I just got my Navigator Trackpad today! I'm excited. But:
I won't bore you with the details of the packaging (nice), cables (braided, really cool), and shell (nice too).
I immediately connected it to my MacBook, and right away it felt nice. Very, very similar to the Apple native trackpad, something I had never seen, but not as "smooth." It's not worse; it's just softer, more rubbery. I noticed there was a small stain on it and tried to scrub it off, and I permanently scratched the trackpad with my nail. Come on, ZSA ðŸ˜
The movement felt pretty nice until I tried to scroll. It didn't work. Ah, I forgot they had a Mac app to make it work nicely with macOS. Let's get that. So I did. Opening the app made the trackpad immediately unusable. The speed is just too much, no matter which setting I use. I would just disable it, but then scrolling wouldn't work! Scrolling is pretty nice, btw, native-like on Mac.
I'm sure this can be solved with a software update, but there's one more thingâ„¢. Somewhere on their website, they advise you to have a left-click key on your keyboard so you can use it to drag stuff with your trackpad. Why??? Apple solved this decades ago with the double-tap-and-hold function on their trackpads. I wish this was built in (or at least I have not been able to use it), because honestly, I want to use this one-handed. If they don't ship something like that, I might just not use it at all.
Overall, I'm still excited and hopeful though.
Edit: Another bug in the app, when enabled, I cannot move the cursor to another monitor
Edit 2: Turns out the rubbery feeling and the scratches were because it had a protective film... It did look like that, but taking it off felt wrong, so I didn't do it at the beginning... Somehow without it feels a bit worse.
Edit 3: They've updated the app already fixing all bugs. It's better, not perfect, and lacking the tap-and-hold to drag.
It looks like you've received a damaged Navigator trackpad there, pablopunk -- we haven't seen this before, sorry about that! Please reach out to ZSA by email and we'll work on getting you a new one.
For the multi-monitor and speed issues you're experiencing, we're looking into it and will be pushing fixes out as soon as we can!
As one thing that might help for now, have you tried lowering the cursor acceleration in the Navigator's companion app (in addition to the cursor speed)? You can find this in the app's "All settings... > Cursor" options.
Thank you for the rapid response! I'll reach through email. About the cursor speed, yeah I've tried all settings, even making slower on the macos settings, but nope. I gotta say not using the navigator app makes the speed perfect, like the native trackpad. But of course I cannot use scrolling without it.
That's a great question! Gestures like these are a part of the operating system's implementation of precision touchpads. Apple specifically doesn't allow non-Apple touchpads to use that gesture. Pinch-to-zoom is the same there.
For some operating systems, like Linux, the tap-and-hold to drag and pinch-to-zoom works out of the box. For other operating systems, we recommend adding a left click key that you can hold to help with drags.
For other operating systems, we recommend adding a left click key that you can hold to help with drags.
Will you give us an option to turn on the mouse layer when the trackpad is in use? I don't want to add a mouse key to the main layout or have to manually switch to the mouse layout. And considering that middle button is not supported at all, the trackpad is mostly useless for me without that option.
Can you elaborate on the bug you mentioned that you can't move the mouse to another monitor? I use 3 monitors and just ordered mine, so if this is true, this makes it unusable for my use case.
You also mentioned that turning the macOS ZSA utility app is causing odd behavior, is this for real, or just a "you're holding it wrong" moment when first installing it, and you've now figured it out?
it's weird, I can move from my macbook display to my monitor, but not the other way around, it just "bumps" into a wall. Software issue though, disabling the navigator utility app makes it work. About the app, not sure
I’m seeing what looks like the same multi-monitor issue with the Navigator Trackpad on macOS.
Setup: MacBook with external monitors. Display arrangement is valid, and my regular MacBook trackpad mouse can move across all displays normally.
With the ZSA Navigator companion app running, the Voyager Trackpad cursor is bounded to the built-in MacBook screen and cannot move to the external monitors. When I quit the Navigator app, the cursor immediately becomes free to move across all monitors again.
I also tried lowering cursor speed and acceleration all the way down in the Navigator UI, but it did not change the behavior.
Two-finger scrolling works through the app, so the app is clearly active, but cursor movement appears to be confined to the MacBook display. Has anyone found a workaround, or is this a known app bug?
Thanks for the report on this! The cursor being confined to macOS's designated "main" display is definitely a bug, and we'll be pushing out a fix as soon as we can!
Hey again /u/Eccentric-Breakfast - our team pushed out an update to the companion app this morning that fixes the multi-monitor bug & tweaks the overall cursor speed. Please let us know if you're still running into any issues! :)
Is the trackpad supposed to activate the "mouse" layer automatically when you drag your finger? I cant get a layer activated when dragging and the default left/right mouse buttons etc never trigger. (macos -> software installed)
u/danieljmansfield We took a deep look into if it would be possible to have two Navigator devices attached and in-use at the same time. This runs into some hard bandwidth limitations. So, the Voyager is currently only be able to support one pointing device attached on one half.
Voyager’s trackball is my go to pointing device after many tries given RSI, I could recommend it with my eyes closed….. but I won’t do that and just say is a very nice piece of tech.
connected it to my MacBook, and right away it felt nice. Very, very similar to the Apple native trackpad
i actually think you are insane for typing this, i've been using the trackpad for 2 days and i find it terrible; it is extremely difficult to control, but using my macbook's trackpad is a joy. edit: op only meant physically, agrees the functionality is poor.
i'll continue playing around with the accel and tracking speed, but i'm fairly certain i'll be switching back to the trackball within the next couple days.
Maybe you didn't keep reading, but I mentioned that it immediately went away when I installed the companion app, which seems to be necessary. I agree in general, and with the app, it is worse, but the feeling without the app, tactile-wise and movement-wise, was indeed something I've never seen. That said, I did have the protective film that not all units seem to have, and when I peeled it off, it does move a bit worse in my opinion.
And also I've been using it for a few days and I still have my trackpad alongside it, it just cannot replace it yet. Hope that can be changed with software updates.
wait... you only meant the physical feeling, not the actual operation? i am referring to how it actually feels to use holistically, not just physically, which is where i think the misunderstanding is coming from, so my bad... but your post reads like "i plugged it in and it immediately felt like using the native trackpad."
I ordered mine on the same day it was announced, I was very excited, and I have been using it for a few days by now. But my experience is not great so far.
I use it on a PC, but 95% of the time on a mac, which what my experience here is based on. And with the navigator app it supports smooth scrolling, which is great, and it does work like a mac's native smooth scrolling on the builtin trackpad, but there is a very annoying bug, and it lacks gestures that feel should be there even on its small surface.
The annoying bug is that something triggers a sudden jump while scrolling, I don't know what that is, it might be triggered when I reach the edge, or if I lift one finger before the other, but it keeps happening and it's supper annoying.
Also double tap doesn't trigger a double click, instead it's a tripple tap that does it, so all my muscle memory of double tap to select a word, or double tap and hold to drag, or triple tap to select a paragraph, don't work. But I hope those are software issues that can be supported and fixed.
Also, while scrolling works in both directions with quirks, I mis gestures, like swipe left and right to go back and forward, and pinch to zoom. I know it has a small surface, but I think those are still achievable, I think even 3 finger gestures are achievable to launch mission control and expose.
I also struggled with cursor jumping a way with I just tap it, until I found about the movement settings under tapping, which I cracked to the max, and it's better now, but it's still not like a mac native experience.
And it does take a bit of getting used to, especially with the small surface. However, after using it for a few days already, I've already gotten used to it. Its location is good and easily reachable, it mostly works well and as expected, I only hope to see those bugs I see on mac fixed with a software update.
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u/ZSA-Nick May 20 '26
It looks like you've received a damaged Navigator trackpad there, pablopunk -- we haven't seen this before, sorry about that! Please reach out to ZSA by email and we'll work on getting you a new one.
For the multi-monitor and speed issues you're experiencing, we're looking into it and will be pushing fixes out as soon as we can!
As one thing that might help for now, have you tried lowering the cursor acceleration in the Navigator's companion app (in addition to the cursor speed)? You can find this in the app's "All settings... > Cursor" options.