad more.
Yes, it's my end game but I was pretty tempted by the go60 because of the wireless nature. https://www.moergo.com/pages/go60
Do you find you use the trackball for precise movements? I wonder if a more polished product is any different than the Charybdis.
I used the trackball for about 2 weeks straight when I got it. I felt I could do about 95% of movements I wanted pretty easily. Became like second nature. But I prefer the Magic Trackpad for its gestures. So basically I have 3 pointing devices on my desk now (LOL).
> If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball
A few years back, I bought and tried various Logitech/Kensington-type trackballs between two halves of my split keyboard and none of them worked well enough due to being too large for comfortable reach (and also the casing being large enough to force the halves farther apart than I prefer). I even bought a smaller uncased trackball component to try to make something but never got around to it.
I saw a photo of this product a few days ago in some CES round-up and immediately thought "oh, someone finally made the thing I wanted" (narrow, small). Of course, because the exact height, position and angle of these kinds of things tend to matter ergonomically, it may not work for me but it's a lot closer than anything I've yet seen. If it's reasonably priced, I'll probably pick one up to try.
Too late to add this as an edit to my post, but: I should have specified I do a fair bit of CAD and image editing work in addition to coding, so I need a high quality pointing device.
If you just use the pointing device for switching windows and clicking links/icons, maybe it's a different story.
> If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool".
Most people never saw a trackball, let alone used it.
Mainly because either your PC comes with a mouse, or you use a laptop which comes with a touchpad.
Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around. If you grew used to one then you don't notice the poor form factor, but it's awkward and still forces to move your hand away of a keyboard.
The Charybdis, Dactyl, and CCK-ball kind of address the problem by making it reachable by a thumb, but they don't eliminate it completely because it still forces you to follow an awkward user flow.
This product feels like a trackball that lets you place it where it makes sense. I think it's an improvement.
I have faith that keyboards with embedded touchpad such as the Kinesis Form fix this issue, but I'm not willing to shelf ~$300 for an experiment. I'd rather try out a split keyboard and have a boring touchpad where it feels right. Multi-finger touch gestures kind of eliminate any other flow. Hopefully keychron will consider that too.
> Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around.
I don't understand - between the Kensington Orbit, Kensington TB550, Elecom HUGE, Nulea M505, M511 & M514 and the Micropack V05M - what ergonomic form factors are we missing?
The Form is $199, not $300. So, smaller gamble but it sure looks like a gamble.
Kinesis charges $100 to ship anywhere outside of North America.
Also, it's not a split board, you can't actually separate the two halves.
For a touch over $300 you could have almost any split board/track pad combo you'd want. Such a strange product from Kinesis.
I've been using trackballs since the early 1980s (that was a custome-built thing attached to a DG Nova, but still). Can't go back to a regular mouse. But yeah, I don't see what this does that my current trackballs don't do, or at least that I would ever use. And it looks really awkward to use. I also don't really care that much about the half-second it takes to move my hand. I don't touch-type or type nonstop. So practically that means nothing to me.
Yes, seeing this product's very angular non-3d-printed yet-prototype design brought back memories of the days when the default portable hardware interface didn't always include a pointing device and thus there were these clip-on trackballs, like below.
Maybe some of the weirdest were things that looked like small mice that were linked and position-sensed by a bar linkage to the laptop. I can't find a reference to one tho, so maybe I'm mis-remembering?
http://xahlee.info/kbd/logitech_trackman_portable_trackball....
You are thinking of the HP Omnibook.
Many thanks! Seeing that mouse-like thing pop out with the "mouse eject button" was very satisfactory.
Having not seen that hardware interface today while reviewing Wikipedia entries for pointer devices left me questioning my memory like the Fruit of the Loom cornucopia or "Berenstein Bears".
Is there something similar with a lower profile? I use a Logitech MX Keys keyboard and the trackball seems too high to use it comfortably. Either a trackball or a trackpoint (like the one on Lenovos) would be OK.
I'm not sure if a standalone trackpoint really makes sense, the main benefit of those is being accessible from the home row, which you lose if it's not integrated into the keyboard. If you're moving your hand anyway then you may as well use something more precise for pointing.
If you're willing to replace your keyboard, Lenovo does make a standalone version of their ThinkPad keyboard complete with trackpoint though.
Not exactly trackballs, but Magic Trackpad can be considered an alternative. Or roller mouse slim (crazy expensive)
I think the trackpoint nub would have been a better choice.
While I do use one daily (when I'm laptop only), I would say that it seems to be made for fingers, not thumbs. It's hard to be accurate with thumbs.
Re thumb vs finger control. RSI researcher once told me "Which could you live without, a finger or your right thumb?"
Call me when they make a thinkpad-like trackpoint
For trackpoint fans Lenovo makes a classic Thinkpad keyboard as a standalone rechargeable wireless keyboard. It works with Bluetooth, it's own USB wireless dongle or even wired USB. Has a switch for Windows or Android/Linux key mapping. I have one and like it (although it's pricey at around $100).
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-Trackpoint-Keyboard-4....
This keyboard is one of the staples of my desk. Saying this as someone who also dabbles in all of the exotic stuff. Sometimes you need a reliable, small, and convenient keyboard - that's where these tiny Lenovo trackpoint keyboards fit in every time.
Yep, I have two and am always moving them around between various rooms at home where I only occasionally need a keyboard/mouse. Home theater: setting up a new media streaming stick, Arcade room: tweaking the settings on the PCs in my arcade or virtual pinball cabinet, IT closet: adjusting some pre-boot setting on a Raspberry Pi. It's really perfect because it's small, complete (keyboard and mouse in one device/port), flexible (USB, Bluetooth, RF Dongle) and actually has a good keybed (unlike most small portables). I also like that its auto-shutoff works well, meaning it's usually charged even if I haven't used it in a month.
When I say "There's nothing I don't like about it", it's actually pretty high praise because I'm finicky, demanding and notice the details in stuff I use.
This [0] is pretty close. IBM made a version of the Model M with Trackpoint but those are rare. Lenovo also sells [1] a keyboard that's basically a Thinkpad keyboard with trackpoint in a separate chassis.
[0] https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CS1FVF2
Some great options have been mentioned already.
Another interesting option is the HHKB Studio keyboard. https://hhkeyboard.us/hhkb-studio/product
HolyKeebs also has TrackPoint modules available for some exotic ergo split keyboards: https://holykeebs.com/
A very exotic option is the Svalboard, which is available with both trackball and trackpoint configurations: https://svalboard.com/
Unicomp, which inherited the IBM Model M tooling, still makes a keyboard with a trackpoint: https://www.pckeyboard.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Cate...
I love that keyboard, but I wish they'd increase the TrackPoint cut out for the GHB keys more. It's not the easiest when attempting to move the cursor to the top-left, top-right, and bottom areas of the screen.
Reminds me, I need to fix my T480's screen. I have the part but I'm lazy.
Nice, I want one! Assuming it works great (Keychron products usually do)
I have a split keyboard (RKS70) with a magic trackpad in the middle, I love it and recommend this setup, My palms barely move when my index gets out of homerow to reschedule trackpad
I tried placing trackball on different positions especially with ploopy nano trackball and then with readymade options like UHK; none of them were comfortable enough. I now use the Logitech trackball which feels very convenient.
Seems like the Ploopy Nano with buttons.
It's been a while since laptops came with trackballs, but it's a cool idea nonetheless.
Mnt reform and the mini both feature optional track balls. Might be more of a niche but still, you can buy a new laptop with a trackball.
May need a custom wrist pad to surround it
Prefer a mouse or a trackpad, so .. maybe it's cool in a 00's way.
Also, Keychron keyboards are way too heavy. Like 1 Model M too heavy. And web-based only flash updating doesn't feel like real ownership. The upside is it's a model that allows exchanging switches. One thing I didn't appreciate was red key caps without black replacements without buying a whole set.
People have been putting Blackberry trackballs on QMK builds for quite a while.
I'm odd - what I want is a stupidly big trackball, like 4 inches across or so. And it should be able to detect rotation about the vertical axis. It infuriates me how optical tracking systems are designed to provide just translation and no rotation when there's a whole other DoF in play.
You think you do. The issue is it's just about impossible to isolate translation from rotation. You would always be doing just a little rotating every time you touched the ball, whether you wanted to or not. And any time you tried 'rotating', you'd also be moving the cursor.
6DOF devices have been done (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceOrb_360 or https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/12416/Logitech-Cyber...). They're sorta fun to use (at first) in CAD for browsing 3D models, but never caught on as once you get good at the CAD UIs, the extra degrees of freedom get in the way more than they help.
rotation works pretty well for scrolling on the kensington slimblade with a little bit of getting-used-to. when it detects rotation, it stops moving the cursor.
My family had one of the Microsoft EasyBall's growing up - that thing was absolutely huge.
The only use we got out of it was as a MAME controller for Marble Madness.
yeah, it drives me a little crazy that the only trackball that supports rotation is the Kensington Slimblade. I'd love to try a ploopy or something else out there, because i don't otherwise particularly like the slimblade (especially the software and the industrial design - ugly!) but i can't give up rotational scrolling. it's so much better than scroll wheels or scroll-mode buttons once you get the hang of it.
>Fun design and internals aside, the new trackball module seems to have a 1/4-20 threaded tripod mount on the bottom, a common addition for ergonomic split keyboards that opens up a lot of options for angular mounting and similar ideas.
Source: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Keychron-Nape-Pro-wireless-tra...
I'm glad they implemented this! Checking the photo of this particular feature, it seems the 1/4-20 thead is paired with another hole: https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/Notebooks/News/_nc5/...
I was very hopeful that the hole arrangeemnt would be for an ARRI pin-lock: https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/320202/04f5271d1d21f8c7db...
Referring back to the Nape Pro picture from CES, this appears not to be the case. One thing these 1/4-20 mounted ergonomic keyboard designs need is a locking mechanism that prevents the keyboard from gradually pivoting during regular use. For the Nape Pro, I wonder how feasible it would be to drill the hole into it's exterior?
If you're thinking of mouting these at the edge of a surface, then make sure your 1/4-20 mounting arms use the ARRI pin lock on that end. It's annoying when your keyboard pivots, but if the whole mounting arm pivots, then you might be in trouble (i.e, a loosened mounting arm swings 180 degrees down towards the ground, potentially damaging your keyboard).
Here are some examples of those types of arms from SmallRig:
https://www.smallrig.com/Rosette-Magic-Arm-11-inch-with-ARRI...
https://www.smallrig.com/Rosette-Magic-Arm-7-inch-with-ARRI-...
https://www.smallrig.com/SmallRig-Magic-Arm-with-Dual-Ball-H...
And a clamp that has the ARRI holes:
I'd hope that if they're releasing the 3D files, then swapping the baseplate out for something custom or aftermarket won't be too hard. I assume there are fasteners under the rubber feet.
3D files would be fantastic.
Maybe one day we'll see a group buy with an all-aluminum case and PVD brass bottom weight.
