Bluetooth Versus Wireless Mice 519
Meneguzzi writes "Having stuck with wired mice for years, I have recently been impressed by a couple of cordless mice I've used on other people's computers so much that I now want to buy one to use with my Mac Book Pro. However, while shopping around for the perfect cordless laptop mouse I was stuck with the question of whether to go for a bluetooth mouse or one of the many proprietary cordless mice with tiny USB receivers. To my surprise, there seems to be little literature systematically comparing these two options for attributes like precision, battery life (both for the mouse and the laptop), RF interference, and whatnot. As a Mac user, bluetooth has the advantage that it won't take up a USB port, and (in theory), would consume less battery than a USB port, but I wonder if this is actually true in practice. On top of that, I noticed that there are far fewer (and less fancy) options for Bluetooth mice than there are for proprietary cordless ones. Logitech, for instance, has a very basic Bluetooth Mouse, while its proprietary options are much fancier. So I was wondering what are the experiences from Slashdotters on this particular type of hardware, and any recommendations."
VX Nano (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only flaw is that it doesn't have Bluetooth, but at the same time its battery life is about 4 times as long as my desktop's (also a Logitech) Bluetooth mouse.
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:5, Interesting)
Having been a rabid Mac user and advocate since 1992, I have to say: Apple *sucks* at mice. My roommate has a wireless Mighty Mouse, and it never right-clicks properly for me.
However, you may love it; my roommate swears by the thing, and never has any problems.
So basically, my post is useless, except to say that whenever you can, try before you buy.
My experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
...is that a dedicated wireless tech like Logitech's is better than Bluetooth.
My Bluetooth mouse at work occasionally lags behind, or sometimes stops moving for short whiles (even when it's not fallen asleep). Generally it seems the Bluetooth layer adds the occasional issues encountered with wireless networking in general.
I haven't ever seen this with Logitech's dedicated wireless devices.
Then again, I could just be a victim of bad drivers. :)
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, I've found the Mighty Mouse completely unusable. They continued using a single button, and instead it senses where your finder is to determine if you are left or right clicking. If you rest your fingers on the mouse, it can't detect this properly and instead always registers a left click. I wasn't able to get used to this and instead just went back to using the trackpad.
Re:My experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing bad drivers. My Microsoft bluetooth mouse works very, very well; I only see it lag briefly when I've let it go inactive for 5+ minutes.
Incidentally, I don't have bluetooth enabled in my Linux kernel (2.6.27), but my mouse works. That is, movement and the right and left buttons work, but the wheel and the third, fourth, and fifth buttons don't, so it's not full functionality, but I find it odd that the mouse works at all without bluetooth support in the kernel. Can anyone help me understand why? Is my bluetooth hardware emulating something?
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
It takes getting used to but if you use it often it is an awesome mouse. I especially love that the middle button is a trackball. The only negatives IMO is that it costs $70 which I find a little excessive and you can't lift it when dragging so you need a big mouse pad if you have a 24" iMac.
Re:You ask us a question... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience is similar.. although I'll go a little further.
The problem with bluetooth is that once it's paired, it works fine.. but pairing can be a problem, especially in a busy office. The mouse and keyboard always wants to pair with the dozens of macs in the room, except for the one I want it to pair with.
My take - haven't read the other replies. (Score:5, Interesting)
Get Bluetooth if you have it built in. Even if you don't have it built in (which having a Mac you do) get Bluetooth. It beats having a dongle for every damned device you want to plug in (keyboard, game control, mouse, headset) the Bluetooth one can do all of it.
DO NOT get a fucking Apple Mighty Mouse. I've had a couple, great idea in theory, but not a good mouse in practice. Right click sucks. It works at first and stops working over time. If you completely remove your index finger from the mouse and click with your middle finger you can usually get a right click, or if you take out the batteries and put them back it works again. It's not worth it. The ball always gets fucked up over time, you can fix it and it will work again for a while, then fix it again, and again, and eventually, not anymore.
Get this Logitech [logitech.com], reviewed it, you can find my review in that link, and I did chastise Logitech a bit, but when compared the other Bluetooth mice I've used that's the best.
The USB wireless mice do have one advantage. They work immediately on boot up no problem on every OS. With Bluetooth I've found that to be the case with Linux. On Mac I have to either hit the connect button while booting with the Logitech (the Mighty Mouse actually did better at this - go figure) or fidget with the buttons and hope the Mac pics up on it after a while. With Windows, well, very mixed experience there, especially when it forgets the mouse should exist.
On my Macbook Pro I always carried a mini bluetooth keyboard and a mouse in my bag, and I left a bluetooth keyboard and mouse on my work desk, used Synergy at home. I had at least 3 each keyboards and mice paired with it, they all worked great every time. I even paired a bluetooth headset with it, but that seemed to be problematic. Audio quality would degrade with time, and the applications were stupid, if the headset wasn't present it wouldn't automatically switch back to the built in or external mic/speakers. Not to mention I paired a Motorola Q, a Blackberry and an iPhone. The Q was awesome with it, surprising since it sucked all around otherwise. The Blackberry was functional, but not that great. There was no point with the iPhone. I don't even see why it's pairable.
Linux on the other hand, I've paired everything above and a PS3 Sixaxxis, the Mac I could only get that to work via USB.
I like Bluetooth, I'm pushing Logitech to support it a bit better, and I can't wait for the day the dongle dies. The electronic dongle, not my dongle.
Re:My experience... (Score:2, Interesting)
My Broadcom BT identifies itself as four devices. It has normal BT interface, mouse and keyboard. So usual USB HID drivers are enough for a mouse and a keyboard.
lsusb for BT device:
Bus 002 Device 028: ID 0a5c:4503 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 002 Device 027: ID 0a5c:4502 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 002 Device 026: ID 413c:8126 Dell Computer Corp. Wireless 355 Bluetooth
Bus 002 Device 025: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp.
Re:RF vs Bluetooth Mice (Score:2, Interesting)
Whether or not a Bluetooth mouse was given CPU cycle precedence would depend entirely upon how the Bluetooth protocol stack was developed, wouldn't it?
Entirely correct. I can have 100% utilization on both cores on my computer and my bluetooth mouse is still perfectly responsive. I have seen no difference between rf and bluetooth wireless mices in this respect.
Running: Dell D630/Core 2 Duo T7250/Logitech V470/4Gb ram/30Gb OCZ Vertex/Ubuntu 9.04
BT brings one thing to the table -- encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
Realistically, this is a very low risk to most people. However, session hijacking and packet sniffing via TCP was considered a low risk as well in the past.
One reason I go for BT mice over generic USB radio is the fact that BT traffic is encrypted once the devices are paired. Someone sniffing traffic would not be able to figure out your mouse patterns, or even worse take control of your mouse and start clicking on stuff.
Similar with a BT keyboard versus a wireless keyboard and either intercepting keystrokes or injecting them.
Re:What is wrong with wire? (Score:2, Interesting)
An alcaline battery lasts a month or three, so this is rarely a problem.
RF mice have the same trouble (Score:1, Interesting)
I recently went back to a wired mouse. Frankly, the wireless freedom (from the advertisements) is hardly noticeable in practice. The battery life still sucks, and gets worse as the batteries get older, and also, quaintly enough, as the mouse gets older. Wake up responsiveness is better now than it used to be, but still annoying. And the mechanism tends to fail in old mice, making them either die before they're really worn out, or drain the batteries with a vengeance. Range is limited, especially if you have large metal objects in the vicinity. If you sit at a metal desk... Well, to cut a long story short, I went back to a simple (but ergonomic) wired Logitech and I'm happier with it than I've ever been with a mouse, so wireless is far from the holy grail.
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to reinforce (Score:5, Interesting)
The Apple "Mighty Mouse" is the best mouse to use with the Macbook Pro. There are several reasons for this. Let me take care of the negatives first:
(1) Right-clicking can be a pain. You have to move your finger way over to the right-hand edge of the mouse, and maybe even lift your other finger. This is the one thing I can say that they really screwed up. On the other hand, considering that their original mouse had only one button, it's still an improvement.
(2) The bearing surface is a smooth (teflon?) ring, all the way around the mouse. As a result, there is a bit more drag than there is on other mice, and the ring tends to pick up a bit more dirt than other mice do.
Now for the positives:
(A) At least there is a right-click. And in fact there are actually 3 buttons: press the ball on the top for the 3rd button, much like you press the wheel on other mice.
(B)I got that wrong. I forgot about the side-buttons, which work as a pair. Squeeze them together, and they behave as a 4th button.
(C) The Mighty Mouse works seamlessly with the Macbook over bluetooth. In fact, my regular work setup is a Macbook Pro with a Mighty Mouse and their bluetooth keyboard. There is NO noticeable lag, glitching, or delay like there are with some wireless mice. It is rock-solid.
(D) The battery life is great even if you just walk away at the end of the day, and if you want even more life, there is an off-switch on the bottom. I have had this mouse for over a year, I am a professional developer, and I often do not bother to turn it off at the end of the day. I think it was just last week I inserted my 4th pair of AA batteries.
(E) The ball on the top is a full trackball, far superior to wheels, even the wheels that tilt for side-to-side. You get full 360-degree control, and very smooth. Nothing else on the market has a full 360-degree secondary control like this. Scrolling horizontally is as easy and instinctive as scrolling vertically.
(F) This is the only control device (mouse or trackball) I have EVER owned for more than a year without having to at least partially disassemble it for cleaning.
I am not sure what else I can say. The right-click could use some improvement. Big deal. And the ring on the bottom should probably be 3 or 4 teflon pads instead; also "big deal".
And you are getting this from a long-time Windows person. There are some Apple practices or design decisions that I am still not convinced about. But as for the Mighty Mouse: the pluses so far outweigh the minuses that this is a no-brainer.
Re:Bluetooth is the way to go (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a Linux user too. I have a Microsoft bluetooth mouse (IntelliMouse Explorer.)
And I want to choke the authors of Linux Bluez to death.
The idiots decided that it's a good idea to require me to enter the PIN they suggest on the keypad of the bluetooth device, and outright refused to implement options for the user to provide their own PIN.
The procedure required to get my mouse to work in Linux involves emailing kernel messages and debug data to them and waiting till their updates to the hardcoded database are included in the distribution updates. Yes, Linux is completely ready for Desktop.
Re:RF vs Bluetooth Mice (Score:5, Interesting)
Conversely, I have just installed a Microsoft Wireless Desktop 6000 V3 tonight, and I have already encountered significant hiccuping and lagging with both the keyboard and the mouse. The keyboard is actually missing keystrokes entirely, lagging at times, and the mouse... the mouse is just horrid! This is apparently a 2.4GHz non-Bluetooth variety. The mouse in particular seems to be adversely affected when I have WCG (World Community Grid, BOINC) running in the background; WCG is running at lowest priority and is supposed to yield to virtually everything, even normal-priority processes, but the mouse still seems to be affected. The mouse also seems to be VERY sensitive to the surface it's on, even though I have two other optical MS mice here that have worked fine on it for years. My guess would be that the mouse emitter was deliberately under-powered versus its wired cousins to try to save battery juice, with predictable consequences in the variety of surfaces it can tolerate.
The short story is that this RF-based product, at least, is awful. I've deliberately omitted mention of issues not pertinent to this, but there are more. Had I still been using my previous keyboard and mouse as I wrote this, it would have taken only one third the time it has required now from having to accommodate said hiccups.
You'll have to excuse me now... there's an RMA I need to arrange.
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
Turning up the speed makes it more difficult to be precise in my experience. Important if you do much in the way of graphics. The jumbo sized mouse pad takes up a lot of desk space but otherwise is a easy/cheap fix. Heck, I wish the whole darn desk was a mousepad really.
The side buttons can be frustrating sometimes. I wish they'd move them a little bit forward so that gripping the mouse didn't accidently trigger them. Something amusing I've noticed is if you have static electricity on you when touching the mouse it'll trigger the side buttons sometimes. Work up a good charge and then touch someone using the mouse and see. Or get a plasma ball and touch it while touching the mouser.
Given the ugliness of the average PC and it's components and the lack of showering by most geeks I think I can live with a bar of soap mouse.
Re:Highly Uneven (Score:1, Interesting)
I would also like to add that if walk in a store, they are bloody hard to find. For every BT mouse theres at least dozen regular wireless mouses.
But BT mouses are soo much better than regular. Good points include:
- If you have integrated BT in your laptop, then you don't get that ugly dongle sticking out of your usb port.
- BT mice have excellent response. They work well even as a gaming mice to my experience.
But I can confirm that battery life isn't that good. So to save money and nerves, get rechargeable batteries also. In my logitech mouse they last little over a week of pretty 16h/day use.
That doesn't bother me much 'cause I have a AV-amp remote that eats the same rechargeable batteries in two days.
USB wireless mouse, wifi mouse. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have wanted something simple for a while now. I don't understand why it isn't obvious. I want a wireless and USB mouse. A wireless mouse that you can plug into USB (it has a normal USB socket on it where a mouse cable might be. The USB cable charges it when it's plugged in and you can still use it while it's charging.
How hard would this be?
Oh and I used to use a thing called synergy to allow a mouse and keyboard from one desktop to be used on another. What about a wifi mouse eh?
Re:Wireless Mighty Mouse (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:VX Nano (Score:4, Interesting)
It has a middle button. It's behind the scroll wheel. Clicking the scroll wheel changes the gear behavior so they couldn't make that the middle button like normal. But there is a functioning middle button on this mouse.
You just have to tell the logitech software to use it as such is all.
The mouse is awesome.
Re:Why on Earth a Mouse Pad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, no, iMacs come with optical mice. Apple doesn't sell any other type and hasn't for a few years.
I had a boss who insisted on outfitting me with an all (clear) glass desk and a wireless mouse and keyboard. The glass desk made the optical mouse about worthless -- I had to get a mouse pad. But even worse was that I was working sometimes 18 hours a day, and the wireless mouse and keyboard were constantly running out of power. I had to get a bunch of rechargeable batteries and a station, but eventually I just replaced them with a wired set because it was just a pain in the ass and I didn't care about how it looked. It took my boss eight months to use up the batteries in his wireless mouse, though. That probably says something ...
I still use a mouse pad no matter what the surface is, though, because I find that any uneven or slightly reflective surface makes the pointer jump. The semi-gloss desk at my new job is just terrible for the optical mouse -- and my wife gave me this neat-looking mouse pad that is glossy and has the same problem.
Re:Bluetooth (Score:3, Interesting)
I think mice with two AA batteries are a little bit too heavy for gaming, for my tastes anyway. I switch back and forth between a wired, lightweight logitech mouse and a wireless Mighty Mouse with dual batteries. A lighter, shorter lifetime, single battery mouse might be a good compromise for gamers.