Small trackpoint or touch pad?

[Entropia]

I want to be able to control the mouse pointer from my steering wheel. As regard the buttons, there's no problem, because the wheel base has two buttons on the right, which can be remapped to mouse buttons. Now, on the front left of the base, there's room to stick or screw a small device, which could be a trackpoint or a touch pad, or even a very small trackball. Do you know if any of these devices exist as an independent usb device? Any other idea?

[4sStylZ]

You can make a usb trackpoint by yourself. There’s no « Plug and play version ».

That’s some DIY hard work but if you have motivation : 

1) Salvage a broken thinkpad notebook keyboard or buy some OEM replacement keyboard in Ebay. Be carefull with the trace.
2) Buy a Teensy 2 or 2++ (not the arm one who are, for me, not easy to manipulate).
3) Make an adaptator between the Teensy and the trackpoint.
4) Clone QMK Firmware in local and compile the keyboard located at keyboards/handwired/keyboard

That’s the different trackpoint models : https://deskthority.net/wiki/TrackPoint_Hardware
I personnaly have the T40 one, and I have succefully build it and I am able to use it in USB.

[rich1051414]

Trackpoint does sound good. Also the steam controller approach as well, but that may be more challenging to get setup. Either way would need some custom arduino work.

The easiest would be to use directional arrows to control the mouse cursor. The OS has support for that built in.

[katushkin]

Have you considered a joystick? I'm sure there would be a way of configuring a small joystick from an old games controller and sticking that to your steering wheel?

[typo]

Logitech made a very nice one discontinued check Auction site. It is about 5" square. It does gestures and everything.

[Tactile]

I don't know how small you need but Adesso has been making these for many years.