u/Gitman_87

[removed]

I wanted to share a project I've been working on called FooTrack. It’s an alternative input device for people who can't comfortably use a regular mouse, whether due to an arm amputation, RSI, or partial leg paralysis where sweeping movements simply aren't an option.

Most foot mice out there force you to slide your whole leg across the floor. If you have partial paralysis or limited lower-limb mobility, that kind of coarse leg motion is either exhausting or flat-out impossible, and it makes precise cursor control very difficult.

To solve that, I took an IBM TrackPoint module and adapted it for subtle toe control. Your foot rests completely still on a tilted cushion, so your heel never has to leave the pad. Instead of dragging a mouse around, you steer the cursor simply by applying light pressure against the custom cap with your toes—it tracks force rather than physical travel, which makes it usable even with very limited leg movement.

Under the hood, the raw input runs through a 125 Hz LERP filter in a desktop background app to eliminate jitter and small involuntary twitches. It handles standard mouse navigation like clicking, dragging, and scrolling, and can also switch over to emulate an Xbox 360 thumbstick for games or specialized apps.

The full build details and software specs are up on footrack.pl.

Take a look at the presentation of the foot controller I bulit.

What arenyour thoughts?

Hey everyone.

I’ve been working on a DIY hardware project called FooTrack, and I wanted to run it by this community to see if I'm actually moving in a useful direction.

I noticed that a lot of adaptive gaming gear is either insanely expensive or lacks the analog precision you actually need to play fast-paced games. So I decided to build my own from scratch.

Basically, I took the red TrackPoint nub from a ThinkPad laptop and designed a foot controller around it. Because the TrackPoint is a force sensor (it measures pressure, not distance), your foot's micro-movements translate into really smooth cursor or joystick control.

Under the hood, it's running on a Raspberry Pi Zero. I originally tried to make it a standard Bluetooth device, but Windows drivers were an absolute nightmare. I ended up writing a custom Wi-Fi UDP script in Python that sends data 100 times a second with custom smoothing. Now it has practically zero lag and can instantly swap between a PC mouse and an Xbox gamepad.

I'm posting here because I'm just an engineer building stuff in my room, and I know I have blind spots. For those of you who use foot controllers or adaptive setups daily:

-Does a force-sensor approach like this seem practical to you?

-What kind of button layouts, spacing, or features are an absolute must-have?

Any feedback, ideas, or even harsh criticism is super welcome. Thanks!

Hey everyone.

I’ve been working on a DIY hardware project called FooTrack, and I wanted to run it by this community to see if I'm actually moving in a useful direction.

I noticed that a lot of adaptive gaming gear is either insanely expensive or lacks the analog precision you actually need to play fast-paced games. So I decided to build my own from scratch.

Basically, I took the red TrackPoint nub from a ThinkPad laptop and designed a foot controller around it. Because the TrackPoint is a force sensor (it measures pressure, not distance), your foot's micro-movements translate into really smooth cursor or joystick control.

Under the hood, it's running on a Raspberry Pi Zero. I originally tried to make it a standard Bluetooth device, but Windows drivers were an absolute nightmare. I ended up writing a custom Wi-Fi UDP script in Python that sends data 100 times a second with custom smoothing. Now it has practically zero lag and can instantly swap between a PC mouse and an Xbox gamepad.

I'm posting here because I'm just an engineer building stuff in my room, and I know I have blind spots. For those of you who use foot controllers or adaptive setups daily:

-Does a force-sensor approach like this seem practical to you?

-What kind of button layouts, spacing, or features are an absolute must-have?

Any feedback, ideas, or even harsh criticism is super welcome. Thanks!