Robin Leinonen's Saucer Gives ZSA Voyager Users a Cat-Proof Pointing Device
When your cat likes to sit between the two halves of your split ergonomic keyboard, a compact trackpad add-on is the only answer.
Robin Leinonen, of ergonomic keyboard maker ZSA, decided his company's Voyager keyboard was lacking a certain something — so set about designing a trackpad add-on dubbed the Saucer, primarily to avoid feline interference in productivity tasks.
"This is just a personal passion project I wanted to share — not an official ZSA product," Leinonen explains of his creation, "though ZSA might create an 'official' Voyager pointing device at some point that might be quite similar to the Saucer. I had seen some implementations of a Cirque trackpad on other DIY split keyboards that I was always curious about, but I never tried one myself. When I found out the right side of the Voyager exposed I2C pins, it seemed like the perfect chance to try my hand at a Voyager trackpad."
The Voyager, ZSA's latest keyboard design, is a low-profile wired split-layout ergonomic keyboard designed to be positioned with a clear gap in the middle. The company's promotional imagery shows this gap being filled with a laptop, in which case the laptop's own trackpad can be used, or with a mouse or trackball between them — but, for Leinonen, this wasn't an ideal setup.
"I have two cats that absolutely love to stand on my desk and request (demand) pets while I work. They try to be fairly considerate by not standing on my trackpad, but it still happens," Leinonen explains. "The most common annoyance is when they sit down and graze the edge of my trackpad with their bodies, making any of my attempts to mouse around register weirdly until I notice and move the trackpad away. I was getting fed up with this, and there is simply no way to completely refuse my cats access to my desk, so I started thinking about alternatives."
The Saucer is that alternative: a circular 40mm Cirque trackpad that is wired in-line to the cable connecting the keyboard's two halves, providing a compact but usable mousing surface housed in a 3D-printed mount sitting flush with the right- or left-hand keyboard's edge. "This trackpad is great for writers, office workers, and coders, but it may not ideal for creative work or gaming," Leinonen admits. "Anyone can get use out of this trackpad, but it is not a complete replacement for all things you might need a mouse for."
Leinonen has published STL files for the 3D-printable mount, wiring instructions, and details on recompiling the keyboard's QMK firmware to include touchpad support, on GitHub under an unspecified license; additional details are available on the ZSA blog.