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Why am I writing this? I am writing this because if you have any doubts about the accuracy and utility of this product then you should put those doubts aside because it's awesome. Getting the most out of Smartnav though all depends on how well you set it up. I am also writing this because I think the Smartnav is a value product I want to endorse it and share my experience using the Smartnav for the first time. If I thought the Smartnav was crap I wouldn't bother writing this. In fact I am overwhelmed by the coolness of it which is what inspired me to write about it. Before it arrived I didn't have high hopes that the Smartnav would be a quality product. I thought it might be usable but probably a bit shonky and I am really surprised by what a good product it is...

I think Naturalpoint should be commended on a wicked peice of hardware. I am sure it could use a hell of a lot of improvement but it's an extremily useful and innovative peice of hardware.

I am not a fanboy but this sort of mouse alternative is freaken totally amazing. I have carpal tunnel syndrome, to much bloody World of Warcraft.

I ordered the Smartnav from Australia and I have just unpacked this product and started experimenting with it after waiting for it like a kid waitin for Christmas. I might add I am also the most hardcore of the most hardcore of skeptics but I believe one must also keep an open mind so I was hoping for the best.

I find this product utterly amazing I had to experiment with it for quite a while and at first I was a little confused about the best way to use it I tryed the hat and I tried putting the reflector on the boom of my microphone and I couldn't find a comfortable way to use it. I experimented with all the settings and read the hints and tips part of the forum to try and find some way of making it work for me....

I then put the reflector on my fingernail on my right middle finger and placed the Smartnav on the bottom of my monitor on my table and jiggled with the settings and whoolah I got it working just the way I like it.

I have heard of a lot of complaints on the forum about people not finding a comfortable way to use Smartnav but I think people just need to be a bit creative with it.

I have tryed a bunch of different ways to use the Smartnav, including using footswitchs but I find the best way to use it so far is with a combination of voice clicking, hotkeying the left and right mouse button to the keyboard and DRAGONNATURALLY SPEAKING!!!!!

This combo is a deadly combo.

I'll write up some more later once I experiment some more.

update - Using Dragon Naturally Speaking and Smartnav together makes up for a lot of the weaknesses of both products I think. It's much easier to swap around windows and use pull down menus with Smartnav and navigating the Internet is a snap with Dragon Naturally Speaking...

Update - For people using the Smartnav for Carpal Tunnel, RSI kind of problems putting a reflector on the end of your middle finger or on the fingernail and jiggling the Smartnav settings gives a huge amount of accuracy enough for most common windows based tasks. I find the sticky reflectors more comfortable than the rings.

Update - The reason I prefer the middle finger over the head dot is that I find it FAR, FAR easier to move the cursor around. I can almost move it around as fast and as accurately as a mouse. I would say I get about 70 percent of my mouse accuracy with little to no practice. I am using the rubber ring right now to experiment more with it and I am getting more comfortable with it.

Update - I think the thing I find most exciting about the Smartnav is the accuracy that I am getting with the Smartnav. The trick I am using with it right now is that I actually have it on the table at an angle facing my fingers and I am using either my middle finger or the finger next to my thumb to move around the cursor. The accuracy might not be as good as a mouse but it still pretty spot on. I have been playing Sam and Max Culutre Shock with it to test the Smartnav out and I am seriously impressed.

Update - With tweaking and experimentation the Smartnav is an accurate tool that can easily sit very comfortably next to a mouse.

Update - Sitting the Smartnav on the desk rather than on top of the computer works just fine in fact using it with just 20 30 centimetres away from your fingers that you use to control it is awesome.

Update - I have been actually using the Smartnav today to play World of Warcraft, successfully and quite comfortably I might add. A couple of things I have learned is there is a minimum distance that you need to stay out of away from the Smartnav sensor. Also holding the ring in your thumb and second finger is another comfortable way to use the Smartnav with high accuracy. I find using my fingers far more accurate and comfortable than using my head to move the cursor.

Update - To get World of Warcraft working with Smartnav one needs to turn off the mouse override delay under the behaviour tab in the Smartnav control panel. I use a foot pedal for mouselook and I found it extremily accurate. I use a Logitech mouse and I lose the 7 buttons of which I use every single one but it's easy to swap between mouse and Smartnav depending on the complexity of the task you need to do. Pvp - Mouse. Picking herbs, talking to people, using the auction house - Smartnav. The most important tip is TURN OF THE MOUSE OVERRIDE DELAY. At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to play WOW because everytime I tryed to Mouselook the camera would jerk about eratically. I think that's because the footswitch gets counted as a mouse action and throws the delay in there. But hey Naturalpoint can give you an answer to that. I like to stabilize my arm by putting a pillow under my armpit down my forarm to my wrist to stabilze my arm for more Smartnav accuracy and I either attach the rubber ring to my middle, second finger or hold it between my thumb and second finger. I also find the voice clicking to be extremily accurate I use that a lot. That's with the standard Smartnav software they forgot to send me the seperate and full voice clicking software. For such a cool product I will forgive em that one. I would like something I could hold in my thumb and secondfinger that was easier to hold than the rubber ring but I can't find anything that doesn't interfere with the Smartnav tracking.

I edit there for I am.

SaToriBluE

Hello,

Thanks for your posts, they are much appreciated.

If you would like some raw material to play with and create different ring types etc. please email me.

Cheers,
Kevin

Yeh you guys earned a bit of praise in my book. When I was first researching options to help alleviate my Carpal Tunnel I looked at the Smartnav and thought 'yeh but is it actually practical to use?'.

Well I have been using it fairly solidly now since I bought it. The key to using it I find is flexability. You have to find a way that works for the activity you want to use it for. For certain games, I use the ring. For other games I use the two hands on the keyboard-hat combo. I use the left hand on the letter keys for movement and my right hand on the numpad for the mousehotkeys and game hotkeys. I set all the movement hotkeys for my character on the keyboard on the main letters section, and all the mouse hotkeys, including the all important centre cursor hotkey and other gaming hotkeys on the numpad and use the hat. So numpad 4 would be left mouse click, numbpad 5 would right mouse click and 6 would be centre cursor. That's how I play WOW with the Smartnav now. I wear the hat and have the mouse buttons hotkeyed to the numpad and movement bound to the usual TFGH letter keys and then I get all the hotkeys 789, 123 on the numpad and all the letters and numbers surrounding the TFGH letter keys which almost matches my mouse keyboard combo. That allows me to level up my character and do all the usual time intensive game playing like farming for herbs and whatnot that really inflames my Carpal Tunnel if I use a normal mouse-keyboard combo.

Now I can't play a game like Battlefield 2 that requires extremily fast reflexes and extreme levels of control over my character but for something like WOW the hat keyboard combo, is more than fine. The nightmare that kept me awake at night was how was I going to spend 3 monthes playing WOW to get to level 70 with hands that go numb and fingers that ache. Well leveling to 70 is more than possible even with pretty severe carpal tunnel with the Smartnav. Like Battlefield 2 I lose a lot of the edge on my reflexes when I PVP in WOW with the Smartnav but I can easily swap to mouse without a problem. The key is to take as much stress off the hands and wrists as possible and just use the mouse when absolutely necessary.

I often swap between Smartnav and mouse depending on what I am doing without any probs whatsoever. In fact I sometimes use the Smartnav, especially when I am just surfing the web, by using the rubber ring on my right hand and my mouse in my left for the left and right mouse buttons and the mousewheel for scrolling, quite comfortably.

I have been using the Smartnav for quite a while now and I have noticed a great deal of improvement in my Carpal Tunnel problems although of course I get complete recurrence of my Carpal Tunnel if I use a mouse for extended periods of time. But at least I can effectively use a computer again. I recently built my guild website using primarily the Smartnav. It's an extremily practical product which I think is the first thing most people wonder about when they check the Smartnav out. It's like 'yeh it looks like a great idea but seriously how practical is it'. That question has been answered in my books with a resounding 'Hell yeh it's pretty damn freaken practical!'.

I am pretty sure there a few improvements that could be made but geez considering how few reasonably priced mouse alternative there are it's a well designed product and there are so many ways to customize it's use through the bundled software. The key to any technology in my opinion is flexibility and there is a lot of flexibility in the software you get with the Smartnav.

One thing that I would like to see would be a bigger more generous sensor radius for the Smartnav so I can be a bit more lazy with the reflector. I tend to find I go outside the Smartnav sensor radius a far bit. If I concentrate I can limit that problem and it's not a huge problem but in a future revision of the product it would be nice for the Smartnav to have a bigger sensor radius so you can use the rubber finger ring a lot eaiser and not have to worry about going out of the sensor radius.

Overall I am very satisfied with the product. I think the smoothness responsiveness options in the control panel software fixed my cursor jitteriness, when I tried to hold the cursor steady over a link. I can use the Smartnav to do most things like clicking links, copying and pasting almost as fast as a mouse and with almost as much control.

This is the webpage I made pretty much using only Smartnav with only minimal mouse usage - http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?G ... ID=1203939

I should also mention I have largely stopped using DragonNaturallySpeaking with Smartnav, normally it's faster to just use the Smartnav because DNS can often be inaccurate and the time I spend wasting trying to get DNS to understand me I could be using to just click the damn link with Smartnav. However I do think DNS is a useful tool it could use a lot more improvement to it's accuracy than Smartnav needs improvement. If I was severly disabled then yeh Smartnav/DNS all the way.

The more one uses Smartnav the more accurate one becomes with it.

I edit therefore I am.

SaToriBluE

FANTASTIC PRODUCT!
Big hug,
humberto-from-brazil

best think ever invented, i can only move my head (im a quadraplegic)
and its just great seriously 10/10

Okay ... I'm new to this. I been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for quite some time. I just purchased natural point SmartNav and I'm trying to get it running. I want to use it in conjunction with Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the mouse buttons. How do I do this? When I click the option in the setup for speech recognition to control the buttons, it says that I must have the speech recognition engine for IBM ViaVoice installed. Is this necessary? Would it not work with Dragon NaturallySpeaking alone?

Any help for a beginner would be gratefully received and appreciated.

Perhaps I should add that I'm using Windows 7 on a Dell Pentium 4 PC.

As answered via email -

The option, within the SmartNAV software, is designed for an add-on voice application that we sell, and is not for enabling Dragon, within the SN software.

There are several versions of Dragon, and yours may already have clicking features built into it. You would need to check the options within that application.

okay ... understood. I must say that I did not see this option when I ordered the SmartNav system. No problem ... it's not very expensive. Can I install and run the mouse clicking software simultaneously with Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10?

No, running 2 voice applications, at the same time, is not supported.

Hello just wondering why you choose not to use smartnaw for pvping in WoW, is it not fast enough (turning)?