"Balking at the $50+ charge for turnkey assembly, I opted to take the financially responsible route and pay $200+ for a hot-air rework station to solder it myself."
Alternative way to see it: The author had either a $50 solution, or a $50 solution that comes with a discounted hotair rework station for $150…
I learned it from Superfastmatt. He needed a piece of plastic that retails for $1500 for his van, so he said: “either I have a $1500 solution or I have a $1500 solution but I get a free fancy 3D printer in the end…” that stuck with me.
Haha yeah, last year I replaced my wheel bearings in my van. I ended up with a frustrating ABS code (long story short: faulty magnetic encoders on both of the new bearings). I ended up spending about the same as the job would have cost at a shop, but with a slew of new tools.
I also did a USB switch project for fun, and ended up spending probably $250 for something I could have just bought for $15, but it was a great experience. (Here if anyone is interested: https://shielddigitaldesign.com/posts/2021/susb/ )
You still need to account for a fun factor. I've got a nas which cost me probably $400 in parts to save on buying a $300 solution. But it's mine, janky, fun and I wouldn't have it any other way.
For just straight up assembly of one-sided SMT boards (i.e. not reclaiming components from a donor board), a $30 plug-in electric skillet and a solder paste stencil from the PCB manufacturer (or patience and a solder paste syringe) works far better than it has any right to. https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Skillet-Surface-mount-S...
The hot air station is called a "rework station" because it's very helpful for rework, too.
Using a hot plate to reflow boards is fine if you already know everything is correct. Having a real hot air station is very important if you need to change any parts or even fix reflow problems.
Kapton tape is your friend for hot air. It's cheap and you can get by with scissors.
Tape out anything that you're not reworking, use tweezers and push down the edges against the board to seal as best you can, and then flux it and blow.
It'll hold things in place and wick away the heat from anything you're not trying to rework. I went from a near 0% success rate to near 100% with it.
To protect larger areas, you can use aluminium foil. It's usually best to hold the hot air pencil at a right-angle to the board; if you angle it like a soldering iron, the excess heat all goes in one direction and you're much more likely to blow off small adjacent components.
To be fair, it takes a little practice IMO and until you learn how to use flux correctly etc., it can seem very unattainable to ever learn well.
I got a huge confidence boost from one of the old engineers with rubbish eyesight. Thinking “If HE can see well enough to do 0603 and smaller, then so can I!” :D
A few hours practice on scrapped electronics made a big difference for me.
You don't have to 'keep flipping the board over' when doing through hole either. Just stick all of the components in, fold over two legs on chips and passives, then solder all of them in one go.
If you're blowing off stuff, your pressure setting is too high. I usually start at the lowest setting, and only go up if I need to deliver a lot of heat to an area.
That hit home for me too. My DIY cupboard is full of quality buy-it-for-life tools and accessories that I've used only a handful of times (or sometimes not at all).
Usually they have volunteers who do maintenance. At my local tool library the tools are well-used, but there's also like 10 of everything so you have lots of backup options.
most places i’ve borrowed things will seek some basic assurances that i know what i’m doing, first.
for example, when i borrowed a MIG welder, the person at the space asked me to weld some scrap metal in front of them before they let me loose with it.
This is easier than many assume: If you can find the Discord or even an e-mail for your local makerspace and send them a photo, they might urgently send someone to pick it up from you if it's useful to them.
You know, for years I have been collecting power tools without having an immediate use for them - because they were for sale, or just because, you know, they're power tools. And a lot of them ended up just sitting on my workshop shelf, some of them never made it out of the box they came in.
But then we bought a new house and I started renovating it. I think I have probably used every single tool I ever bought by now, and every time I used one for the first time, I was so happy that I didn't have to go and scout for a good deal first or drive to Home Depot to buy one right now or anything like that.
So in my case, it actually paid off in the end to have PTPA (premature tool purchase addiction).
It depends on the tool. Generally, lending tools is not cheap where I live, but I once did lend a concrete sander because it was still cheaper than buying it (four digits, and likely won't ever need it again).
I've had this happen a couple of times now. There's definitely some jobs where I looked around and realized I'd used just about every tool I have.
I think the only disappointment at the moment is my Makita rotary drywall cutter - a reciprocating multi tool is just so much easier to control and makes nice straight cuts easily.
Still waiting for the welder to have its moment though.
Those rotary drywall cutters are the ticket for cutting plastic. I first used one when I was a mechanic before changing careers, and we used one for trimming tough plastics like bumper covers. Takes a bit of practice to get a nice cut, since they are super aggressive, but they make a very nice, clean cut that's far better than any other tool I've tried. I've actually never used mine on drywall, I prefer one of the oscillating tools or a jab saw, but I've used it quite a bit for automotive and electronics work. You can make a front panel for a project stupidly quick with one of those, and it turns out nicer than cutting with a dremel cutoff blade.
I've acquired so many tools like this, and I don't think I've ever looked at them at though I regretted the purchase. Many have enabled me to fix and make stuff down the line.
$200 is around 3-4x more than necessary for a decent hot air station these days; I had to check the date on the article as that would've been a more reasonable price 10-15 years ago.
You can get a $15 hot air station and it's fine for getting quite a lot done! Look for clones of the Atten 858D. And come say hi in #electronics on Libera :)
This statement also hit home for me when I thought over my woodworking tools. I could buy finished timber for $300, or I could spend $500 on tools and several hours to finish $75 of rough-sawn timber myself.
Almost never, in some cases you can but you need to be really in a nice and usually have access to the tooling for XYZ reasons. Then you would need to factor your labor cost, which is usually more than what would be billed normally in some cases...
Card board. Recovered cables. Recovered entire circuits of formerly used boards that fit inside my palm (#jewishConstraints) #Undisclosed parts of my how~yo (how drunk are you willing to get (to train yourself) (while raising a now 23 years old .... "kid" #PGurNOTeventrying #sry4urKId that is already "there"
My favorite mouse is the Logitech Anywhere MX. It's highly comfortable despite being pretty small. The back/forward buttons on the side are indispensable for web browsing, file management, and switching weapons in first-person shooters. It takes two AA batteries which last for months and take seconds to swap out. The dongle is small and has good range. The scroll wheel switches between clicky and free-scrolling.
It's pretty much the perfect mouse, IMO, to the point that I built up a back stock by hoarding new and open box on eBay. But there are two main problems:
1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).
2) The dongle is USB Type-A only. Logitech actively refused to make a USB-C unifying receiver. I assume they wanted to shift to bluetooth but they still made unifying receiver devices for years and years after bluetooth was everywhere, so I dunno.
As far as newer iterations, the Anywhere MX 2S is somewhat tolerable, but it has a built-in battery which must be charged every couple of months, which is annoying. All of the newer Anywhere MX mice are even worse because they changed the basic functionality/features of the mouse with each revision. Oh, yes and they cost $90 (!) retail now.
So basically one of my side-projects, one of these days, is going to be to try building an open source Anywhere MX clone. Should be a fun yet challenging endeavour. I know there are a bunch of online communities making their own keyboards from scratch and at great expense, is there such a thing for mice?
The smaller size is actually ideal for my fingertip grip, and I actually like the rechargeable battery. It lasts well over a month on a single charge and then charges really quickly (if it ever does go flat, just chuck it on the charger while you make a coffee, 2-3 min is enough to last the rest of the day). And I love the scroll wheel.
The microswitches going bad is a massive downside.
I read somewhere that it's caused by static build up due to Logitech using much lower voltage/current than what the switches were originally designed for... After a bit of experimentation, I found that simply breathing warm air into the side of the left button clears up my issues for a few days....
Which is stupid annoying workaround, but what else am I going to do, buy a second one which probably has the same flaw?
I too use the mx 3. It’s a great mouse that can also travel easily in my laptop bag.
I went to get a new one to keep at my office last year and noticed that the buttons had changed from clicky ones to silent ones. That drove me nuts and I returned the new version. However, the issue you mention with static and the buttons might explain the change. I thought it was just a vendor making a good device cheaper to manufacture. Maybe it was a better version after all?
Yeah... apparently the MX Anywhere 3S uses new "silent" switches, which I was hoping might fix the issue.
But I've found one post complaining about bad switches on the Anywhere 3S and a few complaining about the MX Master 3S (which uses the same switches?).
I'm sticking with my current mouse for now, since I know it's quirks.
I switched to the MX Anywhere 3S from the Anywhere 3 and now it has become my favorite mouse by far. I have one at the office and one at home.
The silent buttons feel just right for me and the higher sensitivity has been a game changer in terms of the overall experience of using the mouse. The movement feels so much smoother and more natural than with the Anywhere 3.
I also use LinearMouse (I'm on macOS) for configuring the mouse and it covers all my current needs. My configuration mostly consists of:
- Disable pointer acceleration
- Set tracking speed to 1
- Reverse scrolling
- Scroll by 4 lines
- Button #4 for Cmnd+W (close current tab, which works in most applications)
- (No explicit change) Button #3 default action (go back)
Together with the MX Keys Mini it's a liberating feeling being happy with the peripherals and not wanting to change anything (except for a few small annoyances with the top keyboard row).
I'm a pretty big fan of the M500 series myself.. I like the weighted scroll wheel. I actually wish it were maybe 15-20% bigger and slightly heavier myself.
Not sure about online mouse communities, but it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables. I realise now that because of my dislike (leaning towards hatred) of single-use alkaline batteries I unwittingly dismissed the benefits of having quick replaceability.
Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage. For more power, 14500/18650/21700 cylindrical lithium cells are my go-to.
Personally though, I find it more convenient to have a charging cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby. When the built-in battery eventually goes bad, I am confident that I could replace it myself (not a universal position).
Had to use my old TI 89 one day. Haven't used it in 10 years. Took it out of storage, put in 4 AAA usb-c rechargable batteries, worked like a charm. Could you do the same with your hard to replace custom battery?
Any consumer electronic using standard format batteries is superior by default. Because 10 or 20 years from now, it still have brand new full batteries lying around.
I have an early digital video camera with a genius design. It came with a custom rechargeable cell in the battery compartment. But the compartment _also_ supports regular AA batteries.
Brother label printers used to support this up until a couple of years ago at least but sadly the most recent models have stopped having the AA compatibility.
> Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage.
Any device that can't is arguably broken as designed. Much of the energy (the majority, in a higher current application) in an alkaline battery is found under 1.2V.
Unless the device was designed around the alkaline discharge curve! Smoke alarms rely on the lower voltage to give sufficient warning when the battery is low, and mine refuses to operate at all when powered by a rechargeable battery.
Try lithium-based AA/AAA rechargeables. These worked wonders for my finicky Instax Camera which refuses to use regular NiMH AAs because their voltage is too low.
The issue with these is the low battery warning. Once the voltage starts dropping you don’t have much time to notice. Not a problem for active devices, but things like door sensors may give you just a few days between 80% and dead.
Absolutely. Different battery manufacturers use different discharge profiles, some gradually lower voltage in a few steps, others may just die with almost no warning, so it might take a few tries before you find a brand that works for your device.
I too was surprised by this view when I started at Oculus, where the game controller folks who had come over from Xbox were adamant that players would rather swap in a fresh pair of AAs than plug into a charging cable.
Personally I've never come around to their side of things, although I do recognise the inconvenience of charging cables while you are using a peripheral (Apple Mouse charging port location especially :D )
For me, I'll always choose a device with standard, user-replaceable batteries over a built-in battery.
1) If the device battery is dead, I can swap it out in seconds and be up and running immediately.
2) Built-in batteries fail, and replacing them ranges from difficult to near-impossible and often involves damaging the device's casing to get the built-in battery out.
When I'm spending $100 on a computer mouse, I'd really like it to last longer than the life of the battery and not have to destroy the casing to get to the battery to replace it.
IMHO Sony nailed this pretty perfectly 30 years ago on devices like the Discman: Have a footprint which can support a number of standard batteri(es), but engineer it so it also accepts and detects a specially-designed NiMH pack. When the special batery is present, allow the battery to be charged anytime external power is provided.
Now you have the best of both worlds: Economical rechargable use for the 90% of the time that the user's in their normal routine, and easily ability to swap temporarily to universally-available alkalines in exceptional situations.
Note: When I had one of these, I just used my own NiMH AAs and jammed a folded-up piece of cardstock against the detection switch, which worked perfectly fine.
IMO just having the battery pack replaceable without tools is what matters more than using a standard one. As long as the device is even remotely popular there will be cheap replacements available.
Regarding #2 the fact that probably the majority of battery-powered non-toy devices now are designed not to ever have their battery serviced is indicative of a (in my opinion) diseased mindset of disposability. Each of the components including battery and other wear parts are only spec'd to last about 12-18 months. We're being conditioned (by one-year warranties and by the lack of repairability) to think that it's normal and expected that you discard and replace everything smaller than a car every 18-36 months, and a car every 7 years or so because "obviously" anything older than these milestones is "obsolete anyway."
Yeah. Though to be fair, the alternative in the controller space in that era was hot-swappable rechargeable battery packs - a ton of 3rd parties provided them for Xbox 360 controllers.
I still use my Xbox 360 sometimes, and the only controllers that still work are the ones with AA batteries. The rechargeables have long since died completely.
I, too, prefer disposables, but for a somewhat different reason. One very commonly used surgical item is a sterile suction/irrigator. It's sealed with 8 AA's at the factory, used for 2-3 minutes during laparoscopic surgery, and disposed of. So pretty much anyone who works in a surgical suite that does laparoscopy has a personally unlimited supply of AA's that would be thrown away anyway.
Years ago when I worked in live audio we had a similar setup. Zero tolerance for a performer's mic pack dying mid show because a low battery indicator wasn't calibrated right or someone incorrectly tracked how many hours a particular set had been used, so it was fresh-from-the-package alkaline AAs installed before every set, and a virtually unlimited supply of half-charged disposables to take home afterwards. Plenty would get reused for internal equipment checks and sound checks, but there were still more than enough to go around.
At the time (well over a decade ago) there was still lots of skepticism around recharagables and the extra process involved in dealing with them... but the tech has gotten lots better since, at that time even low-self-discharge was sort of hard to find. I'm sure much of the industry has moved over by now.
When it has to be factory-sealed as sterile, there is no point in using a rechargeable.
I would love to end the senseless waste in surgery, but The Powers That Make Our Lives Suck For No Reason want everything to be single-use sterile objects.
> It’s quite literally trash; I could hardly be described as stealing it.
Note that legally trash is still owned, usually by the person or entity which produced it, so it’s technically stealing. (Whether anyone cares is a different thing. If you picked bank letters instead of barely used batteries…)
> it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables
I share this preference. Replacing a battery has a device back in a working state a couple orders of magnitude faster than onboard charging, and when built-in batteries wear out, replacement is often difficult to impossible.
I always use NiMH rechargeables; alkalines are wasteful and sometimes leaky.
If you have a a device that does not tolerate the lower voltage, check out NiZn rechargables. They top out at ~1.7 V when full and keep their voltage quite high until they are almost flat. (At which point they should be immediately recharged, they don't take deep discharge well.)
I use them almost everywhere nowadays. Most devices tolerate the slightly higher voltage and even expensive hardware usually cheaps out on proper battery circuitry.
I always have at least a half-dozen NiMH AA batteries sitting charged in the drawer ready to go. When the mouse stops working, I grab a couple of charged batteries, slap them in, put the drained ones in the charger and then carry on with whatever I was doing. With a built-in battery, when the battery goes dead, I have to mess around with finding another mouse while this one charges.
(Yeah, the computer tells me when the mouse battery is getting low, but I do not have the discipline to remember to plug it in hours later when I'm done with the computer for the day.)
The thing with AA is that it gives you options. You can use rechargeable in it if you’d like. Avoiding proprietary batteries is a good thing because they are not always available or easy to service for the end user compared to AA.
For certain activities like hiking having AA or AAA is preferred. If they run out of charge they are trivially replaced with a light weight inventory and this is probably sufficient to last your trip.
I'm on an MX Anywhere 3S and overall I'm a fan. The killer feature for me is the Bolt receiver being able to pair to both the mouse and the MX Mechanical Mini keyboard and being able to have a second receiver that both devices can switch to. Unfortunately they have to be switched over individually rather than following each other (and the mouse's switch button is underneath), but still, this is a pretty killer configuration that I haven't seen offered elsewhere.
For clarity, I plug my main receiver into my workstation and use Synergy to take the M&K over to an adjacent laptop in software, but the secondary receiver is useful when testing installers for NUC, Jetson, etc. Basically I've got a bare metal device on my desk plugged into a mini monitor and with one little dongle I can trivially get my keyboard/mouse on that device including in a preboot environment like the EFI firmware.
Unifying definitely lets you pair multiple devices (keyboard, mice) to the same dongle, but I'm less sure about whether it lets you pair multiple dongles to the same device(s) and then hot switch between them.
I have been all-in on Logitech keyboards and mice for years now. In the beginning it was just the unifying receiver but they've recently switched over to the Bolt receiver. Unfortunately the Bolt receiver is not backwards compatible with devices made for the unifying receiver.
You can pair a single device to multiple receivers and the "switch" button on each device will let you cycle between each receiver. I use the same keyboard and mouse with both my personal computer and my work computer. Every time I need to switch, I just need to use the device switch button on the keyboard and the mouse.
Any Logitech device that supported both Bluetooth and Unifying, such as the MX Master, allowed you to cycle through up to stored 3 connections of either type. The older, cheap devices generally only had a single connection.
Logitech also makes or made keyboards with 1-2-3 hot swap keys that allowed quick switching with a single press.
> 1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years.
I've got to mention how reliable the switches used to be. I purchased a wired Logitech mouse in the 90's that lasted through three different computers.
More recent models fail quickly with such regularity that I just stopped purchasing the brand at all.
My G5 lasted for more than a decade, I think? It didn't even go bad, I bought a new mouse and used its switches to fix the (at that point one year old) Logitech trackball I had bought much later.
I used my anywhere MX until one of the switches gave out. I'm pretty sure I found replacements on Mouser, and those parts -- and the mouse -- are buried somewhere in my TODO project bins.
You don't really have to replace the microswitch, at least on my Logitech (M570) I can pull them open, bend the metal strip a little, close the switch back and I'm good for another year or two.
It's still tedious, as the metal strip is really small and is hard top manipulate, but far easier and less risky for the pcb than desoldering.
Logitech appear to have made the unifying receiver legacy tech now. Preferring their Bolt receiver going forward. This does have a USB-C receiver available but not supplied with their devices
Hmm... $30 and only being sold by third-party sellers there. That's not encouraging. Hope that's a temporary inventory shortage because of pent-up demand and not a sign that they barely intend to make any of these. Because I have a half drawer worth of various of the compact USB-A receivers and have literally never seen any USB-C equivalents in real life yet... It's time.
> 1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).
I have the same problem (with a different mouse model/manufacturer). Sometimes you can even "repair" the switches without de-soldering them by opening up the case and bending the metal contact a bit. I put "repair" in quotes because the repaired switches don't seem to last as long as new ones but at least it's easy to do and doesn't need any tools besides a screw driver.
I use an Anywhere MX too, my main issue with it is the loose ratcheting on the mouse wheel, the tiniest bit of pressure will move it and the ratchet mechanism feels quite mushy. From what I hear, you can change the sensitivity of it, but A) only in their software (which doesnt run on Linux) and B) it's not stored on the mouse itself (which means I can't just change it on my Mac and then move back to Linux). I think I have the Anywhere 3, maybe the 2S is better.
>1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years.
I had this happen to my shop PC mouse's left button. I was too lazy to get another mouse or desolder and put in a new switch, so I tried drilling a small hole in the top of the switch and squirted some Deoxit in there. That fixed it. Later, the right button went bad too, so I did the same thing. Now it's been a year and it's still working.
My speculation: this is due to the lower and lower voltages that “long battery life” wireless mice run.
It’s not necessarily that switches have lowered in quality, it’s that you get less current flow at 1.8V or whatever than 5V and any added resistance exacerbates that.
Maybe adding another pull-up resistor in parallel with the existing one can buy more time per switch.
+1 to this mouse (edit: I have the MX Anywhere 3S actually, a recent iteration)
Although the first one had its primary button stop working after 3 months. But they sent a replacement. I fear it won't last much more after the warranty period ends.
I'll also add that it works great over Bluetooth — look ma, no dongle!
I am not sure about your claim of damaging the PCB when replacing the micro switch -- I am terrible at soldering and do it no more than twice a year. Yet I was able to replace the switch on MX Vertical without any issue.
Are you sure the microswitch thing is as widespread as you imply? Or could you have just got a bad unit? I have one at work and one at home, and have used them both daily for many more than a couple of years.
I had two mouses get that problem about a year in. One was the MX Master 3S, a 100 € mouse. For that price point, it's entirely unacceptable for the mouse to only last a year. Good thing it had a two year warranty, but it's such a hassle to be without a mouse for weeks.
My first MX Master 3S had a bad right or left click button on Day 1, which would miss clicks constantly. Thankfully it was pretty easy to get a warranty replacement for this, which came as a full retail-boxed unit, so I now have an extra receiver too (I understandably had to mail in the useless defective mouse itself).
Nope, it's a known logitech problem. A couple of my Logitech mice started to get double-click issues later in their life. They cheap out with the switches, the Kailh ones don't have those issues.
It's highly variable. Some last much longer than others. The microswitches they use are very common jellybean parts and Logitech probably changes manufacturers all the time.
I disagree. I'm still using hardware that I bought at the turn of the century (a wireless mouse and an MP3 player) because they are powered by rechargeable AAA cells. If they used a built-in battery, I would have had to replace the battery, which is much more complex than changing a AAA cell.
I have three recent electronic devices that I would like to keep using but cannot, as their battery has reached end of life, replacements are hard to find, and changing the battery involves performing surgery on the device that I'm not confident I can do safely.
I consider them a minus because the proprietary batteries will likely fail before the rest of the mouse does. Using standard batteries means you’re not at the mercy of Logitech’s warranty when that happens. I wish more devices use standard batteries, but planned obsolescence is a hell of a drug.
FWIW, some of logitech's mice use "standard" rechargeable batteries - they look like an AA battery and are roughly as easy to replace (after 5-10 years of use).
AA-size Li-ion is called "14500" for anyone needing to source these. I'd love a mouse (or various other gadgets for that matter) that uses one behind a tool-free battery door.
My Logitech G604 takes only one AA. I'm not sure the advantages over NiMH (lighter weight, higher capacity) are worth soldering in diodes especially when the efficiency loss would negate the capacity advantage.
That is an AA battery. A web search suggests those shipped with Panasonic Eneeloops, which are probably the best-regarded NiMH AA for general use due to their shelf stability and long service life.
Support for standard battery cells is seriously underrated! Especially when you are on-the-go and your mouse dies, all you need to do is swap in a fresh rechargeable AA/AAA. No need to deal with a cable or waiting for a recharge.
My wireless controller eventually convinced me that AA/AAA rechargeable batteries give the same benefit, but you can swap them in a few seconds instead of getting stuck waiting for a recharge.
> My absolute favorite mouse is the MX Ergo from Logitech.
I switched to using Logitech's MX Vertical mouse and I love it. There was a learning curve period, especially when it came to finer grained movements, but I'm totally used to it now and it feels much more comfortable and natural to me that any other mouse I've used. It has a USB-C port and I can switch between 3 different Bluetooth connections (press a button, connects to my work laptop, press it again, connects to my personal one). I'm not much of a power user so I don't customize the buttons but I know it's possible with an app. I don't use the app.
Since there is no left-handed version of the MX Vertical, I recently tested half a dozen left-handed alternatives, and ended up liking this one the best: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3D6853V
I tried a couple of the flashy Chinese junk left handed vertical mice and they were all really really light weight with stiff buttons, so every time I clicked it turned into a click-drag (the force of the click moved the mouse). Is that one different?
I've been using a left handed Evoluent but they never released the latest generation wireless left handed, and the price for the old version is 3x as expensive as it was a couple years ago (and they don't last very long, having owned a couple I get double/triple clicks within a year of buying it). I do like the separate middle mouse button though.
All the non-wheel buttons are easy and comfortable to click and work consistently, I have no issues with them. The mouse wheel could be a bit better (it’s ratcheted, which I prefer, not free-wheeling), but is good enough for me. I generally don’t use the middle mouse button.
The gliding skates aren’t too great, I replaced them with aftermarket ones.
The RGB lights can be turned off permanently by long press on the DPI button.
Perixx makes a few left-handed variants of their mice. I’ve been using their Perimice 513L for several years. Sadly, their newer models are all wireless.
I am on my 3rd unit because their right button breaks after about a year of use. There are a few threads about it on Reddit and elsewhere. It's such a great mouse otherwise.
You may want to consider Evoluent mice. They’re a bit more expensive, but I have mine for 5 years and it works just fine. As a bonus, they have a true middle button, which is just marvelous.
I like the design, but I had similar problems with the hardware. It sucks paying a premium for a poor product. I've had no issues with thee Kinesis DXT Mouse 3. They have a traditional vertical mouse too. Consider these when your current Logitech breaks.
The mouse has disappeared into my hand and I've forgotten its existence. When I read your post I remembered how pain free my mousing experience has been lately.
I love the MX vertical's ergonomics, it's really the perfect mouse for me in that regard. It just feels... right. But I'm sad that the mouse is absolutely miles away from the MX Master mice in terms of quality and features.
I developed serious wrist/hand pains after switching to the MX Master 3S for a few months, but its magnetic scroll wheel and build quality was absolutely glorious.
The MX vertical is a plastic toy in comparison, but it costs the same.
I switched from a vertical mouse to Logitech MX and I wish the vertical one would have felt more comfortable because there are many more to chose from and they're easier to fit on large hands.
I've tried everything after setting my seating and table properly and it seems this is my thing. I bough 4 more because I fear, like with everything good, Logitech might stop selling them and I'd be lost...
Sharkfin Squad! It feels less precise than my regular gaming mouse, but I use it for work, and don't really need pinpoint accuracy. Been loving it ever since, and I even got a travel case for it.
Also, it can be used as a bluetooth mouse on my Samsung phone, which was neat.
I would _love_ to see more DIY mouse options. I feel like the mechanical keyboard crowd has so many options.
I've been dreaming of a set of lego-style bits of a mouse that can be assembled together... want another button? here you go. Want it on the side? Modify the 3D print file. Want bluetooth? Use this board... Want USB-C? Use that board... Want both? We've got you covered... Want a hyper-scroll wheel? Well, Logitech has a patent on that one, but here's the closest thing you can get on a DIY mouse. Now click these buttons in the configurator and hit "upload", and the firmware is installed to use your new mouse on any machine.
On the subject of adding more buttons, I think there needs to be a rethinking of mouse button events at the OS level. Gaming mice with 12-20+ buttons have to resort to creating keyboard events with weird key combinations because there aren't actually that many mouse events, which is insane. There are currently only 12 valid integers (12 types of "click") sent from the raw mouse events. Those need special handling because the numbers are chosen very strangely, but why can't we agree that for any number within some range, the odd number is a key-press and the even number is the key-release, or something like that? You don't have to create named events for all of them, but the raw integers should be valid even if you have to use the lower level events.
If I want to build a mouse with 32,000 buttons, the limit should not be the operating system's mouse event.
There's a YT channel called optimum and he made his perfect mouse and brought it up to a product stage. It may give you some ideas (like the sensor PCB is a set you can buy).
https://youtu.be/oMUEsz71_xQ
Totally agree. Mouse preference is just as personal and maybe even more subjective than keyboard preference is, and even with the plethora of commercially available models, someone is going to be left settling because their needs aren’t quite met.
I've been using a mouse from https://pmm.gg, it weighs about half as much as the mouse I swapped the guts out of (28 grams vs 60 grams). Basically a couple sheets of printer paper.
I don't really care about the weight, what caught my attention was they offer ceramic? coated magnesium scrollwheels. My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice. They offer the same coating on the shells, which I really enjoy.
Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over. I spend too much time holding this damn thing to settle for anything less. The quality is exceptional, assembly was easy, and the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
> My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice.
I’m not sure it’s even skin conditions. I think it’s just the natural oils in the skin. It’s part of what polishes plastics (e.g. keyboard keys), and over time it impregnates the rubber which swells then falls apart.
This process is why wet belts are stupid, no reason to think mouse wheel rubber is any different.
I agree with wet belts - it's a terrible idea - but I'm not sure the comparison is great. Skin oil and synthetic oil are very chemically different - as are the rubbers used in a cheap mousewheel versus an engine belt.
I have to wipe my kit down with soapy water every few hours or they will be caked with a disgusting amount of dead skin. My fingernails after 4 days are about as long as typical people after 2 weeks.
I actually like a heavier mouse. A lot of modern devices feel inconsequential and cheap (well, because they are). I've gone so far as to open my mice and glue in a few pennies to increase the weight. Makes it feel much better. At first it seemed kind of silly, but then I realized it doesn't matter. All that matters is how I feel about the devices I use for hours a day, every day.
I felt this way for a long time and used a heavy mouse for daily use then switched to my lightweight mouse for gaming. I changed my mind very fast when I started developing carpel tunnel symptoms from the heavy mouse - using your wrist to move a heavy object in the same pattern for 6+ hours a day is just not healthy for you and when your job involves doing that, its 100% worth it to just use the lightweight mouse for everything. I actually found that my wrist felt better with the 55g mouse than with a trackball or a touchpad.
An alternative approach that has worked for me is to get out of the habit of using little muscles as much as I can. I don't use my wrist much with the mouse, I move my whole arm. I try to apply that to everything I do and I've managed to avoid repetitive motion injuries. Last time I experienced anything like carpal tunnel was in college (decades ago).
In my mid 20s I started developing RSI. I went through a bunch of different devices designed to supposedly be "ergonomic" and while the problem would go away temporarily, it would eventually come back.
I eventually found that it's not any one device that cures RSI. It's much better to switch up between different devices on a regular basis.
So, now I have two keyboards I switch between about weekly. It's fairly easy because I just switch between working at the office vs home and have two different designs of devices in the two locations. Occasionally I use the laptop keyboard and track pad directly. I still program a lot and haven't had another RSI flare-up in about 7 years.
you can ask or hire any personal ergonomic service/company to evaluate what needs to get better at your workstation and they will say that devices are the last item on the list. posture, adequate chair/table height and breaks are much more important than 50 grams less on your mouse
The OSHA Computer Workstation Posture Checklist is gospel and if anyone reading this is struggling with RSI and hasn't followed it to the letter, please do so immediately. It is frankly disgusting how quickly a few seemingly small bad habits can grow into a monster nerve issue
I successfully removed this coating from my razer mouse using alcohol, it was pretty easy to do. The coating felt good when I unboxed the mouse, but yeah it turned into this chewed gum mess, now it's just plastic which is ok.
Also turned out that disassembling the mouse was easy, so you probably might just swap the wheel entirely.
That manufacturer falls under "fool, money, parted, easily." A Finalmouse which is probably the pinnacle of lightweight gaming mice, costs about $180 and they want $100-ish more than that?
> Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over.
I have a ten year old Razer Ultimate still going strong, buddy. $100 new.
> My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice.
No, whatever you're putting on your skin is. In any case: buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved...
> the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
If you're having issues with rigidity of your mouse, you're holding it too tight...
I think you've missed every point I was making, keep up the good work.
> Finalmouse
Trash product, none of the people I play with or against use one. You've kind of outed yourself here but I'll humor you further.
> I have a ten year old mouse that works fine
Good for you. I assure you I use mine far, far more than you. If you knew who I was you could go find me on esportsearnings, I've won against and have played with some of the people you see in mice ads.
> No, whatever you're putting on your skin is
I don't put anything on my skin. My body makes far more of everything than it needs. I have to wipe them down with a bit of soap and water every few hours or they will be absolutely caked in skin. If I wait more than 4 days to file or cut my fingernails they are disgustingly long.
> buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved
Have you ever tried doing this? They are attached to the shell with adhesives that cannot be removed without also destroying the plastic underneath.
> rigidity
Was highlighting how the weight reduction does not come at the cost of structural stability. If you knew what you were talking about you'd know many struggle with squeezing the mouse too hard. I do not have this issue
I was using a vertical Logitech mouse but was still experiencing discomfort mousing out to the side of my enormous Advantage2 keyboard. In an effort to head off any compounding RSI issues, I switched to a ploopy Adept trackball. Had no idea if I'd like switching to a trackball, and I love it! My hand never moves in an awkward motion, and mousing has become pretty restful. Better be careful tossing the ball up in the air idly during meetings as I won't be able to get a replacement if ploopy has paused shipping to the US (It's a pretty dumb habit at any rate).
They're just 1.75" snooker balls. It's very easy to get a big box of them. You'll also quickly notice why red never goes out of stock on Ploopy's website.
Just in case you're not really into the whole mechanical keyboard scene:
QMK, or Quantum Mechanical Keyboard, is an open-source, community-centered configuration tool for keyboards and other input devices. QMK software is handy for creating layers, moving around specific keys, adding functions, etc.
The MX Ergo S has USB-C and much more silent switches. Other than that, it's basically the same as the previous MX Ergo. I bought one a few weeks ago after I dropped and broke my old Ergo.
A bit unrelated, but I have the same soldering helper as in the post. It's called Omnifixo (I found out about it from a YouTube video (Norm from Tested)). I was initially skeptical, but it's made soldering a whole lot easier - highly recommended.
I've done some mouse PCB mods myself (swapping dead switches mainly). My biggest annoyance is resoldering through-hole components - unfortunately aftermarket PCBs for mice are quite rare, and my favorite mouse isn't all that popular in the "mouse community".
Used a trackball since 1994. Desktop publishing and photo editing, if you've ever needed to position precisely and lift finger off the ball and click or mousedown without moving the focus again you'll just know.
Kensignton makes a good one with a scrollwheel ring around it, the ball XY is perfect though the clickers are so-so in longevity. Working without a physical middle click and two button software middle click emulation is frustrating sometimes.
I have a wired CST trackball mouse that is about 10 years old. Built like a tank. I believe they go by the name of "L-Trac" now (as the company was sold).
They are a little pricey, ~$200, but I love mine (so much that I bought an extra). Also, they use a pool-sized ball, so I replaced mine with a green ball.
Logitech specifically. They haven't made a wired trackball in some time, as far as I can tell. Their only options are AA battery or rechargeable. I'd rather not have to futz with batteries at all on my desktop computer
The PERIMICE-520, right there on that page that you pointed to, is a wired trackball. I know because I have one beside me right now with the wire going across the desk. (-:
To add some context to the title for you, "Building the mouse Logitech won't make", it's referring to / implying the entire PC industry including Logitech.
Which would make a statement that "they no longer make wired trackballs" a falsehood. So likely not whatever "they" basscomm had in mind, if you think about it.
My chosen mouse (for now) is logitech G305 with silent switches swapped in. I've one with Huano (brown case, bright dot) and one with Kailh (the grey cube with big round, red dot). They feel different, both will be weird if you're used to stock, clicky omrons. I've also replaced the side switches, scroll switch and DPI switch (6 in total).
Kailhs have a sharper click feel, travel is smaller than stock. Huanos feel like they have more travel than stock, with a very long (soft?) tactile bump. Kailhs are marginally quieter. I don't prefer either, both are so much nicer than stock. I highly recommend swapping mouse switches, the stock omrons that logitech (and others) put in are loud, rattly trash. Huano makes really good clicky switches too. The good thing is that you can upgrade (fix) after the inevitable death (more likely double clicking than not clicking at all) of the stock ones. You'll likely want to buy both, because you will need (at least for G305) a square footprint switch to put under the scroll wheel. Kailhs despite being square and 2 pin, work fine for the main switches that have a 3 pin footprint. The third pin doesn't do anything.
I've not experimented with nor researched the scroll encoder yet. Maybe there are quiet options to swap in. It's not bad as is, but it'd like something quieter with softer jumps.
Except the obvious tools for soldering, don't forget to buy a new set of skates, because the screws will be under them. If the mouse is new, you might be able to unstick them intact. If it's not, you'll likely bend them and it won't glide as good.
About the mouse - I just like the shape of G305, the wireless is good and with a lithium battery it is pretty light and lasts a long time.
Lithium cells are like 7x the price, last maybe 2-3x as long, but are like 7-10g lighter, for mice get them only for weight reduction or working in cold places. People say Energizer ultimate lithium are the best, in my experience they last longer than lithium cells from Varta.
Great post. I too have a G305 with Kailhs. I felt nuts replacing the switches, and I'd never desoldered anything in my life before, but gosh the silent is so good.
I don’t understand why Logitech did not add the free spinnig scroll wheel to the Ergo? It is hard to go back from that but the Ergo is overall an excellent mouse.
I just wish it was wired…
It takes 20 minutes to charge fully. Technically, you will use the mouse in "wired" mode for 20 minutes every two months. Instead of using it in 20 minutes wired mode and 2 months free of wires, you prefer to go fully wired. That doesn't make sense.
I don't see wires as a problem. Wireless accessories are slightly more convenient when you're moving the computer around, which is why my work laptop has a wired keyboard plugged into the dock and a wireless mouse with the receiver plugged into the laptop directly, but that's not a concern with my desktop so I go wired there.
Not OP, but for me the biggest advantage of wired is that it's easier to find my mouse in my laptop bag or when my desk gets messy. I dunno how many times I've had to trace the wire to find my mouse buried in a stack of engineering drawings.
I got tired of paying the Logitech premium for the MX Ergo after I broke my second one (both out of warranty, both had the main button switch fail). Ended up with a copycat that works just as well and is 1/3rd the price.
amen to that! I started using a Logitech MX Vertical mouse a few years back to deal with wrist pain. It helped with the pain immensely, but the switches in the mouse failed after ~6 months of use.
I replaced the Logitech mouse with an inexpensive vertical mouse from ProtoArc and haven't looked back.
I wish I had the money and the know-how to do things like that. In a world where many companies are downright hostile to user needs and preferences, we need more DIY electronics — not less.
It's never been a better time to get into DIY electronics projects. Literally every part of the process is well within a curious hacker's abilities. Microcontrollers and cheap sensors/displays started becoming commonplace around 15 years ago, and the most recent innovations are good and cheap PCB production and 3D printing your own parts/enclosures.
You might check out https://hackaday.com/blog/. They quite often feature projects from people who built the thing they wanted, instead of buying it. (Often because the thing they wanted couldn't be bought in the first place.)
I modded mine to remove the friction in the middle wheel. But switching the switches is next.
If there’s one product that absolutely needs to be shamelessly ripped off it has to be this one. It’s a mouse so close to perfection it boggles the mind why Logitech wouldn’t go the last mile.
Manufacturers in china, if you see this, do the thing!
Haha, I've done switches in multiple mice (see my large comment here), but I'm yet to mess with the encoder. I don't want it totally smooth, just smoother and quieter, do you know if there are any options? Are even encoders interchangeable mouse to mouse?
Logitech held out on moving some of their more niche products to USB-C until they were forced by the EU. I'm sure when the author _started_ their journey they had not released the Ergo S yet, looks like it came out September '24.
I also gave up on waiting for the Ergo S and grabbed a Kensington TB550. The name is awful, but the trackball is excellent.
I was thinking the same :) I have an MX Ergo from 2018, I'm not changing. The USB-C change isn't enough for me to change and I don't mind the click while WFH.
My main workflow mouse has been the Logitech g600 for years. I love having 24 different macro keys accessible with my thumb (stuff like copy/paste, ctrl+w, ctrl+shift+t, enter, etc), but it's terribly un-ergonomic and the software is terrible (and doesn't let you configure settings except through its eye-watering UI). And afaict, Logitech actually stopped making them, so I have to snap them up whenever resellers put one on Amazon, since the main mouse button switch has a nasty habit of starting to double click after too long.
It's to the point where I'm considering just commissioning a hardware hacker to make me a custom mouse.
I think I nearly know how to replace most of the mouse.
I can resolder new switches, mouse-wheel button and those buttons below the mouse wheel.
And replacement pads for the mouse feet are easy to buy, if not, you can buy a pad uncut and custom-cut it.
I just now need to learn how to replace the side dome buttons individually instead of replacing the whole PCB, since I cannot keep buying replacement mouses for just those side mouse buttons as the price seems to be creeping up with the increasing scarcity.
I was hoping for so long that Logitech would make a wireless version of the G600, but instead they killed it. I'm begrudgingly using a wireless Razer Naga now. It's pretty crappy though because it doesn't have onboard profile storage so you need to run their bloated software just to remap the buttons. Also it lacks the awesome ring finger button that the G600 has, despite the Naga having space on top that could have been used for an extra button.
Excellent work here, on exactly the nits with this great mouse.
I came to the MX Ergo when having shoulder surgery and found it worked perfectly only 1-2 days post-op, just putting it in the sling, but it is so much more efficient to use, particularly for CAD work than any regular mouse in the previous decades. Also great for use on airplanes where there's no real space to run a regular mouse.
Will definitely check out SteerMouse, as the Logi software is often so marginal I just uninstall it and run the mouse bare.
Thank you for posting and HN for getting this to the front page!
Logitech still refuses to make USB-C dongle/receiver. And every time I bring it up there’s always someone who says use USB-A. Yeah, duh. I am forced to use it. Five years ago they tried to make it sound like it was the USB-C standard but Lenovo has since proven that theory wrong since they have a USB-C receiver. I don’t like Chinese copycats but Logitech’s stupid marketing department is the reason why I don’t mind the Chinese ripping them off.
Edit: I am wrong. They recently released USB-C receiver after years and years of refusing to make one.
The bolt USB-C receiver is only for bolt devices. Logitech has THREE incompatible wireless technologies. The unifying receiver and G series receivers are apparently the same one with different firmware. It has a few wireless channels and unifying uses 1 per device and G uses all for one device (faster pooling for gaming). Then there's Bolt that is something else and just a few devices connect to it. Idk if they plan to move everything to Bolt, but as of now all three live parallel to each other.
This must be new? I checked about a month or two ago and ended up buying other products. Well I stand corrected and hopefully I can finally use my mice on my Macbook. Thank you!
I wonder if there is a way to crowdfund actually producing a batch of these? I mean you'd need to redesign the shell and a few more things, but ought to be doable. Either as printable STLs in TEP or as a group-buy.
Also, I think it's criminal for any USB chargeable mouse to not just work as a regular corded mouse when plugged directly into a PC.
PS - would it be possible to make a mouse use Cherry MX hotswap switches so that people could customise their clicks?
We used to do group buys of custom keyboards like that. Generally the organizer finds a factory or etc willing to do it for a certain volume and then you see if that many people are interested and will put down the money.
It's a lot of organizing work mostly if you have the design ready for a factory
>>After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase.
Been there before. 2 min of research could have saved hours (obviously fun project regardless). The thing is to do the research at the initial idea and then AGAIN before starting the project.
I can relate in so many ways.
I purchased a MX Master 3S and while it has a lot of great design choices, overall there were too many flaws for me and I returned it.
While I had the mouse, I kept looking for ways to "fix scrolling" and everything repeatedly pointed to third party software. If you have an iPad or Android device, you're completely out of luck.
How does a company become so out of tune with customers that customers feel the need to "fix" the design flaws of devices they bought?
I'm not one of those people to "fix" the device, because when I found the polling speed and latency couldn't be increased, that was a complete stopper for me. I really wanted to make the mouse work for me, I really tried to make it work, but I couldn't get past the many flaws. It felt as if they went backwards from their old devices like the MX Revolution in many ways.
My MX Master 3 has a weird issue where it can just stop charging. Apparently this is just an issue it can have. The "fix" from Reddit is to squeeze the mouse until it starts charging again. It sounds like someone trolling, but it actually works about half the time.
I’m also going to return an MX Master 3S (to my employer though). I could only fix its weird scrolling behavior with Logitech’s bloatware, still, for the life of me I couldn’t improve the cursor precision on macOS, it’s was simply maddening to use it. Strangely on Linux the precision issue isn’t so bad.
> Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
A few paragraphs later:
> PCBWay to manufacture the boards for my project (I ended up ordering 10 so I had spares).
No hate, it’s ok to have hobbies, but i think 9 pcbs in a drawer somewhere forever cancels out any e-waste benefits you gained from not buying a new mouse XD
I’ve long been a fan of the MX Anywhere series. They’re light, reliable, and the side buttons make web browsing much smoother.But recently, mine started having sticky buttons and the grip began to peel. I tried fixing the micro switch myself and it turned into a real headache. Now I’m debating whether fixing it is worth the effort or if I should just grab a new one.
What I really wish for is a mouse design more like mechanical keyboards modular parts, replaceable shells, customizable buttons. That kind of setup would finally make me feel like my mouse is meant to stick around for years, not get tossed at the first sign of wear.
If you are looking for a vertical mouse with USB-C charging, a high-DPI sensor, robust switches, high polling rate, etc., consider this mouse that recently launched on Kickstarter: https://www.hansker.design/
I got one recently due to some persistent wrist issues I've been having because it is the first ergo mouse I've had that ticks every box for me. It's not flawless but I still strongly recommend considering it if you're looking for something in this category.
Wired USB or gtfo. Currently rocking a Kensington wired trackball. Honestly I miss the days of systems whose latency was constrained by c -- and not much else. It is literally impossible to get a modern system with a MIDI clock as rock-solid as the Atari ST was.
Wasn't the CPU clock number entirely made up for some time? Afaik on old systems one cycle was one cycle and it lasted as long as frequency implied. Now it's... complicated
The Atari ST ran at 8 MHz. The Amiga ran to nicely sync with the video signal; slightly different numbers for PAL (7.09 MHz) and NTSC (7.16 MHz) systems. But yeah, it used to be you could design a system with rock-solid timing that made an implementation specialized to certain I/O applications cheap and easy... now... not so much
Was like $50 new, so nothing too expensive, has LIGHTSPEED wireless which has super low latency, but also has bluetooth in case you forget the dongle or can't use it for some reason. Or it's also really convenient to switch the mouse between 2 computers simply by pressing the button on the bottom, and it instantly switches.
Uses the HERO sensor which is really power efficient and has a slot for 2 AA batteries of which you only need to actually install 1. Lasts several months off a single AA battery, and also so I just use those rechargeable AA batteries with built in USB port under the cap, so I can just charge it from the computer if I need a little more juice.
I've modded it. The main switches are on separate, one sided PCB's and are easy to solder. Side switches are not standard, they're lower profile. Scroll and DPI switches are on the main PCB with a huge ground pad on one pin, I recommend just using a destructive method when removing them, or just leaving them alone. When it starts double clicking, just go for the swap. There's plenty of switches with different feel to choose from. Before disassembly get a set on new skates, you'll need to remove those long ones to get to the screws, they get wonky, don't slide as good anymore.
I have opened mine a few times to clean the wheel encoder. When it gets too dusty the scrolling can get wonky, but I just detach the whole encoder and dunk it in 90% alcohol and then put a dab of lube and then put it back together and it's good for several more months.
I managed to get the screws out without messing up the pads, and for me the mouse seems to stay clicked together just fine without any screws, so I just leave them out and can open it as much as I like without messing with the pads or screws.
I haven't had double clicking buttons yet, but yeah I had seen that the switches are not too hard to replace, so I will probably do that at some point.
I use the G502 X (https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/shop/p/g502-x-wireless-light...) which has similar hardware capabilities, but more importantly, it has a lot of buttons which are a legitimate productivity increase. Unfortinately, the price rose with tariffs and it may be harder to justify.
Had a G602 for many years, and then migrated to M720 triathlon. I like the G series ergonomics, but the G604 kept breaking on me. M720 has treated me well so far and support for standard battery cells is very nice.
I've replaced the switches in my G604 once, but I don't think I'd do it again. The internal construction is overly complex, so the process took far too long — even though the actual desoldering and soldering was easy. I just wish Logitech would re-release this model with decent silent switches and without the rubber coating.
> After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase. Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
This is slightly funny, but I've noticed over the years that Google's decline in function as a quality search engine has correlated with lots of wasted time on my end, DIY-ing things that I later found to already exist somewhere in the world.
I have an original, non-BT MX Revolution that I keep rehabilitating periodically with batteries and pads (the sites call them "skates") for my laptop-dock workstation so there's no pairing issues.
Also have an MX Master 3 Advanced for travel, USB-C charges, and supports switching between 3 BT devices with an optional USB transceiver that stores away, and it also works on iOS devices but that's really more of a gimmick.
I bought a Logitech trackball (the MX5something), and the switches stopped working a year in. Amazon refunded me, so I bought an MX Master 3S. The switches for that also stopped working a year in.
I complained to the merchant and Logitech, and luckily they sent me a new mouse each. I also bought some replacement switches and repaired the lot, so now I have four mouses/trackballs. Still, they should make better mouses.
I've been using a Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball for several years now. You might like it for a center trackball position. It also has a ring around the ball as a scroll wheel and four buttons which are easily programmable. A couple of AA batteries last me about a year on the 2.4GHz wireless, many months on Bluetooth. The ball comes out really easy so it's easy to take apart and clean. It has handled almost a decade of near daily use without any parts breaking.
They do, but I've had severe quality/lifetime issues with them. Three Kensington trackballs, two different models, all three lasted under a year for me.
Strange. I have lots of Kensington Expert Mouse trackballs, some of which I have used for 7+ years, and none have ever given out on me. I have a stockpile of spares in case they stop making them, but they seem to be built very well.
Which models did you have problems with, and what went wrong?
Never tried the Expert Mouse in particular. Two of mine were slimblades, one orbit with scroll wheel. Different failures each time -
Orbit - broken plastic around one of the bearings. ball no longer turned smoothly or straight in every direction, and dragged.
Slimblade #1 - began to operate erratically. I believe it was a failure of some kind with one of the optical sensors, but I never was able to figure it out consistently.
Slimblade #2 - microswitch under the LMB failed mechanically, no longer triggered.
the slimblade's were provided by my employer at the time, the orbit was purchased personally for at home - it's use overlapped with the slimblades at work.
I don't think I'm super unusually hard on my trackballs - My Elecom Huge lasted for ~6 years before the soft touch plastic finally got a bit gross from skin oil contact, but still was functionally fine, and my current protoarc is going strong two years in.
I'm surprised at the number of Logitech users in this thread, because in my experience the quality of their products has taken a total nose dive. Not to mention their products are over priced. I've had too many issues with them, and vowed to never buy from them again.
My current mouse is a ZOWIE FK2-C. It's simple, wired and it just works. Been using it for years, and no switch issues yet.
Slightly off-topic, but while reading the article, I was reminded of the terribly bad mouse switches that Logitech has used in some of their products. They aren't hermetically sealed, and they corrode after a few years. It's almost as if the mouse was designed to self-destruct after the warranty expires...
I miss the blue coloured model which had rumble/vibration feedback, just before everything moved to wireless which wouldn’t have had good enough battery tech at the time to continue it. Today, if they can fit them into tiny Nintendo controllers, surely it could be done well again…
Interesting and robust comments about many mice I had no idea existed and will have to try out. Fascinating there's no comments about user's love of Apple's Magic Mouse. Would be interesting to get someone's take on why their mouse doesn't resonate with the HN crowd.
To be honest, I'm a big fan of the MX Master series, I'll get the MX Master 4 on launch day most likely (will perhaps wait for a few reviews to make sure there aren't any regressions).
I even use it while gaming (it's heavier, but I used my g9x with max weight config, I like it that way).
I wish Logitech upped the polling rate on their MX range of mice (when connected with 2.4GHz). It’s very noticeable seeing windows jitter around on a >100Hz screen. I had to settle for a “gaming” mouse to avoid this, but otherwise like the MX mice.
My biggest issue with the MX Ergo is the finish on the "top" part. After a while it starts to degrade and becomes sticky. I have not found a way to clean it properly. :/
I cannot say anything about the MX Ergo. So far, my MX Vertical hasn't gone all sticky on me (yet?).
What worked for me on other sticky plastics was rubbing alcohol. I does leave the finish slightly different than it was initially (less grippy), but I've had good results.
Man, I'd really want a wired USB one with the maglev wheel. The wireless one is buggy in linux: works well overall, but the scrollwheel sometimes requires 2 ticks for a single scroll when reversing direction
Are the switches bad? I recently replaced the switches on my mouse as I had the dreaded double click problem and it was unusable. Then they stopped responding. So I just did something similar to the OP, desoldered and soldered new switches and the mouse was as good as new.
The biggest issue with Logitech mice is that they're purposefully designed to fail.
Logitech uses shitty microswitches that either stop working or start 'bouncing' - a single click becomes two or more clicks.
This has been an issue with logitech mice for 10+ years and it's so prevalent it can't possibly be by accident. Their mice are disposable as a revenue model.
Mice should not fail, and in fact, I've never had a non-logitech mouse fail.
A friend heard me say this and said "Well I love my logitech mouse" and I said "and how many have you bought?" They admitted they'd had to replace it several times because...drumroll please...various buttons on it stopped working or started double/triple clicking.
I have gaming buddies who have had their very expensive logitech gaming mice fail, repeatedly, barely months into owning them. My ten year old Razor is still going strong, save for reduced battery life. The battery still lasts for many hours while gaming, which is plenty for my purposes, so I haven't bothered yet.
The real joke would be Xbox Elite controllers. Several hundred dollars and infamous for failing sometimes within months. Never, ever buy one without a replacement plan.
I feel that the author could have just bought one of those chinese mouses in aliexpress with hot-swappable switches and those other features for like $50 and saved a bunch of time..
It's a kind of magical mouse driver that supports nearly every USB mouse made, including _all_ the quirky little buttons and extra functions. As the author said, it's ultra-light-weight, native Mac UI (none of that weird chrome slop that companies like Razer insist upon using).
I use mine with a funky Razer "MMO" mouse that has a funny numeric keypad on the side — all ten of the keys (plus the normal assortment of buttons) can be mapped any way I like.
It came out all the way back in 2005, and has worked reliably ever since. Flat fee for the license, no subscriptions, free demo. Basically everything we all wish apps were.
Was going to post the same thing, I remember using it with a Logitech mouse and keyboard set on an iBook G3. Cool to see that 20 years later it’s still the alternative to Logitech’s shitty software.
It depends from the quality of your mouse. There are good quality keypad mice, where the numeric keypad presents itself in hardware as a proper USB keyboard endpoint. Those just work, with more than just Linux moreover.
Then there are the poor quality keypad mice where the keys may be engraved as numeric keys, but on the wire the device does things like not present them as keys on a keyboard at all (sometimes as lots of high-numbered mouse buttons instead, sometimes as something else), or present them as keys but using reserved manufacturer-private values instead of the standard codes for [1/Ins], [2/Down], and so forth. These won't work out of the box with anything.
Most office-use "numpad mouse" devices are the former in my experience (although they sometimes do bad things when it comes to NumLock). Alas, there are "gaming mouse" devices that are the latter.
I think things like extra buttons work fine. But if it gets too far out there, you have to get something that someone reverse engineered. Because proprietary software and devices are the norm, unfortunately.
Kensington make multiple trackballs that are ambidextrous. I use both the wireless and wired (on laptop and desktop respectively) versions of their “Expert Mouse” model for a fair few years now.
> After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase. Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
How many times does this happen to people?
I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.
Yeah you know, like when that Lenovo Thinkpad's trackpad needed some specific kernel hack on Linux for it to work...
for the more obscure things however, I am glad and I respect those youtube uploaders that literally will post everything they discover just for the sake of sharing knowledge!
> I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.
Once you get older it gets even more annoying - sometimes you end up solving a problem, and later on you realize (or, even worse, a friend points it out) that you've solved that already once before a decade ago _and_ published your solution back then.
I spent two days trying to reverse engineer the serial protocol for an LED panel I got from aliexpress. Just after I figured it out, I decided to google "<led board> github" and found a python library that did everything I needed and was much more elegant. Still, you have to enjoy the process.
Speaking of Logitech - I use the Silent M330 as my daily driver. The last one I bought was of considerable shittier build quality - no rubber grip just plastic, way to lightweight compared to the old model. So in fact, unusable.
Is this a known enshittification issue at Logitech?
I still use the older blue ball (ahrem) mouse that takes in a AAA battery. But being able to replace switches to something a bit better would be a godsend.
I’m looking at the price list for this job and I’m shaking my head. Up here in Canada shit is so expensive I foresee a future where the person with the hot air rework station has more business than the shops because a mouse like the normal MX is almost $120, and fixing stuff in the long term may prove to be more economical due to our stagnant wages. A lot of electronics and appliances can survive for a very long time with a few part changes or upgrades.
I was excited for a minute thinking maybe someone finally made a wired Logitech trackball without having to pay $200 on eBay for a used one encrusted with someone's excreta.
But no, here we have... replaced a micro USB port with USB-C. Something fixed with a $2 cable at Ikea. The epitome of first world problems and he even had a custom PCB made. That's not even worth the academic part of this.
"Balking at the $50+ charge for turnkey assembly, I opted to take the financially responsible route and pay $200+ for a hot-air rework station to solder it myself."
Yeah, I feel this :)
Alternative way to see it: The author had either a $50 solution, or a $50 solution that comes with a discounted hotair rework station for $150…
I learned it from Superfastmatt. He needed a piece of plastic that retails for $1500 for his van, so he said: “either I have a $1500 solution or I have a $1500 solution but I get a free fancy 3D printer in the end…” that stuck with me.
Haha yeah, last year I replaced my wheel bearings in my van. I ended up with a frustrating ABS code (long story short: faulty magnetic encoders on both of the new bearings). I ended up spending about the same as the job would have cost at a shop, but with a slew of new tools.
I also did a USB switch project for fun, and ended up spending probably $250 for something I could have just bought for $15, but it was a great experience. (Here if anyone is interested: https://shielddigitaldesign.com/posts/2021/susb/ )
Lol, was that the thing that jutted out the drive's side and let him put the bed sideways? If so, I missed that quip, but it's great regardless!
When doing any diy I assume I will spend more on tools the first time than I save, but the next time I have the tools and so costs are much less.
There's never a next time though because you just want to do new stuff
More often you use some of the tools you already have, but have to buy additional ones.
That happens though oftenithe tools work for the project 6 from now.
I've come full circle several times.
I have a brake bleeder, an oil change jugs with a cap on top and the side, cellphone tool kits, and more...
Sometimes it takes a while to derive the tenets of labor specialization from first principles.
How many of us can make more making nets for fishermen than making nets AND fishing yourself?
Sometimes I wonder this and then look up how much it costs to get some job done and realize I'm probably still coming out substantially ahead.
You still need to account for a fun factor. I've got a nas which cost me probably $400 in parts to save on buying a $300 solution. But it's mine, janky, fun and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I know my local library loans out tools, I wonder if I can gift my use once tools to them so someone else could borrow them instead of buying?
For just straight up assembly of one-sided SMT boards (i.e. not reclaiming components from a donor board), a $30 plug-in electric skillet and a solder paste stencil from the PCB manufacturer (or patience and a solder paste syringe) works far better than it has any right to. https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Skillet-Surface-mount-S...
The hot air station is called a "rework station" because it's very helpful for rework, too.
Using a hot plate to reflow boards is fine if you already know everything is correct. Having a real hot air station is very important if you need to change any parts or even fix reflow problems.
I prefer a regular soldering iron for SMD. Below 0603 I tend to blow off unrelated components if I’m not very very careful!
So for me, a loupe/microscope and a fine SMD iron is the best option. I have some China-model that uses Hakko tips.
Kapton tape is your friend for hot air. It's cheap and you can get by with scissors.
Tape out anything that you're not reworking, use tweezers and push down the edges against the board to seal as best you can, and then flux it and blow.
It'll hold things in place and wick away the heat from anything you're not trying to rework. I went from a near 0% success rate to near 100% with it.
Wow, thanks for the tip! I never heard that one before.
I have a hot air station that I haven’t used much because I found it difficult to control. I will give it another try but with the Kapton!
To protect larger areas, you can use aluminium foil. It's usually best to hold the hot air pencil at a right-angle to the board; if you angle it like a soldering iron, the excess heat all goes in one direction and you're much more likely to blow off small adjacent components.
Nobody believes me when I say that soldering SMD with an iron is easier than through hole. You don't have to keep flipping the board over!
To be fair, it takes a little practice IMO and until you learn how to use flux correctly etc., it can seem very unattainable to ever learn well.
I got a huge confidence boost from one of the old engineers with rubbish eyesight. Thinking “If HE can see well enough to do 0603 and smaller, then so can I!” :D
A few hours practice on scrapped electronics made a big difference for me.
You don't have to 'keep flipping the board over' when doing through hole either. Just stick all of the components in, fold over two legs on chips and passives, then solder all of them in one go.
If you're blowing off stuff, your pressure setting is too high. I usually start at the lowest setting, and only go up if I need to deliver a lot of heat to an area.
I been using these mini pan frying skillets for years for prototype boards. <$2. An IR thermometer with a laser is handy during the process.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008863940082.html
And here is the cheap hot air rework station I use. <$15
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005989227215.html
You can even opt out of the stencil but I never do cuz it's much easier than not having it.
Haha I've got an old toaster oven, it works wonders for basic prototype assembly!
On aliexpress, search for "demolition heating" and there are really cheap ($5 or so?) heating plates that I believe are used for removing SMD LEDs.
Not sure why they'd need to remove SMD LEDs, but whatever.
They are "PTC" which means they top out at a certain temperature, usually 260 degrees.
I would recommend using an inline fuse holder for some semblance of safety though.
One of these, a lamp cord, some solder paste and a toothpick, and you can easily assemble SMD boards.
That hit home for me too. My DIY cupboard is full of quality buy-it-for-life tools and accessories that I've used only a handful of times (or sometimes not at all).
you might consider contributing to your local tool library or hackerspace
We both know that approximately 24 hours after donating something he will BADLY need it for an unexpected repair.
Then he can borrow it from the library he donated it to :)
I'm always worried that some less skilled user will have broken or not maintained it. I don't know how maker spaces get around this
Usually they have volunteers who do maintenance. At my local tool library the tools are well-used, but there's also like 10 of everything so you have lots of backup options.
most places i’ve borrowed things will seek some basic assurances that i know what i’m doing, first.
for example, when i borrowed a MIG welder, the person at the space asked me to weld some scrap metal in front of them before they let me loose with it.
This is easier than many assume: If you can find the Discord or even an e-mail for your local makerspace and send them a photo, they might urgently send someone to pick it up from you if it's useful to them.
Is a local tool library or hackerspace something common? I’ve never heard of that but that sounds cool
tool libraries exist in most cities and a lot of rural areas. many hackerspaces also function as a tool library even if they don’t use the term.
Great suggestion.
You know, for years I have been collecting power tools without having an immediate use for them - because they were for sale, or just because, you know, they're power tools. And a lot of them ended up just sitting on my workshop shelf, some of them never made it out of the box they came in.
But then we bought a new house and I started renovating it. I think I have probably used every single tool I ever bought by now, and every time I used one for the first time, I was so happy that I didn't have to go and scout for a good deal first or drive to Home Depot to buy one right now or anything like that.
So in my case, it actually paid off in the end to have PTPA (premature tool purchase addiction).
I counter by asking if renting them would have saved you money. It's what I do when I need tools I don't usually use
It depends on the tool. Generally, lending tools is not cheap where I live, but I once did lend a concrete sander because it was still cheaper than buying it (four digits, and likely won't ever need it again).
But what if you bought S&P instead and only liquidated when you needed power tools? Opportunity cost is real!
Disclaimer: had to expand the shed to fit all tools
I've had this happen a couple of times now. There's definitely some jobs where I looked around and realized I'd used just about every tool I have.
I think the only disappointment at the moment is my Makita rotary drywall cutter - a reciprocating multi tool is just so much easier to control and makes nice straight cuts easily.
Still waiting for the welder to have its moment though.
Those rotary drywall cutters are the ticket for cutting plastic. I first used one when I was a mechanic before changing careers, and we used one for trimming tough plastics like bumper covers. Takes a bit of practice to get a nice cut, since they are super aggressive, but they make a very nice, clean cut that's far better than any other tool I've tried. I've actually never used mine on drywall, I prefer one of the oscillating tools or a jab saw, but I've used it quite a bit for automotive and electronics work. You can make a front panel for a project stupidly quick with one of those, and it turns out nicer than cutting with a dremel cutoff blade.
A welder, huh? Hm... don't have one yet... hm...
I've acquired so many tools like this, and I don't think I've ever looked at them at though I regretted the purchase. Many have enabled me to fix and make stuff down the line.
$200 is around 3-4x more than necessary for a decent hot air station these days; I had to check the date on the article as that would've been a more reasonable price 10-15 years ago.
Can you recommend a good $50 option for someone getting into the field?
You can get a $15 hot air station and it's fine for getting quite a lot done! Look for clones of the Atten 858D. And come say hi in #electronics on Libera :)
I'll look into that, thank you!
This statement also hit home for me when I thought over my woodworking tools. I could buy finished timber for $300, or I could spend $500 on tools and several hours to finish $75 of rough-sawn timber myself.
We aren't doing these things to save money.
Almost never, in some cases you can but you need to be really in a nice and usually have access to the tooling for XYZ reasons. Then you would need to factor your labor cost, which is usually more than what would be billed normally in some cases...
But now you have it for "next" time....
working class kid here.
I feel this too.
Card board. Recovered cables. Recovered entire circuits of formerly used boards that fit inside my palm (#jewishConstraints) #Undisclosed parts of my how~yo (how drunk are you willing to get (to train yourself) (while raising a now 23 years old .... "kid" #PGurNOTeventrying #sry4urKId that is already "there"
Chuckled at 40-something kid now, kid! Classic
My favorite mouse is the Logitech Anywhere MX. It's highly comfortable despite being pretty small. The back/forward buttons on the side are indispensable for web browsing, file management, and switching weapons in first-person shooters. It takes two AA batteries which last for months and take seconds to swap out. The dongle is small and has good range. The scroll wheel switches between clicky and free-scrolling.
It's pretty much the perfect mouse, IMO, to the point that I built up a back stock by hoarding new and open box on eBay. But there are two main problems:
1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).
2) The dongle is USB Type-A only. Logitech actively refused to make a USB-C unifying receiver. I assume they wanted to shift to bluetooth but they still made unifying receiver devices for years and years after bluetooth was everywhere, so I dunno.
As far as newer iterations, the Anywhere MX 2S is somewhat tolerable, but it has a built-in battery which must be charged every couple of months, which is annoying. All of the newer Anywhere MX mice are even worse because they changed the basic functionality/features of the mouse with each revision. Oh, yes and they cost $90 (!) retail now.
So basically one of my side-projects, one of these days, is going to be to try building an open source Anywhere MX clone. Should be a fun yet challenging endeavour. I know there are a bunch of online communities making their own keyboards from scratch and at great expense, is there such a thing for mice?
I like my Anywhere MX 3.
The smaller size is actually ideal for my fingertip grip, and I actually like the rechargeable battery. It lasts well over a month on a single charge and then charges really quickly (if it ever does go flat, just chuck it on the charger while you make a coffee, 2-3 min is enough to last the rest of the day). And I love the scroll wheel.
The microswitches going bad is a massive downside.
I read somewhere that it's caused by static build up due to Logitech using much lower voltage/current than what the switches were originally designed for... After a bit of experimentation, I found that simply breathing warm air into the side of the left button clears up my issues for a few days....
Which is stupid annoying workaround, but what else am I going to do, buy a second one which probably has the same flaw?
I too use the mx 3. It’s a great mouse that can also travel easily in my laptop bag.
I went to get a new one to keep at my office last year and noticed that the buttons had changed from clicky ones to silent ones. That drove me nuts and I returned the new version. However, the issue you mention with static and the buttons might explain the change. I thought it was just a vendor making a good device cheaper to manufacture. Maybe it was a better version after all?
Yeah... apparently the MX Anywhere 3S uses new "silent" switches, which I was hoping might fix the issue.
But I've found one post complaining about bad switches on the Anywhere 3S and a few complaining about the MX Master 3S (which uses the same switches?).
I'm sticking with my current mouse for now, since I know it's quirks.
I switched to the MX Anywhere 3S from the Anywhere 3 and now it has become my favorite mouse by far. I have one at the office and one at home.
The silent buttons feel just right for me and the higher sensitivity has been a game changer in terms of the overall experience of using the mouse. The movement feels so much smoother and more natural than with the Anywhere 3.
I also use LinearMouse (I'm on macOS) for configuring the mouse and it covers all my current needs. My configuration mostly consists of:
- Disable pointer acceleration
- Set tracking speed to 1
- Reverse scrolling
- Scroll by 4 lines
- Button #4 for Cmnd+W (close current tab, which works in most applications)
- (No explicit change) Button #3 default action (go back)
Together with the MX Keys Mini it's a liberating feeling being happy with the peripherals and not wanting to change anything (except for a few small annoyances with the top keyboard row).
I have a couple of 2s/3s.
I like the 2s feel better. I like the 3s USB C portable better.
*port
I'm a pretty big fan of the M500 series myself.. I like the weighted scroll wheel. I actually wish it were maybe 15-20% bigger and slightly heavier myself.
Not sure about online mouse communities, but it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables. I realise now that because of my dislike (leaning towards hatred) of single-use alkaline batteries I unwittingly dismissed the benefits of having quick replaceability.
Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage. For more power, 14500/18650/21700 cylindrical lithium cells are my go-to.
Personally though, I find it more convenient to have a charging cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby. When the built-in battery eventually goes bad, I am confident that I could replace it myself (not a universal position).
Had to use my old TI 89 one day. Haven't used it in 10 years. Took it out of storage, put in 4 AAA usb-c rechargable batteries, worked like a charm. Could you do the same with your hard to replace custom battery?
Any consumer electronic using standard format batteries is superior by default. Because 10 or 20 years from now, it still have brand new full batteries lying around.
I have an early digital video camera with a genius design. It came with a custom rechargeable cell in the battery compartment. But the compartment _also_ supports regular AA batteries.
Most petzl headlamps are setup this way for a small lipo pack or 3 aaa's. It's great
Brother label printers used to support this up until a couple of years ago at least but sadly the most recent models have stopped having the AA compatibility.
Absolutely the best of both worlds. You can find a shop selling AA everywhere in a pinch and keeping a few in the camera bag is easy too.
I‘ve done this with my HHKB. Great solution.
> Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage.
Any device that can't is arguably broken as designed. Much of the energy (the majority, in a higher current application) in an alkaline battery is found under 1.2V.
See discharge curves: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Duracell%20Ultra%...
NiMH actually stays above 1.2V longer for all but the lightest loads: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Eneloop%20AA%20BK...
Unless the device was designed around the alkaline discharge curve! Smoke alarms rely on the lower voltage to give sufficient warning when the battery is low, and mine refuses to operate at all when powered by a rechargeable battery.
Try lithium-based AA/AAA rechargeables. These worked wonders for my finicky Instax Camera which refuses to use regular NiMH AAs because their voltage is too low.
The issue with these is the low battery warning. Once the voltage starts dropping you don’t have much time to notice. Not a problem for active devices, but things like door sensors may give you just a few days between 80% and dead.
Absolutely. Different battery manufacturers use different discharge profiles, some gradually lower voltage in a few steps, others may just die with almost no warning, so it might take a few tries before you find a brand that works for your device.
I too was surprised by this view when I started at Oculus, where the game controller folks who had come over from Xbox were adamant that players would rather swap in a fresh pair of AAs than plug into a charging cable.
Personally I've never come around to their side of things, although I do recognise the inconvenience of charging cables while you are using a peripheral (Apple Mouse charging port location especially :D )
For me, I'll always choose a device with standard, user-replaceable batteries over a built-in battery.
1) If the device battery is dead, I can swap it out in seconds and be up and running immediately.
2) Built-in batteries fail, and replacing them ranges from difficult to near-impossible and often involves damaging the device's casing to get the built-in battery out.
When I'm spending $100 on a computer mouse, I'd really like it to last longer than the life of the battery and not have to destroy the casing to get to the battery to replace it.
IMHO Sony nailed this pretty perfectly 30 years ago on devices like the Discman: Have a footprint which can support a number of standard batteri(es), but engineer it so it also accepts and detects a specially-designed NiMH pack. When the special batery is present, allow the battery to be charged anytime external power is provided.
Now you have the best of both worlds: Economical rechargable use for the 90% of the time that the user's in their normal routine, and easily ability to swap temporarily to universally-available alkalines in exceptional situations.
Note: When I had one of these, I just used my own NiMH AAs and jammed a folded-up piece of cardstock against the detection switch, which worked perfectly fine.
IMO just having the battery pack replaceable without tools is what matters more than using a standard one. As long as the device is even remotely popular there will be cheap replacements available.
Regarding #2 the fact that probably the majority of battery-powered non-toy devices now are designed not to ever have their battery serviced is indicative of a (in my opinion) diseased mindset of disposability. Each of the components including battery and other wear parts are only spec'd to last about 12-18 months. We're being conditioned (by one-year warranties and by the lack of repairability) to think that it's normal and expected that you discard and replace everything smaller than a car every 18-36 months, and a car every 7 years or so because "obviously" anything older than these milestones is "obsolete anyway."
Yeah. Though to be fair, the alternative in the controller space in that era was hot-swappable rechargeable battery packs - a ton of 3rd parties provided them for Xbox 360 controllers.
I still use my Xbox 360 sometimes, and the only controllers that still work are the ones with AA batteries. The rechargeables have long since died completely.
I, too, prefer disposables, but for a somewhat different reason. One very commonly used surgical item is a sterile suction/irrigator. It's sealed with 8 AA's at the factory, used for 2-3 minutes during laparoscopic surgery, and disposed of. So pretty much anyone who works in a surgical suite that does laparoscopy has a personally unlimited supply of AA's that would be thrown away anyway.
Years ago when I worked in live audio we had a similar setup. Zero tolerance for a performer's mic pack dying mid show because a low battery indicator wasn't calibrated right or someone incorrectly tracked how many hours a particular set had been used, so it was fresh-from-the-package alkaline AAs installed before every set, and a virtually unlimited supply of half-charged disposables to take home afterwards. Plenty would get reused for internal equipment checks and sound checks, but there were still more than enough to go around.
At the time (well over a decade ago) there was still lots of skepticism around recharagables and the extra process involved in dealing with them... but the tech has gotten lots better since, at that time even low-self-discharge was sort of hard to find. I'm sure much of the industry has moved over by now.
When it has to be factory-sealed as sterile, there is no point in using a rechargeable.
I would love to end the senseless waste in surgery, but The Powers That Make Our Lives Suck For No Reason want everything to be single-use sterile objects.
Same but with portable infusion pumps. They were always sent out with fresh sets but worked for days on a single set often leaving a lot of life.
Isn't that a biohazard strictly speaking? I'm not sure you want to get caught stealing used surgical equipment for home use.
It’s quite literally trash; I could hardly be described as stealing it.
The batteries are in a separate container that is attached to the bag of saline used for irrigation. It’s not in the surgical field.
> It’s quite literally trash; I could hardly be described as stealing it.
Note that legally trash is still owned, usually by the person or entity which produced it, so it’s technically stealing. (Whether anyone cares is a different thing. If you picked bank letters instead of barely used batteries…)
> it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables
I share this preference. Replacing a battery has a device back in a working state a couple orders of magnitude faster than onboard charging, and when built-in batteries wear out, replacement is often difficult to impossible.
I always use NiMH rechargeables; alkalines are wasteful and sometimes leaky.
If you have a a device that does not tolerate the lower voltage, check out NiZn rechargables. They top out at ~1.7 V when full and keep their voltage quite high until they are almost flat. (At which point they should be immediately recharged, they don't take deep discharge well.)
I use them almost everywhere nowadays. Most devices tolerate the slightly higher voltage and even expensive hardware usually cheaps out on proper battery circuitry.
Replaceable rechargeable batteries are the best choice (assuming the weight doesn't bother you).
You can quickly swap in a new pair, and recharge the other one. Some mice can even charge the batteries themselves. You get the best of all worlds.
I always have at least a half-dozen NiMH AA batteries sitting charged in the drawer ready to go. When the mouse stops working, I grab a couple of charged batteries, slap them in, put the drained ones in the charger and then carry on with whatever I was doing. With a built-in battery, when the battery goes dead, I have to mess around with finding another mouse while this one charges.
(Yeah, the computer tells me when the mouse battery is getting low, but I do not have the discipline to remember to plug it in hours later when I'm done with the computer for the day.)
The thing with AA is that it gives you options. You can use rechargeable in it if you’d like. Avoiding proprietary batteries is a good thing because they are not always available or easy to service for the end user compared to AA.
For certain activities like hiking having AA or AAA is preferred. If they run out of charge they are trivially replaced with a light weight inventory and this is probably sufficient to last your trip.
> cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby.
You don't need to keep them, you get warned many days in advance, so an overnight recharge of existing batteries works just as well
My Logitech G603 runs quite happily on Eneloops, for the best of both worlds.
I'm on an MX Anywhere 3S and overall I'm a fan. The killer feature for me is the Bolt receiver being able to pair to both the mouse and the MX Mechanical Mini keyboard and being able to have a second receiver that both devices can switch to. Unfortunately they have to be switched over individually rather than following each other (and the mouse's switch button is underneath), but still, this is a pretty killer configuration that I haven't seen offered elsewhere.
For clarity, I plug my main receiver into my workstation and use Synergy to take the M&K over to an adjacent laptop in software, but the secondary receiver is useful when testing installers for NUC, Jetson, etc. Basically I've got a bare metal device on my desk plugged into a mini monitor and with one little dongle I can trivially get my keyboard/mouse on that device including in a preboot environment like the EFI firmware.
ist that the whole point of unifying recovers as well? or am I missing something?
Unifying definitely lets you pair multiple devices (keyboard, mice) to the same dongle, but I'm less sure about whether it lets you pair multiple dongles to the same device(s) and then hot switch between them.
I have been all-in on Logitech keyboards and mice for years now. In the beginning it was just the unifying receiver but they've recently switched over to the Bolt receiver. Unfortunately the Bolt receiver is not backwards compatible with devices made for the unifying receiver.
You can pair a single device to multiple receivers and the "switch" button on each device will let you cycle between each receiver. I use the same keyboard and mouse with both my personal computer and my work computer. Every time I need to switch, I just need to use the device switch button on the keyboard and the mouse.
Any Logitech device that supported both Bluetooth and Unifying, such as the MX Master, allowed you to cycle through up to stored 3 connections of either type. The older, cheap devices generally only had a single connection.
Logitech also makes or made keyboards with 1-2-3 hot swap keys that allowed quick switching with a single press.
> 1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years.
I've got to mention how reliable the switches used to be. I purchased a wired Logitech mouse in the 90's that lasted through three different computers.
More recent models fail quickly with such regularity that I just stopped purchasing the brand at all.
My G5 lasted for more than a decade, I think? It didn't even go bad, I bought a new mouse and used its switches to fix the (at that point one year old) Logitech trackball I had bought much later.
I used my anywhere MX until one of the switches gave out. I'm pretty sure I found replacements on Mouser, and those parts -- and the mouse -- are buried somewhere in my TODO project bins.
You don't really have to replace the microswitch, at least on my Logitech (M570) I can pull them open, bend the metal strip a little, close the switch back and I'm good for another year or two.
It's still tedious, as the metal strip is really small and is hard top manipulate, but far easier and less risky for the pcb than desoldering.
Logitech appear to have made the unifying receiver legacy tech now. Preferring their Bolt receiver going forward. This does have a USB-C receiver available but not supplied with their devices
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9DWFSHP
Hmm... $30 and only being sold by third-party sellers there. That's not encouraging. Hope that's a temporary inventory shortage because of pent-up demand and not a sign that they barely intend to make any of these. Because I have a half drawer worth of various of the compact USB-A receivers and have literally never seen any USB-C equivalents in real life yet... It's time.
> 1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).
I have the same problem (with a different mouse model/manufacturer). Sometimes you can even "repair" the switches without de-soldering them by opening up the case and bending the metal contact a bit. I put "repair" in quotes because the repaired switches don't seem to last as long as new ones but at least it's easy to do and doesn't need any tools besides a screw driver.
I use an Anywhere MX too, my main issue with it is the loose ratcheting on the mouse wheel, the tiniest bit of pressure will move it and the ratchet mechanism feels quite mushy. From what I hear, you can change the sensitivity of it, but A) only in their software (which doesnt run on Linux) and B) it's not stored on the mouse itself (which means I can't just change it on my Mac and then move back to Linux). I think I have the Anywhere 3, maybe the 2S is better.
>1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years.
I had this happen to my shop PC mouse's left button. I was too lazy to get another mouse or desolder and put in a new switch, so I tried drilling a small hole in the top of the switch and squirted some Deoxit in there. That fixed it. Later, the right button went bad too, so I did the same thing. Now it's been a year and it's still working.
My speculation: this is due to the lower and lower voltages that “long battery life” wireless mice run.
It’s not necessarily that switches have lowered in quality, it’s that you get less current flow at 1.8V or whatever than 5V and any added resistance exacerbates that.
Maybe adding another pull-up resistor in parallel with the existing one can buy more time per switch.
+1 to this mouse (edit: I have the MX Anywhere 3S actually, a recent iteration)
Although the first one had its primary button stop working after 3 months. But they sent a replacement. I fear it won't last much more after the warranty period ends.
I'll also add that it works great over Bluetooth — look ma, no dongle!
I am not sure about your claim of damaging the PCB when replacing the micro switch -- I am terrible at soldering and do it no more than twice a year. Yet I was able to replace the switch on MX Vertical without any issue.
Are you sure the microswitch thing is as widespread as you imply? Or could you have just got a bad unit? I have one at work and one at home, and have used them both daily for many more than a couple of years.
I had two mouses get that problem about a year in. One was the MX Master 3S, a 100 € mouse. For that price point, it's entirely unacceptable for the mouse to only last a year. Good thing it had a two year warranty, but it's such a hassle to be without a mouse for weeks.
My first MX Master 3S had a bad right or left click button on Day 1, which would miss clicks constantly. Thankfully it was pretty easy to get a warranty replacement for this, which came as a full retail-boxed unit, so I now have an extra receiver too (I understandably had to mail in the useless defective mouse itself).
Nope, it's a known logitech problem. A couple of my Logitech mice started to get double-click issues later in their life. They cheap out with the switches, the Kailh ones don't have those issues.
It's highly variable. Some last much longer than others. The microswitches they use are very common jellybean parts and Logitech probably changes manufacturers all the time.
I am a diehard MX Vertical Mouse user. My wrist thanks me every day that I use it.
Built in rechargeable batteries are a plus, not a minus.
I disagree. I'm still using hardware that I bought at the turn of the century (a wireless mouse and an MP3 player) because they are powered by rechargeable AAA cells. If they used a built-in battery, I would have had to replace the battery, which is much more complex than changing a AAA cell.
I have three recent electronic devices that I would like to keep using but cannot, as their battery has reached end of life, replacements are hard to find, and changing the battery involves performing surgery on the device that I'm not confident I can do safely.
I consider them a minus because the proprietary batteries will likely fail before the rest of the mouse does. Using standard batteries means you’re not at the mercy of Logitech’s warranty when that happens. I wish more devices use standard batteries, but planned obsolescence is a hell of a drug.
FWIW, some of logitech's mice use "standard" rechargeable batteries - they look like an AA battery and are roughly as easy to replace (after 5-10 years of use).
AA-size Li-ion is called "14500" for anyone needing to source these. I'd love a mouse (or various other gadgets for that matter) that uses one behind a tool-free battery door.
Since the mice run 2xAA in series, you might get away with running one of those and jumping the other cell space.
If 3.7-4.2V is too much to handle, jump with a 1n4148 diode or two in series.
My Logitech G604 takes only one AA. I'm not sure the advantages over NiMH (lighter weight, higher capacity) are worth soldering in diodes especially when the efficiency loss would negate the capacity advantage.
I just went and took mine apart, it's a Logitech Performance MX, and it uses a NiMi battery: 1.2v, 180mA, 1900mAh.
The battery door pops on and off with a fingernail.
They really do look like dead-ringers for AA batteries. I bet you could run the mouse off of a regular AA as long as you didn't try to plug it in!
That is an AA battery. A web search suggests those shipped with Panasonic Eneeloops, which are probably the best-regarded NiMH AA for general use due to their shelf stability and long service life.
Support for standard battery cells is seriously underrated! Especially when you are on-the-go and your mouse dies, all you need to do is swap in a fresh rechargeable AA/AAA. No need to deal with a cable or waiting for a recharge.
My wireless controller eventually convinced me that AA/AAA rechargeable batteries give the same benefit, but you can swap them in a few seconds instead of getting stuck waiting for a recharge.
> My absolute favorite mouse is the MX Ergo from Logitech.
I switched to using Logitech's MX Vertical mouse and I love it. There was a learning curve period, especially when it came to finer grained movements, but I'm totally used to it now and it feels much more comfortable and natural to me that any other mouse I've used. It has a USB-C port and I can switch between 3 different Bluetooth connections (press a button, connects to my work laptop, press it again, connects to my personal one). I'm not much of a power user so I don't customize the buttons but I know it's possible with an app. I don't use the app.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/mx-vertical-ergonomic-...
Since there is no left-handed version of the MX Vertical, I recently tested half a dozen left-handed alternatives, and ended up liking this one the best: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3D6853V
I tried a couple of the flashy Chinese junk left handed vertical mice and they were all really really light weight with stiff buttons, so every time I clicked it turned into a click-drag (the force of the click moved the mouse). Is that one different?
I've been using a left handed Evoluent but they never released the latest generation wireless left handed, and the price for the old version is 3x as expensive as it was a couple years ago (and they don't last very long, having owned a couple I get double/triple clicks within a year of buying it). I do like the separate middle mouse button though.
All the non-wheel buttons are easy and comfortable to click and work consistently, I have no issues with them. The mouse wheel could be a bit better (it’s ratcheted, which I prefer, not free-wheeling), but is good enough for me. I generally don’t use the middle mouse button.
The gliding skates aren’t too great, I replaced them with aftermarket ones.
The RGB lights can be turned off permanently by long press on the DPI button.
Perixx makes a few left-handed variants of their mice. I’ve been using their Perimice 513L for several years. Sadly, their newer models are all wireless.
https://perixx.com/products/perimice-513l
https://perixx.com/products/perimice-713l
https://perixx.com/products/perimice-719l
I tried the 719L and didn’t like its shape, too small/round. I should try the x13L ones, not sure why I didn’t.
I am on my 3rd unit because their right button breaks after about a year of use. There are a few threads about it on Reddit and elsewhere. It's such a great mouse otherwise.
You may want to consider Evoluent mice. They’re a bit more expensive, but I have mine for 5 years and it works just fine. As a bonus, they have a true middle button, which is just marvelous.
I like the design, but I had similar problems with the hardware. It sucks paying a premium for a poor product. I've had no issues with thee Kinesis DXT Mouse 3. They have a traditional vertical mouse too. Consider these when your current Logitech breaks.
https://kinesis-ergo.com/products/#mice-and-pointing-devices
I haven't had one actually break but, for sure, the pressure required to click becomes annoying after a year or so.
Logitech's warranty support is pretty good. Have you tried contacting them?
+1
The mouse has disappeared into my hand and I've forgotten its existence. When I read your post I remembered how pain free my mousing experience has been lately.
I love the MX vertical's ergonomics, it's really the perfect mouse for me in that regard. It just feels... right. But I'm sad that the mouse is absolutely miles away from the MX Master mice in terms of quality and features.
I developed serious wrist/hand pains after switching to the MX Master 3S for a few months, but its magnetic scroll wheel and build quality was absolutely glorious.
The MX vertical is a plastic toy in comparison, but it costs the same.
I ditched the Logitech MX Vertical for the Ergodriven Om Mouse: https://ergodriven.com/products/the-vertical-handshake-mouse.
The Logitech middle button is awful hard to click.
I switched from a vertical mouse to Logitech MX and I wish the vertical one would have felt more comfortable because there are many more to chose from and they're easier to fit on large hands.
I've tried everything after setting my seating and table properly and it seems this is my thing. I bough 4 more because I fear, like with everything good, Logitech might stop selling them and I'd be lost...
I wish that web page would show it actually being used. Basic question: Is it a mouse or a trackball?
Mouse
Sharkfin Squad! It feels less precise than my regular gaming mouse, but I use it for work, and don't really need pinpoint accuracy. Been loving it ever since, and I even got a travel case for it.
Also, it can be used as a bluetooth mouse on my Samsung phone, which was neat.
+1 as well, this mouse and a split keyboard have made my wrist pain virtually nonexistent
I wish the coating lasted longer, I had to throw some tape on mine to keep using it - the rubber keeps wearing down.
I find it hilarious/sad that the 0.5x cheaper Ergo M575 has much better design in that regard (just plastic that doesn’t degrade)
I would _love_ to see more DIY mouse options. I feel like the mechanical keyboard crowd has so many options.
I've been dreaming of a set of lego-style bits of a mouse that can be assembled together... want another button? here you go. Want it on the side? Modify the 3D print file. Want bluetooth? Use this board... Want USB-C? Use that board... Want both? We've got you covered... Want a hyper-scroll wheel? Well, Logitech has a patent on that one, but here's the closest thing you can get on a DIY mouse. Now click these buttons in the configurator and hit "upload", and the firmware is installed to use your new mouse on any machine.
On the subject of adding more buttons, I think there needs to be a rethinking of mouse button events at the OS level. Gaming mice with 12-20+ buttons have to resort to creating keyboard events with weird key combinations because there aren't actually that many mouse events, which is insane. There are currently only 12 valid integers (12 types of "click") sent from the raw mouse events. Those need special handling because the numbers are chosen very strangely, but why can't we agree that for any number within some range, the odd number is a key-press and the even number is the key-release, or something like that? You don't have to create named events for all of them, but the raw integers should be valid even if you have to use the lower level events.
If I want to build a mouse with 32,000 buttons, the limit should not be the operating system's mouse event.
There's a YT channel called optimum and he made his perfect mouse and brought it up to a product stage. It may give you some ideas (like the sensor PCB is a set you can buy). https://youtu.be/oMUEsz71_xQ
Totally agree. Mouse preference is just as personal and maybe even more subjective than keyboard preference is, and even with the plethora of commercially available models, someone is going to be left settling because their needs aren’t quite met.
I've been using a mouse from https://pmm.gg, it weighs about half as much as the mouse I swapped the guts out of (28 grams vs 60 grams). Basically a couple sheets of printer paper.
I don't really care about the weight, what caught my attention was they offer ceramic? coated magnesium scrollwheels. My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice. They offer the same coating on the shells, which I really enjoy.
Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over. I spend too much time holding this damn thing to settle for anything less. The quality is exceptional, assembly was easy, and the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
> My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice.
I’m not sure it’s even skin conditions. I think it’s just the natural oils in the skin. It’s part of what polishes plastics (e.g. keyboard keys), and over time it impregnates the rubber which swells then falls apart.
This process is why wet belts are stupid, no reason to think mouse wheel rubber is any different.
I agree with wet belts - it's a terrible idea - but I'm not sure the comparison is great. Skin oil and synthetic oil are very chemically different - as are the rubbers used in a cheap mousewheel versus an engine belt.
I have to wipe my kit down with soapy water every few hours or they will be caked with a disgusting amount of dead skin. My fingernails after 4 days are about as long as typical people after 2 weeks.
I actually like a heavier mouse. A lot of modern devices feel inconsequential and cheap (well, because they are). I've gone so far as to open my mice and glue in a few pennies to increase the weight. Makes it feel much better. At first it seemed kind of silly, but then I realized it doesn't matter. All that matters is how I feel about the devices I use for hours a day, every day.
I felt this way for a long time and used a heavy mouse for daily use then switched to my lightweight mouse for gaming. I changed my mind very fast when I started developing carpel tunnel symptoms from the heavy mouse - using your wrist to move a heavy object in the same pattern for 6+ hours a day is just not healthy for you and when your job involves doing that, its 100% worth it to just use the lightweight mouse for everything. I actually found that my wrist felt better with the 55g mouse than with a trackball or a touchpad.
An alternative approach that has worked for me is to get out of the habit of using little muscles as much as I can. I don't use my wrist much with the mouse, I move my whole arm. I try to apply that to everything I do and I've managed to avoid repetitive motion injuries. Last time I experienced anything like carpal tunnel was in college (decades ago).
heavy? like what, 120 grams? most people don't develop RSI from their computer usage... much more if they exercise, stretch and do breaks
In my mid 20s I started developing RSI. I went through a bunch of different devices designed to supposedly be "ergonomic" and while the problem would go away temporarily, it would eventually come back.
I eventually found that it's not any one device that cures RSI. It's much better to switch up between different devices on a regular basis.
So, now I have two keyboards I switch between about weekly. It's fairly easy because I just switch between working at the office vs home and have two different designs of devices in the two locations. Occasionally I use the laptop keyboard and track pad directly. I still program a lot and haven't had another RSI flare-up in about 7 years.
you can ask or hire any personal ergonomic service/company to evaluate what needs to get better at your workstation and they will say that devices are the last item on the list. posture, adequate chair/table height and breaks are much more important than 50 grams less on your mouse
The OSHA Computer Workstation Posture Checklist is gospel and if anyone reading this is struggling with RSI and hasn't followed it to the letter, please do so immediately. It is frankly disgusting how quickly a few seemingly small bad habits can grow into a monster nerve issue
I successfully removed this coating from my razer mouse using alcohol, it was pretty easy to do. The coating felt good when I unboxed the mouse, but yeah it turned into this chewed gum mess, now it's just plastic which is ok.
Also turned out that disassembling the mouse was easy, so you probably might just swap the wheel entirely.
Soapy water is your friend. Iso annihilates plastics.
That manufacturer falls under "fool, money, parted, easily." A Finalmouse which is probably the pinnacle of lightweight gaming mice, costs about $180 and they want $100-ish more than that?
> Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over.
I have a ten year old Razer Ultimate still going strong, buddy. $100 new.
> My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice.
No, whatever you're putting on your skin is. In any case: buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved...
> the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
If you're having issues with rigidity of your mouse, you're holding it too tight...
I kind of get where you're coming from, but if your solution for them is to:
- Relearn the way they grip their mouse completely
- Stop secreting skin oils
- Stop some ointment that you are assuming they use for some reason
- Buy mouse grip replacements constantly
Or:
- Just buying a slightly more expensive mouse that they like
I don't think you're going to sell them on this...
I think you've missed every point I was making, keep up the good work.
> Finalmouse
Trash product, none of the people I play with or against use one. You've kind of outed yourself here but I'll humor you further.
> I have a ten year old mouse that works fine
Good for you. I assure you I use mine far, far more than you. If you knew who I was you could go find me on esportsearnings, I've won against and have played with some of the people you see in mice ads.
> No, whatever you're putting on your skin is
I don't put anything on my skin. My body makes far more of everything than it needs. I have to wipe them down with a bit of soap and water every few hours or they will be absolutely caked in skin. If I wait more than 4 days to file or cut my fingernails they are disgustingly long.
> buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved
Have you ever tried doing this? They are attached to the shell with adhesives that cannot be removed without also destroying the plastic underneath.
> rigidity
Was highlighting how the weight reduction does not come at the cost of structural stability. If you knew what you were talking about you'd know many struggle with squeezing the mouse too hard. I do not have this issue
The open source / open hardware offerings from Ploopy are very attractive for people that don't want to take this route
https://ploopy.co
They've apparently suspended shipping to the US, though. Not sure who to blame for that one..
I was using a vertical Logitech mouse but was still experiencing discomfort mousing out to the side of my enormous Advantage2 keyboard. In an effort to head off any compounding RSI issues, I switched to a ploopy Adept trackball. Had no idea if I'd like switching to a trackball, and I love it! My hand never moves in an awkward motion, and mousing has become pretty restful. Better be careful tossing the ball up in the air idly during meetings as I won't be able to get a replacement if ploopy has paused shipping to the US (It's a pretty dumb habit at any rate).
They're just 1.75" snooker balls. It's very easy to get a big box of them. You'll also quickly notice why red never goes out of stock on Ploopy's website.
Just in case you're not really into the whole mechanical keyboard scene:
QMK, or Quantum Mechanical Keyboard, is an open-source, community-centered configuration tool for keyboards and other input devices. QMK software is handy for creating layers, moving around specific keys, adding functions, etc.
TL;DR Is US continues to change policy without any clear guidance nor facilitation. Impractical to comply. https://apnews.com/article/us-tariffs-goods-services-suspens...
A great example is how they're handling DJI Drones.
The MX Ergo S has USB-C and much more silent switches. Other than that, it's basically the same as the previous MX Ergo. I bought one a few weeks ago after I dropped and broke my old Ergo.
This is how I find out they actually made one I honestly had no idea hahahaha
Yeah I scrolled through the comments to confirm - they'd have to make the USB C for EU, and I'm 2nd ergo is getting gross and ready for replacement
A bit unrelated, but I have the same soldering helper as in the post. It's called Omnifixo (I found out about it from a YouTube video (Norm from Tested)). I was initially skeptical, but it's made soldering a whole lot easier - highly recommended.
I've done some mouse PCB mods myself (swapping dead switches mainly). My biggest annoyance is resoldering through-hole components - unfortunately aftermarket PCBs for mice are quite rare, and my favorite mouse isn't all that popular in the "mouse community".
Used a trackball since 1994. Desktop publishing and photo editing, if you've ever needed to position precisely and lift finger off the ball and click or mousedown without moving the focus again you'll just know.
Kensignton makes a good one with a scrollwheel ring around it, the ball XY is perfect though the clickers are so-so in longevity. Working without a physical middle click and two button software middle click emulation is frustrating sometimes.
I still haven't figured out why they no longer make wired trackballs. The thing never moves, why do I need it to be wireless?
I have a wired CST trackball mouse that is about 10 years old. Built like a tank. I believe they go by the name of "L-Trac" now (as the company was sold).
They are a little pricey, ~$200, but I love mine (so much that I bought an extra). Also, they use a pool-sized ball, so I replaced mine with a green ball.
Have been happy w/ an Elecom not having found Kensington or Logitech options that I was happy with.
When you say "they", do you mean Logitech or Big Mouse in general?
Because I have wired trackballs from both Logitech and Kensington, and have for many years. You can pry my Kensington Orbit from my cold, dead hand.
Logitech specifically. They haven't made a wired trackball in some time, as far as I can tell. Their only options are AA battery or rechargeable. I'd rather not have to futz with batteries at all on my desktop computer
I found that wired trackballs with scrollwheels no longer seem to exist. I bought a wired trackball without a scrollwheel and absolutely hate it.
https://www.kensington.com/p/products/featured-products/orbi...
Yeah, that's the one I bought. It's nothing like a scroll wheel.
Oh, oh. You mean the actual little upright wheel thing. Sorry.
Maybe someone is in the pocket of big mouse.
https://xkcd.com/2130/
Who is "they"? Perixx seems to be still selling wired trackballs.
As far as I can see it, they sell only wired vertical mice. Trackballs are all wireless.
https://perixx.com/collections/mice?filter.v.t.shopify.conne...
The PERIMICE-520, right there on that page that you pointed to, is a wired trackball. I know because I have one beside me right now with the wire going across the desk. (-:
Now I see...they sell the normal tiltable trackball as vertical.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Perixx arranges things somewhat differently on the U.K./E.U. version of its WWW site.
* https://eu.perixx.com/collections/trackball
To add some context to the title for you, "Building the mouse Logitech won't make", it's referring to / implying the entire PC industry including Logitech.
Which would make a statement that "they no longer make wired trackballs" a falsehood. So likely not whatever "they" basscomm had in mind, if you think about it.
My chosen mouse (for now) is logitech G305 with silent switches swapped in. I've one with Huano (brown case, bright dot) and one with Kailh (the grey cube with big round, red dot). They feel different, both will be weird if you're used to stock, clicky omrons. I've also replaced the side switches, scroll switch and DPI switch (6 in total).
Kailhs have a sharper click feel, travel is smaller than stock. Huanos feel like they have more travel than stock, with a very long (soft?) tactile bump. Kailhs are marginally quieter. I don't prefer either, both are so much nicer than stock. I highly recommend swapping mouse switches, the stock omrons that logitech (and others) put in are loud, rattly trash. Huano makes really good clicky switches too. The good thing is that you can upgrade (fix) after the inevitable death (more likely double clicking than not clicking at all) of the stock ones. You'll likely want to buy both, because you will need (at least for G305) a square footprint switch to put under the scroll wheel. Kailhs despite being square and 2 pin, work fine for the main switches that have a 3 pin footprint. The third pin doesn't do anything.
I've not experimented with nor researched the scroll encoder yet. Maybe there are quiet options to swap in. It's not bad as is, but it'd like something quieter with softer jumps.
Except the obvious tools for soldering, don't forget to buy a new set of skates, because the screws will be under them. If the mouse is new, you might be able to unstick them intact. If it's not, you'll likely bend them and it won't glide as good.
About the mouse - I just like the shape of G305, the wireless is good and with a lithium battery it is pretty light and lasts a long time.
Lithium cells are like 7x the price, last maybe 2-3x as long, but are like 7-10g lighter, for mice get them only for weight reduction or working in cold places. People say Energizer ultimate lithium are the best, in my experience they last longer than lithium cells from Varta.
Great post. I too have a G305 with Kailhs. I felt nuts replacing the switches, and I'd never desoldered anything in my life before, but gosh the silent is so good.
I don’t understand why Logitech did not add the free spinnig scroll wheel to the Ergo? It is hard to go back from that but the Ergo is overall an excellent mouse. I just wish it was wired…
Battery lasts like 2 months, why would you want that?
Why would I want to worry about a battery even every other month when I could just not worry about it ever?
It takes 20 minutes to charge fully. Technically, you will use the mouse in "wired" mode for 20 minutes every two months. Instead of using it in 20 minutes wired mode and 2 months free of wires, you prefer to go fully wired. That doesn't make sense.
I don't see wires as a problem. Wireless accessories are slightly more convenient when you're moving the computer around, which is why my work laptop has a wired keyboard plugged into the dock and a wireless mouse with the receiver plugged into the laptop directly, but that's not a concern with my desktop so I go wired there.
Not OP, but for me the biggest advantage of wired is that it's easier to find my mouse in my laptop bag or when my desk gets messy. I dunno how many times I've had to trace the wire to find my mouse buried in a stack of engineering drawings.
Wired is about removing wake-up latency and wireless interference.
I got tired of paying the Logitech premium for the MX Ergo after I broke my second one (both out of warranty, both had the main button switch fail). Ended up with a copycat that works just as well and is 1/3rd the price.
amen to that! I started using a Logitech MX Vertical mouse a few years back to deal with wrist pain. It helped with the pain immensely, but the switches in the mouse failed after ~6 months of use.
I replaced the Logitech mouse with an inexpensive vertical mouse from ProtoArc and haven't looked back.
I wish I had the money and the know-how to do things like that. In a world where many companies are downright hostile to user needs and preferences, we need more DIY electronics — not less.
It's never been a better time to get into DIY electronics projects. Literally every part of the process is well within a curious hacker's abilities. Microcontrollers and cheap sensors/displays started becoming commonplace around 15 years ago, and the most recent innovations are good and cheap PCB production and 3D printing your own parts/enclosures.
You might check out https://hackaday.com/blog/. They quite often feature projects from people who built the thing they wanted, instead of buying it. (Often because the thing they wanted couldn't be bought in the first place.)
Hot air rework isn't that difficult. It's a skill like any other.
Only thing that's expensive is you breaking the mouse in the process.
I modded mine to remove the friction in the middle wheel. But switching the switches is next.
If there’s one product that absolutely needs to be shamelessly ripped off it has to be this one. It’s a mouse so close to perfection it boggles the mind why Logitech wouldn’t go the last mile.
Manufacturers in china, if you see this, do the thing!
Haha, I've done switches in multiple mice (see my large comment here), but I'm yet to mess with the encoder. I don't want it totally smooth, just smoother and quieter, do you know if there are any options? Are even encoders interchangeable mouse to mouse?
what was causing the friction / how did you fix it?
There is a spring and some sort of latch
You can see it off to the side in this post https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/comments/u0f9kn/smooth_s...
But know that it won't make the onscreen scroll smooth. Only the physical feel
thanks! Fingers crossed I don't break anything
To find your favorite mouse have a look at https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tools/3d-model-shape-compare
For big hands I still like the MS Pro IntelliMouse. The Logitech MX Master 3S is a solid modern choice.
On the hardware side, I wonder if the author has seen the MX Ergo S model. It features a USB-C charger, and they claim it’s 80% quieter.
Logitech held out on moving some of their more niche products to USB-C until they were forced by the EU. I'm sure when the author _started_ their journey they had not released the Ergo S yet, looks like it came out September '24.
I also gave up on waiting for the Ergo S and grabbed a Kensington TB550. The name is awful, but the trackball is excellent.
I was thinking the same :) I have an MX Ergo from 2018, I'm not changing. The USB-C change isn't enough for me to change and I don't mind the click while WFH.
My main workflow mouse has been the Logitech g600 for years. I love having 24 different macro keys accessible with my thumb (stuff like copy/paste, ctrl+w, ctrl+shift+t, enter, etc), but it's terribly un-ergonomic and the software is terrible (and doesn't let you configure settings except through its eye-watering UI). And afaict, Logitech actually stopped making them, so I have to snap them up whenever resellers put one on Amazon, since the main mouse button switch has a nasty habit of starting to double click after too long.
It's to the point where I'm considering just commissioning a hardware hacker to make me a custom mouse.
I love my G600 as well.
I think I nearly know how to replace most of the mouse.
I can resolder new switches, mouse-wheel button and those buttons below the mouse wheel.
And replacement pads for the mouse feet are easy to buy, if not, you can buy a pad uncut and custom-cut it.
I just now need to learn how to replace the side dome buttons individually instead of replacing the whole PCB, since I cannot keep buying replacement mouses for just those side mouse buttons as the price seems to be creeping up with the increasing scarcity.
I was hoping for so long that Logitech would make a wireless version of the G600, but instead they killed it. I'm begrudgingly using a wireless Razer Naga now. It's pretty crappy though because it doesn't have onboard profile storage so you need to run their bloated software just to remap the buttons. Also it lacks the awesome ring finger button that the G600 has, despite the Naga having space on top that could have been used for an extra button.
My favorite, and I have spares, but I will be heartbroken when I work through them....
Would really be glad to know of a contemporary equivalent with USB-C.
I highly recommend swapping switches, it's a noticeable upgrade
Excellent work here, on exactly the nits with this great mouse.
I came to the MX Ergo when having shoulder surgery and found it worked perfectly only 1-2 days post-op, just putting it in the sling, but it is so much more efficient to use, particularly for CAD work than any regular mouse in the previous decades. Also great for use on airplanes where there's no real space to run a regular mouse.
Will definitely check out SteerMouse, as the Logi software is often so marginal I just uninstall it and run the mouse bare.
Thank you for posting and HN for getting this to the front page!
Logitech still refuses to make USB-C dongle/receiver. And every time I bring it up there’s always someone who says use USB-A. Yeah, duh. I am forced to use it. Five years ago they tried to make it sound like it was the USB-C standard but Lenovo has since proven that theory wrong since they have a USB-C receiver. I don’t like Chinese copycats but Logitech’s stupid marketing department is the reason why I don’t mind the Chinese ripping them off.
Edit: I am wrong. They recently released USB-C receiver after years and years of refusing to make one.
The bolt USB-C receiver is only for bolt devices. Logitech has THREE incompatible wireless technologies. The unifying receiver and G series receivers are apparently the same one with different firmware. It has a few wireless channels and unifying uses 1 per device and G uses all for one device (faster pooling for gaming). Then there's Bolt that is something else and just a few devices connect to it. Idk if they plan to move everything to Bolt, but as of now all three live parallel to each other.
So I can’t use my Superlight mouse with this receiver. This is so frustrating.
You might be looking for the USB-C version of the Logi Bolt receiver? It's sold out on their website but I'm assuming there's availability on Amazon/Best Buy/eBay, etc. https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/logi-bolt-usb-receiver...
This must be new? I checked about a month or two ago and ended up buying other products. Well I stand corrected and hopefully I can finally use my mice on my Macbook. Thank you!
For what it's worth, the MX Ergo also works over Bluetooth. I couldn't be bothered with the extra headache that that requires, though.
I wonder if there is a way to crowdfund actually producing a batch of these? I mean you'd need to redesign the shell and a few more things, but ought to be doable. Either as printable STLs in TEP or as a group-buy.
Also, I think it's criminal for any USB chargeable mouse to not just work as a regular corded mouse when plugged directly into a PC.
PS - would it be possible to make a mouse use Cherry MX hotswap switches so that people could customise their clicks?
We used to do group buys of custom keyboards like that. Generally the organizer finds a factory or etc willing to do it for a certain volume and then you see if that many people are interested and will put down the money.
It's a lot of organizing work mostly if you have the design ready for a factory
Its called dropshipping and there are dedicated sites to make the process easier, however I never used one.
>>After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase.
Been there before. 2 min of research could have saved hours (obviously fun project regardless). The thing is to do the research at the initial idea and then AGAIN before starting the project.
> $200+ for a hot-air rework station
The [insert random brand] 959D rework stations run around $55 and are suitable for hobbyist use.
I love the [random brand] [number] stations naming, it's so funny.
I can relate in so many ways. I purchased a MX Master 3S and while it has a lot of great design choices, overall there were too many flaws for me and I returned it.
While I had the mouse, I kept looking for ways to "fix scrolling" and everything repeatedly pointed to third party software. If you have an iPad or Android device, you're completely out of luck.
How does a company become so out of tune with customers that customers feel the need to "fix" the design flaws of devices they bought?
I'm not one of those people to "fix" the device, because when I found the polling speed and latency couldn't be increased, that was a complete stopper for me. I really wanted to make the mouse work for me, I really tried to make it work, but I couldn't get past the many flaws. It felt as if they went backwards from their old devices like the MX Revolution in many ways.
My MX Master 3 has a weird issue where it can just stop charging. Apparently this is just an issue it can have. The "fix" from Reddit is to squeeze the mouse until it starts charging again. It sounds like someone trolling, but it actually works about half the time.
Sound like PCB traces cracking.
I’m also going to return an MX Master 3S (to my employer though). I could only fix its weird scrolling behavior with Logitech’s bloatware, still, for the life of me I couldn’t improve the cursor precision on macOS, it’s was simply maddening to use it. Strangely on Linux the precision issue isn’t so bad.
I frequently came across this, but it doesn't work for iPadOS so I never tried it, maybe it would work for you:
https://mos.caldis.me/
> Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
A few paragraphs later:
> PCBWay to manufacture the boards for my project (I ended up ordering 10 so I had spares).
No hate, it’s ok to have hobbies, but i think 9 pcbs in a drawer somewhere forever cancels out any e-waste benefits you gained from not buying a new mouse XD
I’ve long been a fan of the MX Anywhere series. They’re light, reliable, and the side buttons make web browsing much smoother.But recently, mine started having sticky buttons and the grip began to peel. I tried fixing the micro switch myself and it turned into a real headache. Now I’m debating whether fixing it is worth the effort or if I should just grab a new one. What I really wish for is a mouse design more like mechanical keyboards modular parts, replaceable shells, customizable buttons. That kind of setup would finally make me feel like my mouse is meant to stick around for years, not get tossed at the first sign of wear.
If you are looking for a vertical mouse with USB-C charging, a high-DPI sensor, robust switches, high polling rate, etc., consider this mouse that recently launched on Kickstarter: https://www.hansker.design/
I got one recently due to some persistent wrist issues I've been having because it is the first ergo mouse I've had that ticks every box for me. It's not flawless but I still strongly recommend considering it if you're looking for something in this category.
The designer previously posted about it on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35613630
Wired USB or gtfo. Currently rocking a Kensington wired trackball. Honestly I miss the days of systems whose latency was constrained by c -- and not much else. It is literally impossible to get a modern system with a MIDI clock as rock-solid as the Atari ST was.
Wasn't the CPU clock number entirely made up for some time? Afaik on old systems one cycle was one cycle and it lasted as long as frequency implied. Now it's... complicated
The Atari ST ran at 8 MHz. The Amiga ran to nicely sync with the video signal; slightly different numbers for PAL (7.09 MHz) and NTSC (7.16 MHz) systems. But yeah, it used to be you could design a system with rock-solid timing that made an implementation specialized to certain I/O applications cheap and easy... now... not so much
I love my Logitech G603.
Was like $50 new, so nothing too expensive, has LIGHTSPEED wireless which has super low latency, but also has bluetooth in case you forget the dongle or can't use it for some reason. Or it's also really convenient to switch the mouse between 2 computers simply by pressing the button on the bottom, and it instantly switches.
Uses the HERO sensor which is really power efficient and has a slot for 2 AA batteries of which you only need to actually install 1. Lasts several months off a single AA battery, and also so I just use those rechargeable AA batteries with built in USB port under the cap, so I can just charge it from the computer if I need a little more juice.
I've modded it. The main switches are on separate, one sided PCB's and are easy to solder. Side switches are not standard, they're lower profile. Scroll and DPI switches are on the main PCB with a huge ground pad on one pin, I recommend just using a destructive method when removing them, or just leaving them alone. When it starts double clicking, just go for the swap. There's plenty of switches with different feel to choose from. Before disassembly get a set on new skates, you'll need to remove those long ones to get to the screws, they get wonky, don't slide as good anymore.
I have opened mine a few times to clean the wheel encoder. When it gets too dusty the scrolling can get wonky, but I just detach the whole encoder and dunk it in 90% alcohol and then put a dab of lube and then put it back together and it's good for several more months.
I managed to get the screws out without messing up the pads, and for me the mouse seems to stay clicked together just fine without any screws, so I just leave them out and can open it as much as I like without messing with the pads or screws.
I haven't had double clicking buttons yet, but yeah I had seen that the switches are not too hard to replace, so I will probably do that at some point.
I use the G502 X (https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/shop/p/g502-x-wireless-light...) which has similar hardware capabilities, but more importantly, it has a lot of buttons which are a legitimate productivity increase. Unfortinately, the price rose with tariffs and it may be harder to justify.
Had a G602 for many years, and then migrated to M720 triathlon. I like the G series ergonomics, but the G604 kept breaking on me. M720 has treated me well so far and support for standard battery cells is very nice.
Just want to plug the M720 some more. That mouse kept me going through years of work/personal computer use.
What broke? You can replace the switches, stock omrons are pretty garbage and it's super common for them to break.
I've replaced the switches in my G604 once, but I don't think I'd do it again. The internal construction is overly complex, so the process took far too long — even though the actual desoldering and soldering was easy. I just wish Logitech would re-release this model with decent silent switches and without the rubber coating.
> After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase. Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
This is slightly funny, but I've noticed over the years that Google's decline in function as a quality search engine has correlated with lots of wasted time on my end, DIY-ing things that I later found to already exist somewhere in the world.
I have an original, non-BT MX Revolution that I keep rehabilitating periodically with batteries and pads (the sites call them "skates") for my laptop-dock workstation so there's no pairing issues.
Also have an MX Master 3 Advanced for travel, USB-C charges, and supports switching between 3 BT devices with an optional USB transceiver that stores away, and it also works on iOS devices but that's really more of a gimmick.
I bought a Logitech trackball (the MX5something), and the switches stopped working a year in. Amazon refunded me, so I bought an MX Master 3S. The switches for that also stopped working a year in.
I complained to the merchant and Logitech, and luckily they sent me a new mouse each. I also bought some replacement switches and repaired the lot, so now I have four mouses/trackballs. Still, they should make better mouses.
I love DIY things, but now you can buy good alternatives for a fraction of the price, see e.g. ProtoArc, I love my EM04 model.
I was into these trackball devices for a while, then my thumb started to hurt!
Since I switched to a vertical mouse all my hand pain is gone. Highly recommend the MX Vertical.
I miss the old microsoft track ball. The ball wasn't a thumb exercise as it was under your index-middle-ring fingers and you clicked with the thumb.
I've been using a Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball for several years now. You might like it for a center trackball position. It also has a ring around the ball as a scroll wheel and four buttons which are easily programmable. A couple of AA batteries last me about a year on the 2.4GHz wireless, many months on Bluetooth. The ball comes out really easy so it's easy to take apart and clean. It has handled almost a decade of near daily use without any parts breaking.
https://www.kensington.com/p/products/electronic-control-sol...
Don’t current Kensington trackballs have this layout as well?
Not quite, with the thumb buttons like the Trackball Explorer had. Closest I can find is the DEFT Pro https://elecomusa.com/products/deft-pro-trackball
They do, but I've had severe quality/lifetime issues with them. Three Kensington trackballs, two different models, all three lasted under a year for me.
Strange. I have lots of Kensington Expert Mouse trackballs, some of which I have used for 7+ years, and none have ever given out on me. I have a stockpile of spares in case they stop making them, but they seem to be built very well.
Which models did you have problems with, and what went wrong?
Never tried the Expert Mouse in particular. Two of mine were slimblades, one orbit with scroll wheel. Different failures each time -
Orbit - broken plastic around one of the bearings. ball no longer turned smoothly or straight in every direction, and dragged. Slimblade #1 - began to operate erratically. I believe it was a failure of some kind with one of the optical sensors, but I never was able to figure it out consistently. Slimblade #2 - microswitch under the LMB failed mechanically, no longer triggered.
the slimblade's were provided by my employer at the time, the orbit was purchased personally for at home - it's use overlapped with the slimblades at work.
I don't think I'm super unusually hard on my trackballs - My Elecom Huge lasted for ~6 years before the soft touch plastic finally got a bit gross from skin oil contact, but still was functionally fine, and my current protoarc is going strong two years in.
I'm surprised at the number of Logitech users in this thread, because in my experience the quality of their products has taken a total nose dive. Not to mention their products are over priced. I've had too many issues with them, and vowed to never buy from them again.
My current mouse is a ZOWIE FK2-C. It's simple, wired and it just works. Been using it for years, and no switch issues yet.
If people are looking for something like the MX master but better Rapoo and Keychron are also names worth checking out.
https://www.rapoo-eu.com/product/vt0pro/
Slightly off-topic, but while reading the article, I was reminded of the terribly bad mouse switches that Logitech has used in some of their products. They aren't hermetically sealed, and they corrode after a few years. It's almost as if the mouse was designed to self-destruct after the warranty expires...
The rubber parts on every mouse also seem designed to fall apart and get gross so you'll buy an new one.
I'm a big fan of the Logitech Marathon Mouse (M702). It love the weight, battery life, use of AAs and the hand feel.
I miss the blue coloured model which had rumble/vibration feedback, just before everything moved to wireless which wouldn’t have had good enough battery tech at the time to continue it. Today, if they can fit them into tiny Nintendo controllers, surely it could be done well again…
Interesting and robust comments about many mice I had no idea existed and will have to try out. Fascinating there's no comments about user's love of Apple's Magic Mouse. Would be interesting to get someone's take on why their mouse doesn't resonate with the HN crowd.
This article is about an ergonomic mouse. The apple mouse is like anti-ergonomic.
To be honest, I'm a big fan of the MX Master series, I'll get the MX Master 4 on launch day most likely (will perhaps wait for a few reviews to make sure there aren't any regressions).
I even use it while gaming (it's heavier, but I used my g9x with max weight config, I like it that way).
If only we could get a modern Cordless Optical Trackman… https://www.newegg.com/logitech-904369-0403-cordless-optical...
i built my daily driver with QMK [0]... it has 9 buttons, most bringing per app specific custom pie-menus with Kando [1]
the design respects the most neutral position of the human arm anatomy, which lies between a slant angle of 20° up to 30° [2]
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1jksi0x/...
[1] https://kando.menu/
[2] https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2004.34.10.638
I wish Logitech upped the polling rate on their MX range of mice (when connected with 2.4GHz). It’s very noticeable seeing windows jitter around on a >100Hz screen. I had to settle for a “gaming” mouse to avoid this, but otherwise like the MX mice.
How about building a wireless charging solution internet mouse? So you let it rest on a flat wireless charging dock when you're not using it
My biggest issue with the MX Ergo is the finish on the "top" part. After a while it starts to degrade and becomes sticky. I have not found a way to clean it properly. :/
I cannot say anything about the MX Ergo. So far, my MX Vertical hasn't gone all sticky on me (yet?).
What worked for me on other sticky plastics was rubbing alcohol. I does leave the finish slightly different than it was initially (less grippy), but I've had good results.
I'm going to give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion!
Man, I'd really want a wired USB one with the maglev wheel. The wireless one is buggy in linux: works well overall, but the scrollwheel sometimes requires 2 ticks for a single scroll when reversing direction
Does this fix (or does anybosy know of a fix) where a m705 mouse stops responding to clicks on left and right?
I'm about to test the "wetting current" theory by using a bench supply to actuate the switch near max specs.
Are the switches bad? I recently replaced the switches on my mouse as I had the dreaded double click problem and it was unusable. Then they stopped responding. So I just did something similar to the OP, desoldered and soldered new switches and the mouse was as good as new.
The biggest issue with Logitech mice is that they're purposefully designed to fail.
Logitech uses shitty microswitches that either stop working or start 'bouncing' - a single click becomes two or more clicks.
This has been an issue with logitech mice for 10+ years and it's so prevalent it can't possibly be by accident. Their mice are disposable as a revenue model.
Mice should not fail, and in fact, I've never had a non-logitech mouse fail.
A friend heard me say this and said "Well I love my logitech mouse" and I said "and how many have you bought?" They admitted they'd had to replace it several times because...drumroll please...various buttons on it stopped working or started double/triple clicking.
I have gaming buddies who have had their very expensive logitech gaming mice fail, repeatedly, barely months into owning them. My ten year old Razor is still going strong, save for reduced battery life. The battery still lasts for many hours while gaming, which is plenty for my purposes, so I haven't bothered yet.
The real joke would be Xbox Elite controllers. Several hundred dollars and infamous for failing sometimes within months. Never, ever buy one without a replacement plan.
My original wired G502 is still working. The middle click sometimes doesn't work but I just gotta press a bit harder.
I feel that the author could have just bought one of those chinese mouses in aliexpress with hot-swappable switches and those other features for like $50 and saved a bunch of time..
For anyone who prefers trackballs, I've been pretty fine w/ Elecom models, though they're not all the most "updated" designs.
> It uses a micro-USB port to charge.
They released the plus model which uses USB-C so at least this point is no longer valid.
I use this exact MX Ergo mouse daily and already have some experience in electronics. This ingenious mod is now at the top of my project list!
I have the MX Ergo, it’s great, but I’ve never felt the need to install the official Logitech software on macOS. Works fine without it.
All I want is an ambidextrous five button mouse, like the old Intellimouses. For some reason this layout is basically unobtainium.
shout out for SteerMouse! https://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/ (macOS)
It's a kind of magical mouse driver that supports nearly every USB mouse made, including _all_ the quirky little buttons and extra functions. As the author said, it's ultra-light-weight, native Mac UI (none of that weird chrome slop that companies like Razer insist upon using).
I use mine with a funky Razer "MMO" mouse that has a funny numeric keypad on the side — all ten of the keys (plus the normal assortment of buttons) can be mapped any way I like.
It came out all the way back in 2005, and has worked reliably ever since. Flat fee for the license, no subscriptions, free demo. Basically everything we all wish apps were.
Was going to post the same thing, I remember using it with a Logitech mouse and keyboard set on an iBook G3. Cool to see that 20 years later it’s still the alternative to Logitech’s shitty software.
I am surprised folks are still installing software for their mouse.
Guess I have just used Linux too long and expected mice to just work.
sincerely curious — does Linux natively map the numeric keypad on my mouse? Is there a GUI?
It depends from the quality of your mouse. There are good quality keypad mice, where the numeric keypad presents itself in hardware as a proper USB keyboard endpoint. Those just work, with more than just Linux moreover.
Then there are the poor quality keypad mice where the keys may be engraved as numeric keys, but on the wire the device does things like not present them as keys on a keyboard at all (sometimes as lots of high-numbered mouse buttons instead, sometimes as something else), or present them as keys but using reserved manufacturer-private values instead of the standard codes for [1/Ins], [2/Down], and so forth. These won't work out of the box with anything.
Most office-use "numpad mouse" devices are the former in my experience (although they sometimes do bad things when it comes to NumLock). Alas, there are "gaming mouse" devices that are the latter.
It does not. I guess my devices aren't exotic enough.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Razer_peripherals
I think things like extra buttons work fine. But if it gets too far out there, you have to get something that someone reverse engineered. Because proprietary software and devices are the norm, unfortunately.
I just need hyper scroll and horizontal scroll (dedicated, not combo scrolling) with MX Ergo. That would be the ultimate mouse...
Steermouse is also what made my Kensington Expert Mouse shine on MacOS again. It’s worth every penny.
The current (and older) MX Master is a bit expensive, but it's worth it. Great mouse. Feels good. Battery lasts forever.
What I want is a mouse for giant hands. It doesn't exist apparently. Halp!
I never able to find a left handed version of track ball...
Who knows if there is such thing?
Kensington make multiple trackballs that are ambidextrous. I use both the wireless and wired (on laptop and desktop respectively) versions of their “Expert Mouse” model for a fair few years now.
I love this kind of content here. A true hacker news! Thanks for the insight!
Just get a ProtoArc EM01 NL, it's basically a USB C Mx Ergo
> After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase. Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.
How many times does this happen to people?
I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.
Yeah you know, like when that Lenovo Thinkpad's trackpad needed some specific kernel hack on Linux for it to work...
for the more obscure things however, I am glad and I respect those youtube uploaders that literally will post everything they discover just for the sake of sharing knowledge!
> I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.
Once you get older it gets even more annoying - sometimes you end up solving a problem, and later on you realize (or, even worse, a friend points it out) that you've solved that already once before a decade ago _and_ published your solution back then.
I'd say it happens pretty often. I almost became one of those when I posted about the exact same MX Ergo mod last year (using the same board).
https://www.kyleniewiada.org/blog/2024/05/mx-ergo-usb-c-mod/
But in my case, it was 3 months before Logitech announced their USB-C revision.
I spent two days trying to reverse engineer the serial protocol for an LED panel I got from aliexpress. Just after I figured it out, I decided to google "<led board> github" and found a python library that did everything I needed and was much more elegant. Still, you have to enjoy the process.
Speaking of Logitech - I use the Silent M330 as my daily driver. The last one I bought was of considerable shittier build quality - no rubber grip just plastic, way to lightweight compared to the old model. So in fact, unusable.
Is this a known enshittification issue at Logitech?
the mouse that logitech won't make was the keychron m5 for me
it has a 8k sensor and 1k polling. it is awesome.
and if you go to logi's subreddit they want to gaslight you that 125 polling is enough lol
I still use the older blue ball (ahrem) mouse that takes in a AAA battery. But being able to replace switches to something a bit better would be a godsend.
I’m looking at the price list for this job and I’m shaking my head. Up here in Canada shit is so expensive I foresee a future where the person with the hot air rework station has more business than the shops because a mouse like the normal MX is almost $120, and fixing stuff in the long term may prove to be more economical due to our stagnant wages. A lot of electronics and appliances can survive for a very long time with a few part changes or upgrades.
I was excited for a minute thinking maybe someone finally made a wired Logitech trackball without having to pay $200 on eBay for a used one encrusted with someone's excreta.
But no, here we have... replaced a micro USB port with USB-C. Something fixed with a $2 cable at Ikea. The epitome of first world problems and he even had a custom PCB made. That's not even worth the academic part of this.
He didn’t even make it, someone else did… I’m always amazed to see such things at the top of HN.