Conventional thinking deems a mouse should have a couple of buttons, and if you’re feeling really crazy, maybe even a scroll wheel. Well, nuts to conventional thinking. Why restrict yourself to boring USB mice when you could be using a laser-powered glove ripped straight out of Minority Report?
It’s high time we celebrate the sort of weird-ass input devices that really shouldn’t exist and make our hands twitch with anxiety, but somehow got greenlit regardless. Below you’ll find a list of extremely odd, gimmicky, or downright disgusting mice—warning: don’t read on if you’re not a fan of spiders—that will shake your definition of ‘mouse’ to its core. Here are the weirdest PC mice you’ve ever seen.
The Skype Mouse Phone
The year is 2007, and you’re a high-powered business type whose every waking second is absurdly important. To save yourself precious moments, you invest in this hideous contraption: a half mouse/half cellphone monstrosity that lets you control your PC and take Skype calls.
This mockery of all that is good in mousedom even has built-in hardware that recognises what language your Skype is set to, automatically changing the phone’s display language accordingly. Clever stuff, even if there is no earthly reason for this thing to exist. C’mon, no one’s that busy, except Phoebe in that one alternate-universe Friends episode.
Zalman FPSGUN FG1000
Is that a Zalman FPSGUN in your pocket, big boy, or are you just happy to see us? Oh, it’s the weird faux firearm/mouse thingie? Well, carry on. Talk about trying to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Whereas any sane shooter fan knows a standard mouse will service all their headshot needs, Zalman clearly thought you needed a fake-ass gun to improve your virtual aim. Somehow, we doubt that "ergonomic slant grip" will stop you getting hosed in Destiny 2’s Crucible.
Hangwang T&MOUSE
Cooked up by a Chinese firm back in 2007, apparently the year for weird-ass mice, this tablet/mouse hybrid is downright bizarre. Sure, you could probably scribble the odd doodle on the T&Mouse’s touchpad if you were bored, but you’re hardly going to sit down at your PC and handwrite War & Peace 2: This Time It’s Personal with it. Just look how teeny the tablet is. Unless you have the hands of a seven-year-old child, that itty bitty sunken crater is going to be absolutely useless.
Tarantula spider glow mouse
Have you ever sat down at your PC and thought: "Gee, I sure wish my mouse had an arachnid’s corpse stuffed inside it." You have? Wonderful. Then you’ll be pleased to know you can still buy this USB mouse with a dead tarantula surprise for the low, low price of just $34.99. It may be a crime against nature, but we bet none of your friends’ mice have their own glow-in-the-dark eight legged freak.
AirMouse
This ghastly contraption was designed by Canadian firm Deanmark—probably after one of its employees went to see Minority Report. We get wanting to replicate Tom Cruise’s swooshy, futuristic hand gestures, but no amount of repetitive strain injuries could ever persuade us to strap this abomination around our digits. Of course, perhaps we’re just being short-sighted, and AirMouse-esque glove controls will be all the rage in 2067. For the time being though, we’ll avoid strapping an optical laser-powered glove to our mitts, thank you very much.
Mus3
So it’s a mouse shaped like a mouse arrow, you say? Brilliant. If the Mus3 were a snake, it wouldn’t just happily scoff up its own tail, it would regurgitate it, then dine on the sicked-up seconds. First released back in 2011, this oddball mouse boasts a signal range of a couple meters, while it also rocks an in-built battery indicator to show when it’s running low on juice. Also… IT LOOKS LIKE A MOUSE ARROW!
Bat (aka the levitating freakin’ mouse)
"Yes, it comes in black, Mr Wayne." Wait a minute. That was a preposterous superhero plane, not some fancy-pants floating mouse. It may not match the Dark Knight’s flying ride for Bane-foiling spectacle, but this thoroughly weird input device is still pretty progressive. Not that the Bat is ever likely to see the light of day. Czech designer Vadim Kibardin has been trying to get the levitating wonder off the ground—see what we did there?—since 2013, yet that glorious mousepad-free future doesn’t seem to be any closer.
You can’t deny it’s a cool concept, though. The Bat was primarily aimed at those who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, with its magnetic base ring designed to relieve muscular stress. At least this thoroughly weird invention is well-meaning.
Smitrix Swiftpoint Triped mouse
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No… um, it’s a threeway mouse/touchpad/digitizer pen. Yay? Apparently, the Swiftpoint Triped was designed for use with tablet PCs—presumably tiny ones operated by a race of Borrowers-like beings. There’s being compact, then there’s this brazenly silly doodad. Smitrix may claim the Triped allows for better document navigation, but unless you’ve got Smurf-sized hands, we’d stick to your normal mouse.
Novint Falcon (with pistol grip)
Fun fact: PCG’s very own Wes Fenlon actually has one of these stuck in a drawer somewhere. He reliably informs us he’d totally use it all the time, save for the fact none of the game patches designed to take advantage of the pistol grip work anymore. Of all the luck. Still, for a brief time in 2009, PC gamers with more money than sense could pick up this gun-toting, rumbling mouse and experience Left 4 Dead like it was meant to be played. Awkwardly, and full of shame.
Trypticon USB laser mouse
We don’t care how weird the Trypticon is. It’s a mouse that turns into a—just about—legally safe Transformers knock-off! Not a normal Transformers knock-off, either. A friggin’ dinosaur Transformers knock-off! Tell us you don’t want ten of these. The good news is that unlike several of the mice on this list, you can actually still buy the Trypticon. If you’ve got a spare $70 burning a hole in your pocket, why wouldn’t you pick up an 800-dpi laser mouse that also turns into a plastic dino-bot? God, our workplace mice seem so dull by comparison.
