anyy suggestions please

[trialuser1002]

hi Folks,

I am trying to use smartnav for last 15 days, with Ok results. I am facing some issues may be your expirences could help me out.

I can move the cursor around but either i am shooting past or having real hard time getting near the target. i cannot reach the target in first shot at all and i am getting severe neck pain after 1-2 hrs of use per day.
I am wearing a trackhat & the pointer speed in windows is set to maximum and "enhance pointer precision" is selected.
On the smartnav setting the horizontal & vertical movement speed is set to 5

I have tried to adjust the settings as per suggestions on this Forum. any inputs from you are really welcome
My neck is really hurting !!

[jatal]

I'm using SmartNAV too. I have my vertical and horizontal speed set at 16 and have little trouble zooming in on targets (except the REALLY tiny ones). Here's a few things you might try:

1) Consider how close the tracking device to the reflector on your head. The reflector dot on my hat is about 2.5 feet from the trackig device. The closer the tracking device is to the reflective dot, the faster the mouse cursor will move with a given movement of your head. So if you move the tracker farther away from you, the curse will slow down relative to your head movements.

2) There is an option to set a hotkey for precision. Hold this key down while moving the mouse cursor and the mouse cursor will slow way down.

3) I have my Responsive/Smoother motion setting all the way to the Smoother end of the scale.. that helps eliminate the cursor jumping around by itself.

4) There's also a gravity mode that will cause your mouse cursor to jump to a button, checkbox, etc. when it gets close.. that might help.

5) I wouldn't think the cursor speed setting in windows would have any effect. I can vary mine from slowest to fastest and it has no effect on my SmartNAV cursor speed. Nevertheless, I wonder if there could be some sort of uninentional interaction between your regular mouse and the SmartNAV mouse... maybe try adjusting the speed of you regular mouse to the lowest setting and see what happens... or disable your regular mouse altogether.

That's all I can think of... good luck!

[trialuser1002]

I am approimately 20 inches away from the camera and the movement is set to 5 , i have a circular dot on the cap.

I have difficulty reaching a target, i either overshoot or have hard time reaching it.
Gravity makes the problem worse as it will stick to unwanted buttons near by and cause more problems to pull it out.
After working approximately for 30 to 45 minutes, I start getting the neck pain.

[ November 03, 2004, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: trialuser1002 ]

[kevin]

You should be using your natural head motion when using the SmartNAV. I can�t really stress this enough; if you are experiencing any strain then you are moving too much and need to adjust your settings. Sometimes you just have to play with the different settings to get the most comfortable experience. We have several thousand users who use the SmartNAV everyday and experience no pain at all.

In addition to jatal's suggestions you could try using one of the larger square dots on your cap. If you do this please don�t forget to adjust the dot size in the tracking tab of the control panel. Also physically changing the position of the camera may be another option.

As jatal mentioned there is also precision mode which can be toggled with hot keys or any ability switch. This is a really neat feature and can slow the mouse down with a click of a button.

Also the gravity feature has different options for the 'Time Until Snap' and 'Stick Duration' that can be modified to make the gravity feature not stick to unwanted buttons near by.

Please try these suggestions and if you are still having problems let us know.

[ November 03, 2004, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: kevin ]

[Sean]

Sorry I haven't replied sooner, as you might have gathered from previous post of mine I am a high-level quadriplegic. I have a titanium plate in my neck that restricts side to side movement quite a lot and am aware of the neck pain you are talking about when using the SmartNav, here are some basic tips to eliminate the problem. Whenever I advise people on setting up their computer systems with a SmartNav here in Australia I start with an appropriate screen size for their neck movement. This may well apply to you. I have to use a 17 inch screen and no larger. Screen resolution also has an effect 1024x 768 works best for me. I found that the screen positioned so that the centrepoint is at eye-level worked best. You will find that this allows for small head movements to get a full range of mouse movement across the screen and is even accurate enough for Photoshop or mapping work.

The guys have given you good advice about settings. Kevin's point about relaxing is essential. I had to teach myself to relax when first using the SmartNav. Initially you may not be as productive as you were a with a handheld mouse as you will have to take it easy. Over a period of a couple of months your neck muscles will strengthen and you will find that you can be very quick with the SmartNav.

Good luck with it, post again or private message me if you feel you need more detailed help.

Cheers, Sean

[ November 04, 2004, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Sean ]

[trialuser1002]

Guys ,

thanks for your inputs, I am trying to follow your directions.
I am very much worried that in addition to CTS that i already have, i should not land up with NECK strain or permenant back injury.

I suggest , we should make this thread sticky so new users could benefit from our suggestions.

thanks

[ November 05, 2004, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: trialuser1002 ]

[kevin]

One more contribution;

For beginning user we recommend turning off pointer acceleration in windows. It can actually hinder precise navigation as it actually 'builds' up acceleration which can cause you to 'overshoot' your target.

Pointer acceleration causes small movements to remain small, but slighty larger movements are amplified. This changed the normal consistant movement of the cursor and can be more difficult for the user until they have more experience with the device. Pointer acceleration can also make it harder to click on small widows controls because of the amplified unintentional movements.

Once you have been using the device for a while and are comfortable you may wish to experiment with turning it back on.

If you still need more cursor movement, it is possible to turn up the speed of the Smart-NAV, in which case you may wish to increase the smoothing some too.

[ November 05, 2004, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: Birch Zimmer ]

[trialuser1002]

by " turning off pointer acceleration in windows" do you mean lowering pointer speed in the
controlPanel -> Mouse Properties -> pointer Options screen

[kevin]

Not quite,

Under Win2k:
It is controlPanel -> Mouse Properties -> pointer Options, then there should be a mouse acceleration setting and check none.

If you have intellimouse software installed then under pointer options there should be an advanced tab somewhere in the pointer options tab. Click on that and uncheck 'Enable Pointer Acceleration'.

Under WinXP:
It is control panel -> Mouse Properties -> then uncheck 'enhance pointer precision'

This will disable the acceleration curve that windows uses and should allow for a more precise experience for beginning users.