In praise of the Logitech Lift

[Starship Krupa]

I've been a longtime fan of Logitech pointing devices, going back 30 years when I was working at a company that shared a parking lot with Logitech. At the time they had a factory store for open box/refurb and I availed myself.

Last time I was at my bank, I noticed the teller using an upright mouse. Instead of using the mouse with the palm facing down, you use the mouse with the palm facing inward at a 45 degree angle, the hand resting on its heel. Simple idea, but it blew my mind. The hand naturally wants to rest on its heel, with the palm facing inward. In order to use a standard mouse, you must rotate your forearm 90 degrees, so that the palm faces downward.

eBay yielded an open box Logitech Lift upright mouse in very good condition, probably from someone who tried it and didn't like it.

I, on the other hand like it enough to post about it here.

It has the two standard left and right click buttons and wheel where you'd expect to find them, plus two programmable thumb buttons and another programmable button on the palm surface just aft of the wheel. The wheel click is also programmable. A couple of features that it lacks compared to other mice I've used are mousewheel tilt and the wieghted smartshift wheel that unlocks to freewheel. I did like the smartshift wheel, but never used wheel tilt.

I keep the thumb buttons programmed to Ctrl and Alt, which allows for one-handed copy operations in Cakewalk.

It's taking a bit of getting used to, gravity is different when the hand is upright, but I'm sure it will become at least as natural as palm down mousing. Gaming is fun, the upright mouse has a joystick feel to it.

Edited November 14, 2024 by Starship Krupa
Changed to better describe the hand position

[Sal Sorice]

I’m a big fan of the Kensington trackball mouse. Love that it saves space (since you don’t have to move it like a regular mouse). Also has lots of click options that you can program. 
 

Kensington track ball mouse

[Jim Roseberry]

Finding the right pointing device can really help those with RSI issues.

Many folks love a trackball.  For whatever reason, they really inflame my Tendonitis. 

 

Right now, I'm using a Logitech G703 Lightspeed. 

Buttons and wheel don't have a lot of resistance... and that seems to keep things comfortable (for my situation).

 

Have never tried the Lift.

 

 

[kitekrazy1]

If you like to play PC games a track ball is a lousy choice.

[msmcleod]

On 10/31/2024 at 1:49 PM, Sal Sorice said:

I’m a big fan of the Kensington trackball mouse. Love that it saves space (since you don’t have to move it like a regular mouse). Also has lots of click options that you can program. 
 

Kensington track ball mouse

I use one of those too... I've had issues with their mouse driver tho.

[Sal Sorice]

22 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I use one of those too... I've had issues with their mouse driver tho.

I am not a Gamer at all, so trackball is great for me. @msmcleod, I've have good luck with 3.1.14 drivers for the Kensington Trackball. Very stable for me on Win10 Pro.

[Starship Krupa]

On 10/31/2024 at 6:49 AM, Sal Sorice said:

I’m a big fan of the Kensington trackball mouse.

Longtime fan of the Logitech Trackman Marble. My pointing device of choice in places where I don't have enough flat space to use a mouse. And yeah, for gaming, I can just about do my daily Elder Scrolls Online crafting writs, but any kind of combat would be out of the question.

My biggest issue with the Marble in non-gaming use is the lack of a wheel equivalent. May I assume that the ring surrounding the ball on the Kensington acts as the "wheel?"

@Jim Roseberry, if you have any condition that is aggravated (or even caused) by mouse action, check out either the Logitech Lift or MX Vertical. I went with the Lift because although it's less expensive, it looks like reviewers like it better than the MX Vertical.

Edited November 14, 2024 by Starship Krupa

[msmcleod]

6 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Longtime fan of the Logitech Trackman Marble. My pointing device of choice in places where I don't have enough flat space to use a mouse.

My biggest issue with the Marble is the lack of a wheel equivalent. May I assume that the ring surrounding the ball on the Kensington acts as the "wheel?"

Yes - the ring is the mouse wheel.  It works really well.

I tend to use my forefinger & middle finger for controlling the ball, and my ring finger for the wheel and right button.  The left button I use my thumb.

[Starship Krupa]

2 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

I tend to use my forefinger & middle finger for controlling the ball, and my ring finger for the wheel and right button.  The left button I use my thumb.

With the Marble, it's thumb for the left button, forefinger on the ball, and ring on the right button for me. Middle finger assists with either ball or right button, depending.

It sure beats trying to use a mouse on my knee.

[sjoens]

Those sidewinder thingies are a step in the right direction (tho track ball swidewinders will wear out your thumb).  Anything  that extends the wrist for prolonged periods can damage it over time.  A mouse/keyboard that allows the wrist to relax in the flat or flexion position - or one that requires occasional wrist movement, would be almost risk free, but I've never seen such a device.

I've resorted to bracing my wrist on the edge of the desk/table with my elbow below it, which keeps the wrist in a flat position.

[Starship Krupa]

17 hours ago, sjoens said:

A mouse/keyboard that allows the wrist to relax in the flat or flexion position - or one that requires occasional wrist movement, would be almost risk free, but I've never seen such a device.

With the Lift, which I'm liking even more than I did when I first got it, my wrist naturally sits in that flexion shape, albeit with the forearm now in a position that I'll call "non-rotated." It's the same rotation that one's arm is in when the arm is at one's side while standing and relaxed. Or shaking hands with someone.

It feels so natural that it's really a "why did it take 35 years to figure this out" experience.

[sjoens]

13 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

"why did it take 35 years to figure this out"

Those rotten apples...   and countless wrist injuries.

[HOOK]

I've had more hours at a desk, with a mouse and  a keyboard, than I'd really care to admit.  I don't know if it's genetics or what....technique maybe....but I've never understood how people get injuries from a mouse or a keyboard.

 

[pwalpwal]

swapping mousing hand can help rsi-type stuff, but makes you **** at gaming haha

[Glenn Stanton]

same, i simply rest my wrist on the desk and use fast mouse pointer move so i'm only moving the mouse slightly. proper posture for the reading and keyboard usage. using a mouse since 1987... no wrist issues. just need to tune your seating position / desk levels properly and support the wrist.

[Glenn Stanton]

1 minute ago, pwalpwal said:

swapping mousing hand can help rsi-type stuff, but makes you **** at gaming haha

you shouldn't play games on your DAW machine anyways 🙂 it's why God created gaming consoles...

[pwalpwal]

2 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

you shouldn't play games on your DAW machine anyways 🙂 it's why God created gaming consoles...

i'm useless with gamepads/controllers, i can only game with mouse & keyboard on a pc, unless it's vr where i'm somewhere inbetween

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, HOOK said:

I've never understood how people get injuries from a mouse or a keyboard

The carpal tunnel varies in diameter among people, making for greater or lesser susceptibility.

RSI may be less common among musicians because we have to be mindful about things like finger placement when learning instruments.

Positioning the extremities for injury-free less restricted efficient movement isn't a behavior that people are necessarily born with. When I first started playing 1st person shooter games back in the 90's, I had some residual joint pain in my right index and middle fingers after multiple-hour sessions. I studied how I was using my mouse buttons and noticed that I was pressing with the pads of my fingers rather than the tips. This resulted in the joints inverting slightly when I pressed. It had never been a problem because I never had to deliver that many mouse clicks before, and I was pressing with more force in the heat of battle. I made a conscious decision to curl my fingers and start pressing with the tips of my fingers and the pain stopped immediately.

Not everyone seems to be capable of, or good at, analyzing how they're holding their fingers/wrists/arms and making adjustments.

My mother has been using computer mice for 30 years and has never performed what I would call a normal double-click. It may be hard to describe this, but when she's called upon to double click a mouse button, she performs 2 distinct single clicks as fast as possible. What I mean by this is that if you tell yourself you're going to click your mouse only once, you'll (all in an instant) place your finger on the button, then press it, then your finger will return to whatever its resting, ready position is. When you double-click, you probably press the button, then leave your finger on the button for a quick second press, then return to ready position. With mom, she executes the full "place, press, return to ready position" sequence, then repeats the whole thing again, hopefully quickly enough for the computer to register it as a double-click.

As many times as I tried to explain it to her that her computer often fails to register double clicks because her technique delivers them too slowly, rather than trying to change it up she just tries to be faster at her 2 single click thing. I gave up years ago.

To me, it's as obvious as if I were watching someone deliver a meal to a house, and instead of handing the various dishes through the front door all in one session, they hand over one dish, then close the door, then ring the doorbell every time they hand over a different part of the order. Ring, here's your chow mein, ring, here's your rice, ring, here's the chicken.

Some people just have a harder time of it. The way they learned to make these movements made sense to them when they learned them and being mindful about whether it's the most comfortable, least stressful way just ain't happening.

Check the differences in the ways people hold writing instruments. I see a LOT of people with the pen or pencil in this inverted-knuckle death grip that would result in joint pain if I tried to write an entire page that way. My penmanship has never been great, but at least the way I hold the pen is textbook.

I was a mouse-and-keyboard gamer up until a couple of years ago, then switched to a controller. Now I use a hybrid system where in movement/combat activities I use the controller and when doing more type-y things I use the mouse and keyboard.

Edited January 7 by Starship Krupa

[sjoens]

Anyone use a joystick for DAW work?  Yaw and pitch for scrolling seems more intuitive. Assign buttons for mouse clicking. Trigger for play/stop, etc. Or is that even possible?

[Amberwolf]

You can use a joystick for MIDI easily enough; there have been several programs / drivers for doing that.  If you can assign the joystick functions you want to transport controls it would do those things.

I never looked into using one for mouse / keyboard control, but I'm sure there's options for that, too.  

Combining them...might take more doing, but if both "drivers" / programs can recieve the joystick inputs and you can just disable anythign you don't want that one to do, it should still work.