Ploopy’s Adept trackball has been a favorite among people who want an open-source pointing device they can print, flash, and use with either hand. On August 14 the company published the next version: the A+. Kits go up for preorder on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 10 a.m. Eastern, priced at $99 Canadian.
The obvious change is the button count. The Adept had six. The A+ has eight, including two rotary knobs. Those extra switches were already laid out on older Adept boards and left empty; the new model finally fills them. By default the knobs do high-resolution vertical and horizontal scrolling. They can be remapped. A wrist rest that was only a rumor of two empty slots on the Adept now ships with the A+ and can clip on, come off, or be screwed down.
Firmware is where the A+ stops being “a nicer Adept.” It still runs QMK and stores settings on the device through VIA. New on this model: eight-way ball gestures while a button is held (cut, copy, paste, desktop switching, media), and a second layer opened by the right knob for on-device setup — left-hand mirror, scroll style, knob mode, LED brightness, and DPI. Two internal LEDs show which layer you are on.
What did not change: the Pixart PMW-3360 sensor at a 1,000 Hz poll, Omron D2LS-21 switches, and a fully public design under CERN OHL-V2s and GPLv3. It is still a kit, not a sealed luxury mouse.
Source: https://blog.ploopy.co/the-aplus-is-finally-here-499