iGesture Pad

Rating:
Summary: helps with wrist pain
Review: By around 11 AM every day, my wrist would be killing me from using the mouse. I'd switch hands and then both wrists would be hurting. Using a trackball helped a little, but not very much. I got an iGesture touchpad and it helped immediately. Even though I'm right handed, I put it to the left of my keyboard, so I don't have to move my hand far to use it. I tend to use my pinky and ring finger to move the mouse pointer, which lets me keep my hand in a more natural, close to vertical, position.

The gestures take some practice. There's only about 5 that I use regularly so far (minimize, close, right click, drag, paste, and scroll), but they are quite handy. It's a little tricky until you get the hang of it. For the first week I'd frequently grab my mouse (I keep both plugged in) when I needed to do something fast and was frustrated with using the touchpad. Now I use the touchpad almost exclusively.

I still get a little pain some days near the end of the day, it might be that it'll take a while to undo the damage to my wrists. If only I'd gotten this touchpad earlier.

Rating:
Summary: Someone has built a better mouse
Review: I have owned my iGesture pad for about a year now, and would like to share my observations with the Amazon community. Especially since the product page doesn't tell you anything about it!

This product is a mouse alternative. It's basically a flat, smooth surface; there are no moving parts. An embedded processor responds to the contact and motion of your finger(s) (which are referred to as "gestures") and translates that to common mouse commands or keyboard macros. It connects via USB; I've used mine on Windows (2KPro and XP).

I bought this for two reasons, one practical, one not.

Ergonomics: The traditional mouse was starting to cause me trouble in the hands -- I'd get pain after increasignly-shorter use periods. And, that pencil-eraser-like nubbin on my laptop keyboard is awful for my hand. The iGesture is a vast improvement -- no fatigue or pain after long periods of use. The required touch is extremely light, so there's no pressure on the muscles.

Cool factor: Ever see that movie "Minority Report" where they move stuff around this glass panel using their hands? It's kinda like that, and it really works! Granted, the pad is smaller, and your monitor doesn't change :) but the idea of the gestures works.

In its basic mode, there are certain groups of gestures that map to things like mouse movements, left- and right-click, double-click, and scroll. There are also keyboard substitutes, like cursor movements (the arrow keys), cut, paste, copy, undo/redo. There are also gestures for other common "super-mouse" functions like browser fwd/back, and zoom. You can even switch among apps (a la Windows ALT-TAB).

(There are also other modes, such as EMACs, Photoshop, and GAME modes, but I've never tried them.)

It took me a couple of days for these to become second nature, but the learning curve wasn't steep at all; it comes with a handy cheat-sheet to help you through those first few days. The gestures are pretty intuitive (for example, for the "cut" command, you make a motion like you're picking something up with your finger and thumb), which helps.

After a few days, I was using it to read my mail and maintain my inbox (MS Outlook) without touching the keyboard or using a pull-down menu. With one exception: there was no gesture for the "delete" key. But, from their website, you can download a utility which allows you to edit the built-in gesture-to-action mapping, so I just found an empty gesture (I could have overridden an existing gesture), and programmed it for the delete keystroke. Worked great.

As an added bonus, it's really slim (less than a half-inch think) so it slips into my laptop bag really easy, unlike a standard mouse.

All accompanying software (such as the gesture editor mentioned above, firmware updates, etc.) have all been stable.

If you have more questions, be sure to check their website (fingerworks.com) for details.

Disclaimer: I don't work for, know anyone who works for, nor am I otherwise compensated by FingerWorks. I just like this product!

Rating:
Summary: no idea what amazon is doing
Review: i love the igesture pad, but i would advise buying it directly from fingerworks (http://www.fingerworks.com). maybe it was just my order, but amazon messed it up so bad. it advertises "1-2 business days" for shipping. 6 days later, it finally entered shipping. i check the next day, and it's back to "not shipped". it's been on "not shipped" every day until today, 13 days later, i check, and it's just gone completely. needless to say, it's worth the extra $30 to order it from fingerworks if they're "shipping" every pad like this

Rating:
Summary: The other reviewer must work for the Fingerworks company
Review: I rarely write reviews of products, but I think I have to for this one. I read a good review in Popular Mechanics, and several good reviews on Amazon. After having the device for a week, I will likely throw it away, or try to ebay it.
Allow me to list the problems it has:
- it does not recognize many gestures until I try 2 or 3 times,
- it is so sensitive that it often starts doing random things in applications, like deleting emails, exiting programs without saving, etc (no kidding).
- programs sometimes lock up when I use the touchpad
- often the touchpad stops working all together, and I have to remove it from the usb port and plug it back in to get it working.

When I remove the device, all the problems go away, and I am happy to use my old mouse. This gesture thing seems like a great idea, and I am a big fan of gizmos like this. However, I would strongly recommend a little more product development before you buy one.


Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: i took a serious chance ordering this.
and man did it pay off.
after about two hours of going back and forth
from screen to cheat sheet
i had 90% of the gestures memorized.
it was surprisingly easy to get the hang of.

fingerworks went to great pains to make it as intuitive as possible. so much in fact that now, when i'm away from home and using a dated pointing device [mouse] i catch myself trying to use it like my igesture.

i did expect it to be a bit larger, but I love it just the same.
a very large hats to the people at fingerworks, even inspite of thier terrible website.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent trackpad and easy to learn
Review: I've been looking for a trackpad to replace my optical mouse. Wrist fatigue was setting in. I love the trackpad on my Apple PowerBook but couldn't find anything comparable for the PC except for very small pads. I tried using a pen-based pad but that was quickly wrapped up and taken back to the store.

I stumbled upon iGesture and figured I'd give it a try. I've had connected for a few hours and it works wonderfully. I had the basic mouse navigation gestures down in 5 minutes. It's a piece of cake to learn and the drivers installed flawlessly under Windows XP.

I have more to learn, however the iGesture unit has been working great so far. I highly recommend trying it out.

I bought the product from Amazon and opted for the 2-day shipping. I got it in two days - thanks!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Product All Around!
Review: Totally worth it! It takes me half the time now in daily computer usage. And it was easy to learn basic technique, but expands to a powerful tool. My hands touch the keyboard only when typing, e.g. no back and forth for opening/closing documents. I Highly recommend for anyone whose wrists hurt or are tired of the mouse or complicated replacements.