Has anyone else been underwhelmed by the Space Mouse? They’re constantly praised online and I actually don’t think they’re faster or better than strictly KBM if you have good keybinds setup.
Just trying to get some discussion going because this is something I’ve wondered for years. Space Mouse’s have been touted as far faster and more efficient for as long as I can remember. So I bought a high end one with all the buttons 4 years ago and I did give it a chance. Probably used it for 300 hours to the point that everything was muscle memory. But I simply don’t think they’re actually faster.
At the very least they require you to be moving your hand from keyboard to space mouse the odd time no matter how well you have it setup. That alone is inefficient.
The most common praise for them is that they make movement in the 3D space easier, and I honestly don’t agree. I’m wondering if this is just from people who never became really adept with mouse movement or didn’t properly setup their keybinds? I genuinely can move just as fast and accurately with my mouse and shift/ctrl/scroll wheel as I can with a space mouse. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been a lifelong gamer or just because I put the effort into learn movement in CAD.
As far as the buttons go, this is another one I don’t really understand. Even the best Space Mouse’s on the market don’t have anywhere near as many buttons within reach as a keyboard. There are also other things that work far better on a keyboard and are simply not an option on a Space Mouse unless you move your hand from Space Mouse to keyboard. For example in Fusion 360 if you hit “S” you get a drop down menu and can then search for whichever function you want by text. Sure you could have S bound to the Space Mouse for this but then you have to start typing on the keyboard anyway. This is a very useful feature for finding functions that you don’t use often enough to have a dedicated keybind for.
Just hoping to spur some discussion. I saw a thread about these again yesterday and every time I see these threads praising them as an absolute must have I feel like I’m completely missing something. I even made an offer (which still stands) that I’d like to do a challenge with a few different sets of common tasks and someone who absolutely loves the Space Mouse would record themselves doing the tasks and I’d record myself doing the same thing on KBM. I’m pretty confident I’d win, and 100% confident I’d win if there’s any amount of functions in that set which aren’t bog standard and used every 15 minutes normally.
Just trying to get some discussion going because this is something I’ve wondered for years. Space Mouse’s have been touted as far faster and more efficient for as long as I can remember. So I bought a high end one with all the buttons 4 years ago and I did give it a chance. Probably used it for 300 hours to the point that everything was muscle memory. But I simply don’t think they’re actually faster.
At the very least they require you to be moving your hand from keyboard to space mouse the odd time no matter how well you have it setup. That alone is inefficient.
The most common praise for them is that they make movement in the 3D space easier, and I honestly don’t agree. I’m wondering if this is just from people who never became really adept with mouse movement or didn’t properly setup their keybinds? I genuinely can move just as fast and accurately with my mouse and shift/ctrl/scroll wheel as I can with a space mouse. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been a lifelong gamer or just because I put the effort into learn movement in CAD.
As far as the buttons go, this is another one I don’t really understand. Even the best Space Mouse’s on the market don’t have anywhere near as many buttons within reach as a keyboard. There are also other things that work far better on a keyboard and are simply not an option on a Space Mouse unless you move your hand from Space Mouse to keyboard. For example in Fusion 360 if you hit “S” you get a drop down menu and can then search for whichever function you want by text. Sure you could have S bound to the Space Mouse for this but then you have to start typing on the keyboard anyway. This is a very useful feature for finding functions that you don’t use often enough to have a dedicated keybind for.
Just hoping to spur some discussion. I saw a thread about these again yesterday and every time I see these threads praising them as an absolute must have I feel like I’m completely missing something. I even made an offer (which still stands) that I’d like to do a challenge with a few different sets of common tasks and someone who absolutely loves the Space Mouse would record themselves doing the tasks and I’d record myself doing the same thing on KBM. I’m pretty confident I’d win, and 100% confident I’d win if there’s any amount of functions in that set which aren’t bog standard and used every 15 minutes normally.