#ploopy mouse (https://ploopy.co/mouse/) review 4/10
After getting frustrated at the electronics waste I'm generating by cycling through computer mice every 3-5 years, I decided to grab a kit for the highly repairable #ploopy mouse.
With three months of use, I find it _tolerable_. I'm trying my damnedest to like it, which pains me to say because I would love a truly open mouse.
🧵 breakdown to follow
Let's start with the positives.
It's pretty repairable. Replacement electronics are easily sourced and the 3D printing STL/STEP files are public. It uses the programmable and open source QMK firmware and has a plethora of buttons. Assembly was relatively straightforward. One throughhole component to solder and otherwise just cleaning up some 3D printing mess and screwing a few things together.
Probably about an hour of assembling a kit with good instructions.
But it's definitely not without it's faults.
The scrollwheel is positioned quite far back on the body, offset about a half inch back from the pad of the mouse buttons meaning you really need to crane your finger to pull back and scroll. I often pull my whole hand back on the mouse to use the scrollwheel, which renders this mouse quite uncomfortable for applications that use middle-mouse click and drag.
The scrollwheel mechanism itself is a nightmare.
It has some resistance, but otherwise spins freely. God forbid you stop scrolling just a hair before the next tick of the sensor - any movement as you lift off your finger or nick it as you're pressing a neighboring button and you'll jump another scroll increment in your page. I'd say this happens about 10% of the time and it makes for quite a shaky experience, to the point that I'm almost embarrassed to use this mouse when sharing my screen.
Next up, ergonomics.
The mouse appears to have been inspired by Logitech MX Master 3, which would not be my preferred starting point, but here we are. A lot of folks seem to like these more contoured mice, so I thought it might grow on me, but no luck.
My preference would be a more traditional, symmetric desktop mouse. Although clearly outside the design goals, I'd love to see a future version that would allow for mirroring the housing to make it left-hand compatible.
And finally, on "open source"
No, the mouse is not open source, at least as far as I'd describe it. I regret not discovering this until after purchasing it. Open source is harder to pin down in the hardware space, but the creators have gone to lengths to justify not releasing the actual source design files, and instead only providing STEP artifacts (https://blog.ploopy.co/are-step-files-open-source-278).
Sure that's a reasonable base for modifications, but definitely falls short of the actual open source ethos in my eyes.
Concluding,
It's the best we've got as far as open source hardware goes, and I commend them for that.
The wheel is the death knell for this mouse, and I'll probably have to swallow my pride at some point to buy a mouse that can scroll without giving me whiplash.
It's almost frustratingly close to a good mouse, if only the team got over their odd fixations on 20-year product lifespan at the expense of usability.
as is, 4/10, but with a more traditional body and clicky wheel I'd be in heaven
And just a few awesome resources I found:
- https://github.com/Riesi/ploopy_mouse_kicad
for those that don't want to drop $1.3K/year on Altium to participate in "open source"
- https://www.printables.com/model/993402-ploopy-mouse-scroll-wheel-with-magnet-drag-break/files
creative magnet braking for the scroll. Creator says it doesn't provide enough resistance to be useful on reddit.
- https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4967825
Probably the most promising fix for the scroll wheel, but designed for the trackball variant.
dgkf