Ploopy Takes a Leaf Out of IBM's Book, Launches the 3D-Printable Bean Pointing Stick

Open-hardware peripherals specialist Ploopy is back with another pointing device, this time owing a debt of gratitude to IBM's iconic TrackPoint: the Ploopy Bean Pointing Stick.

"The Bean is a high-performance pointing stick, providing a precise and complete cursor experience in a small, convenient package," Ploopy explains of its latest peripheral. "The Bean is able to detect touches as small as 3 microns, so even the slightest touches of the Bean are easily detected. The Bean features high-resolution drag scrolling out of the box, delivering the most precise scrolling solution available. A 1,000Hz polling rate ensures that the Bean feels snappy and responsive, especially when paired with high-frequency monitors."

The Bean, built around a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, looks a little like a mouse — but there's no optical sensor underneath, and dragging it around your desk won't do much. Instead, the 3D-printed housing is home to a "pointing stick" — little joystick, a little bigger than an pencil eraser, which uses sustained force to move the mouse cursor. For IBM fans, such a concept will be immediately familiar: inventor Ted Selker commercialized the device at IBM under the TrackPoint name — placing the stick in the center of the keyboard to minimize hand motion when shifting between typing and mousing activities.

Unlike IBM's TrackPoint, the Bean isn't built into a keyboard; instead, it's designed to be used as a separate peripheral, in place of a traditional mouse or trackball. In addition to the pointing stick, the design includes four buttons — while the QMK-based firmware on-board the microcontroller means it's all fully customizable.

This is far from Ploopy's first foray into open-hardware peripherals: the company's original product was the eponymous Ploopy Trackball, which was followed a year later by a mouse variant; since then it has released headphones, a trackpad, and a knob — all 3D-printable so you can easily build them at home. Like its predecessors, the Bean is fully open: everything from the 3D print files to the PCB design files and firmware source code are available under reciprocal open source licenses.

The Bean is now available to pre-order on the Ploopy store at CA$69.99 (around $51); design and 3D-print files and firmware source code can be found on GitHub under the strongly-reciprocal version of the CERN Open Hardware License 2 and the GNU General Public License 3 respectively.