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Keychron's Nape Pro turns your keyboard into a laptop‑style trackball rig

86 points by tortilla

by semi-extrinsic

8 subcomments

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.

by uallo

2 subcomments

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.

by daft_pink

1 subcomments

I think the trackpoint nub would have been a better choice.

by Bobaso

0 subcomment

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

by toroszo

5 subcomments

Call me when they make a thinkpad-like trackpoint

by hasperdi

1 subcomments

Nice, I want one! Assuming it works great (Keychron products usually do)

by bicepjai

0 subcomment

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.

by adolph

0 subcomment

Seems like the Ploopy Nano with buttons.
https://ploopy.co/nano-2/
https://github.com/ploopyco/nano-2-trackball

by jsheard

1 subcomments

It's been a while since laptops came with trackballs, but it's a cool idea nonetheless.

by boredatoms

0 subcomment

May need a custom wrist pad to surround it

by fidotron

3 subcomments

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.

by burnt-resistor

0 subcomment

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.

by evanjrowley

1 subcomments

>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:
https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-super-clamp-2220.html