Presentation remotes are great. Not only do they let you move through your slideshows quickly, many can also be used with other applications as a multi-purpose remote controller. It’s quite convenient. The KIKR ProLab Mouse takes that versatile function to the next level.
Billed as an “advanced control hub,” the handheld device is meant to serve as a functional mouse that you operate using nothing but your thumb. That makes it very useful as a presentation remote, as it won’t just let you move through slides, it lets you do everything else that you can do with a mouse, making it useful for lectures, presentations, and a whole lot more.
The KIKR ProLab Mouse is a disc-shaped device measuring 1.1 x 0.5 inches (diameter x thickness), with a circular D-pad on the outer edge, a 360-degree trackball in the center, and small button on the side. It has three preset modes that you can tell by the color of the indicator light, namely air mouse, media, and keyboard, any of which you can quickly switch to by simply pressing that side button. The “air mouse,” of course, is the primary function, as the device is able to serve as a full-fledged trackball mouse, allowing you to control the cursor by simply moving the track ball around, then clicking the right D-pad for right mouse click, left D-pad for left mouse click, up D-pad for swiping up, and down D-pad for swiping down.
In media mode, it becomes a convenient remote for controlling music, movies, and other content playing. The center trackball becomes a button for starting and stopping your media playback, the right and left D-pads let you skip between tracks, and the up and down D-pads control the volume. That’s right, there’s no need to reach for your laptop if you want to watch the next episode of a series – just click on this thing and you’re good.
The KIKR ProLab Mouse also has a keyboard mode that doesn’t really turn the device into a keyboard you can type your next email on. Instead, this turns it into a document remote that lets you move right, left, up, or down a document, while the trackball in the middle serves as the Enter key. The outfit recommends using this mode for presentations, as it keeps things simple and straightforward, although it should also be useful for reading documents, digging throwing menus, and browsing entire hard drives’ worth of files.
Aside from working with laptops and desktops, the device is actually meant to work with phones and tablets, too. Equipped with Bluetooth, it can pair with any machines running Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, Linux, iOS, iPad OS, and Android, allowing you to use it for a wide range of things. Want a remote control for your smartphone’s camera? This should do the trick. How about a remote for managing that Spotify playlist? This should do it, too. Other features include maximum Bluetooth distance of 10 meters, 15 hours of battery life, and automatic power off after five minutes of no activity.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the KIKR ProLab Mouse. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $39.