recently, I purchased a small bluetooth mouse to assist me in my in-bed reading times. You see, I like to lie down and position my phone in a comfortable spot for reading, held in place by my blankets and sheets.
The only trouble is that this position necessitates a hand by the phone to scroll, but sometimes I would want to have my hands under the blankets, for warmth or just because the position out of the blankets was getting uncomfortable on my joints.
My wife saw a short video of someone using a bluetooth scrolling ring, and mentioned it to me. I desired it immediately and set out to purchase it. Unfortunately, however, I could not find the sort of ring my wife had seen; all I could find were rings intended to scroll through tiktok, and though I purchased one and tried it, it turned out to scroll more than a screen's height when I pressed the buttons, and was thus useless.
So I figured I'd try the next best thing, a very small mouse with a scroll wheel. I purchased the smallest bluetooth mouse I could find, connected it to my phone, and voila! I could scroll. Except, the cursor was visible. And if I shifted the mouse at all in my reading, of course the cursor would move as well. I would position it out of the way near the bottom of the screen, and it would gradually wander back up and be in the way again. I ended up sticking a bandaid over the sensor, which kept it in place.
Unfortunately, each time I connected the mouse to my phone, the cursor started in the center of the screen, so I would have to reposition it each time, and I didn't want to keep putting on and removing the bandaid, especially as the couple times I had done so already had caused it to no longer lie quite flat, and it was an irritating texture to touch.
So I set the mouse aside for a while.
Yesterday, I thought I would try it again, and with a new solution. I crafted a paper cuff that would slide up over the mouse, hiding the motion sensor so that it would stay still
This worked for a couple minutes. But it didn't fit snugly and kept shifting, and more importantly, I had to put it on after turning the mouse on and positioning it, and the mouse would respond to this by moving the cursor down. This might not sound like too much of a problem, but actually, if the cursor goes too far down, scrolling stops working because the mouse is no longer on the active window.
So I added another piece:
a thin strip formed into a loop, taped onto the base of the mouse such that I could fold it back and expose the sensor, and then fold it back into place rather than sliding, and then slide the cuff on. Additionally, the loop fit like a ring to hold the mouse without needing to grip it.
This worked very well! I used it for several hours with only minor issues.
However, those minor issues did exist, and I wished to improve the model further to correct them. Firstly, the cursor did still shift somewhat. This was due in part to the cuff being somewhat loose, and in part due to the paper covering the sensor also being the ring, so when I shifted my grip, it might shift the cover.
Secondly, it turns out that if I hold a mouse in one hand under my cozy blankets for long enough, my hand starts to get Very Tired of the texture of the plastic, and of the bits of tape I was touching—especially the edges. Touching the paper was still fine, however. So now I have version 3 of the mouse sheath:
First: a strip of paper, taped at the base of the mouse and coming up to cover the sensor. Second, a sheath which covers the entire mouse, not just a portion of it. It has a cutout for the scroll wheel. As a bonus, the first strip sticks out of the top, for easier removal from the sheath. Third, a loop taped onto the back of the sheath to stick my finger through. It is very carefully taped such that I shouldn't be touching tape on the inside of the ring, though there is some near it.
I shall be testing this version shortly, and will report back on its usefulness.
