u/Gitman_87

This time I made full presentation od the device.

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!