This DIY Computer Mouse is a computer… in a mouse

Folks have been shoving Raspberry Pi mini computers into small spaces for years, creating DIY handheld PCs, computers-in-keyboards, and more. But Electronic Grenade’s Computer Mouse is one of the most useless/cool projects I’ve seen.

He put a Raspberry Pi Zero W inside a mouse… and then added a tiny display, keyboard and battery. The Computer Mouse is a fully functional PC stuffed inside a mouse.

There wasn’t quite enough room to fit all the components inside a standard wireless mouse, so the case is actually a 3D-printed shell with components taken from a couple of different mice (a small one for a tiny sensor and motherboard and a normal-sized model for the scroll-wheel and buttons).

There’s a 1.5 inch, 128 x 128 pixel OLED display that pops out from the front of the mouse, and small Bluetooth mini keyboard that extends from the side when you need it (and which slides inside the mouse when you don’t).

Electronic Grenade acknowledges that typing can be difficult — not only is the keyboard perpendicular to the mouse and display, but you have to hold the mouse firmly in place with one hand while you type with the other or typing would cause the whole contraption to move.

But you can actually use the mouse to move an on-screen cursor on the 1.5 inch display. Sure, the screen will move as the mouse does, but the mouse is sensitive enough that you don’t need to move it very far so there’s not a lot of screen motion to get used to.

The Computer Mouse isn’t a particularly powerful or easy to use PC. But it is a fully functional computer that fits inside a mouse and runs GNU/Linux-based operating systems such as Raspbian.

via Motherboard