You know how products that, at their core, are adaptive technology for the disabled have to be marketed as luxuries or conveniences in order to produce them on a large enough scale to be affordable? How things like electric can openers or reach extenders get made fun of as wastes of money for lazy people, when in fact they enable people to maintain aspects of their independence?
I feel like there is a parallel in computer interface technology. While it's not as crucial as whether or not someone is able to make dinner or pick up a dropped cup without help, people with certain kinds of chronic injuries (such as myself) have a lot of trouble dealing with prolonged use of typical computer interface devices. For me in particular, it makes it hard to engage in a lot of PC-based games, which are one of the only ways I've been able to be social sometimes.
And in my own experience, when I find something that works really well in letting me play games without aggravating my left wrist pain, it's often a peripheral that was made for a niche audience and which has gone out of production.
I'm hoping that, as gaming becomes a bigger and bigger market, devices that have unintended potential as adaptive technology will find a commensurately larger audience of buyers hoping to PwN the N00bS!!, allowing such devices to continue to be made at an affordable price and volume.
Some examples:
The Sandio 3D Game O2 mouse, with it's 3 integrated joysticks, was originally intended for use in manipulating designs in a 3D design environment. Later, as evinced by the name, Sandio started marketing it as a game accessory.
The software that came with the mouse was fairly limited., but I found a third party program written by someone in a position similar to mine that made the joystick/mouse to keyboard mapping vastly more flexible. I used it to replace holding my left hand endlessly over the WASD keys, a standard means of controlling motion in games, with a joystick under my right thumb.
I mapped a bunch of the other keys clustered in that part of the keyboard to the other joysticks. That mouse enabled me to play several games entirely one-handed, and it's hard to express how good it is to not have moderate wrist pain for hours while playing, or mild-to-moderate pain for a day or two after from overuse.
The Sandio 3D Game O2 was discontinued when I found it, but I got one on Ebay. While I was in the Netherlands, one joystick wore out. I saved the mouse, hoping I could solder a new joystick in eventually. Meanwhile, my parents bought another one for me that I saw on US Ebay and had it shipped to them. They brought it to Canada for me when they visited and it was so great to have it! Both of them burned in the fire. (
https://www.ergocanada.com/products/mice/contoured/sandio/3d_game_o2/sandio_3DGameO2.html)
I actually bought a Lexip PU94 new in the Netherlands (I almost *never* buy new stuff) because it seemed like it could replace the Sandio. But the integrated joystick was just too hard to adjust correctly and use in the way I needed. It was a nice mouse otherwise, but I gave up on it as adaptive technology for chronic pain. (
https://www.lexip.co/en/products/Pu94)
The interestingly named "Stinkyboard" was intended to replace holding your left hand over the WASD keys with foot motions and I think it would be perfect for me. I never did get to try this one: it's out of production and very hard to find. Here's a thread with disabled gamers discussing that product and talking about how helpful it is as adaptive technology and where to (hopefully) find it now that it's out of production. But adaptive technology isn't a big enough market to support a product on it's own, and I guess it didn't' take off with gamers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/disabledgamers/comments/ab2dcy/choice_of_foot_controllers/Another form of adaptive technology I've used is programmable macro pads, especially from X-Keys.
https://xkeys.com/xkeys.html They produce a 3-button footpedal and an array of different-sized keypads, all of which are programmable with proprietary software to emulate keys, mouse-clicks, and macros. Those are fabulous for a lot of repetitive, productivity tasks that might otherwise strain my wrist, but not so great for games because it's just a new kind of keyboard, basically.
I've used a Kinesis Advantage keyboard for something like 10 years now, and it's a big help. It offloads a lot of keypresses from my left pinky (which is one of the things that most aggravates my pain) and puts them onto the thumbs, which don't do anything but space on a regular keyboard. That combined with the reduced pronation of the wrist thanks to the shape means it still causes pain over time, but more slowly than a typical keyboard. My employer bought one for me, a decade and more back, and let me take it with when I left because no one else wanted it. It burned in the fire and a new one is going to be over $400, so it has to wait for the insurance, like all these other things I had. At least the Kinesis is definitely replaceable since it's stillin production.
https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/Another example of something that I think would be *amazing* for me is the DataHand. It would completely remove a lot of the tension of holding my arm and wrist in place, and the repeated finger motions of a regular keyboard. I have never seen one in person, or even on an Ebay listing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHandAnother device as phantasmal as the DataHand is the WarMouse. This is a perfect example becuase it was originally called the OpenOffice Mouse, and was intended to be a productivity tool for work processing. I have still never seen another mouse with this many buttons, and I've wanted one for years! It didn't catch on for the boring productivity use, so they tried gamers. No luck there either I guess; it's been out of production for a long time.
From this review: "The WarMouse Meta goes where no mouse has gone before. However, at the end of the day we can't help but wonder who could possibly remember how to use so many buttons on a single gadget. Sure, there's niche appeal for designers or gamers, but if you have $80 to spend on a mouse we'd honestly go with a more ergonomic option..." and the other options the suggest are not as functional as adaptive technology. Trust me: I could remember that many buttons if I used them consistently to avoid pain!
https://www.engadget.com/2010-05-03-warmouse-meta-review.htmlAll of these devices are far more expensive than typical peripherals because of the small user group, and many of them just can't seem to be produced affordably and disappear.
I'm considering pledging a current Kickstarter for another adaptive/gaming device called the Hedgehog. It's a mouse-like device that could potentially replace all the functions I use my left hand on a keyboard for. It won't be ready for as long as a year, but it has a lot of potential.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hedgehoggaming/the-hedgehog-gaming-mouse-and-controllerMaybe there will be enough gamers who find the Hedgehog useful in doing sick DPS in WoW or wherever that, for people who find such devices let them simply continue enjoying doing something they enjoy without experiencing serious pain, it will keep being made and available instead of turning into another device that exists in the form of long-term hope of it turning up on Ebay or Craigslist.
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