Japanese company Cooyou has launched a tiny USB scroll wheel that can be used as a dedicated device for either vertical or horizontal scrolling on a PC. Appropriately called the Crazy Small Wheel, it’s little enough to easily hold in your fingers while scrolling through presentations or other content. But you can also place it on the floor and use your foot to scroll.

That can come in handy if your hands are busy with a keyboard or other input device, or for folks with physical impairments that might make it difficult or impossible scroll with an input device designed for hands and fingers.

The Cooyou Crazy Small Wheel measures just 46 x 38 x 26mm (1.8″ x 1.5″ x 1″) and weighs 22 ounces (1.4 ounces). It’s available in Japan for about $27 and works with a standard USB-C cable (which is not included).

Since it’s recognized as a standard mouse by most operating systems including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iPadOS, you should be able to adjust settings like scroll direction and sensitivity using the native operating system settings. But keep in mind that this is just a scroll wheel, not a full-fledged mouse, so it’s not going to be much good for things like clicking or moving a cursor.

But the Crazy Small Wheel is just the latest in a line of “Crazy Small” devices from Cooyou, which also includes a foot switch/button, a mouse/virtual keyboard, a programmable 1-key keyboard, and an air keyboard/gesture controller.

Cooyou has completed a crowdfunding campaign for the Crazy Small Wheel, and it should be available soon from Amazon Japan.

If you’re looking for a more full-function input device that can be operated with your feet and don’t mind something that’s not “crazy small,” there is a niche category of foot mouse devices including DIY models and commercial gear from companies like 3drudder and Boomer.

via PC Watch and Tom’s Hardware

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3 replies on “Crazy Small Wheel is a tiny scroll wheel you can use with your feet (or hands)”

  1. Wow, my cats would love to destroy that.

    I love accessibility-focused devices like this. I sometimes design and build USB HID devices for unique uses like this. I’ve toyed with some ideas about foot-operated devices for gaming or accessibility.

    The only concern I have with this design is that the device doesn’t looks sure-footed enough (pardon the pun) to serve as a floor dwelling device. How does it stay stationary, and upright? I don’t imagine 2-sided tape is going to be a good experience.

    One of my biggest pet-peeves is when a wired accessory is too small or lightweight, to the extent that it flops around under the tension from the cable it is connected to. That’s the first impression the images of this thing give me.

    1. I agree with Grant, this will not stay in place to be used on the floor by feet. Nobody wants to tape this to their floor and trying to hold it in place on carpet would be nearly impossible. This looks like it might not even stay in place on a desk where it could be used by a hand or finger.

      I do like the idea of accessible devices that make use of other limbs/digits but they need to be designed better for their environment.

      1. I could easily glue the thing to a chunk of wood or metal plate and that would solve that problem, but personally I think a scroll wheel for feet should be a lot bigger, like the size of an inline skate wheel.

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