history

Spatial Freedom was founded in 2002 by John Hilton to re-energize the 3D mouse market with competitive pricing and innovation. He invented the Spaceball in 1982 at the University of Sydney and, over many years, developed his invention enjoying the appreciation of 3D CAD users and gamers worldwide as these products provided tremendous productivity, fun and comfort. The Spaceball’s commercial success led to a $22M IPO on NASDAQ in 1995. In 2001 the Spaceball products (in a division of Labtec, Inc.) were acquired by Logitech then merged with a smaller German competitor to become a monopoly player in the market.

John Hilton developed:

Some of these products were rebranded under IBM, Silicon Graphics, COMPAQ, Intergraph, Apollo and 3Dconnexion/Logitech. ASCII Entertainment of Japan developed the Sphere 360 for the Sony PlayStation 1.

Even today, people fondly remember the Spaceball and the SpaceOrb, wishing they still existed – see Testimonials. Their disappearance was due to corporate politics far more than technology or market.

The astroid 6000 was released in 2005 at US$149, ¼ the price of the competitive product. 3Dconnexion (then a wholly owned subsidiary of Logitech International S.A.) countered by sandwiching the astroid with a
new $59 education only product and a $199 product. Spatial Freedom could not compete with Logitech’s war chest and so was put on ice. Once the astroid 6000 was off the market, pricing returned to monopoly levels where it remains today.

Spatial Freedom is embarking on bringing a new competitive astroid 7000 to the market in 2025…