We are in the era of wireless technology , and despite the vigor with which manufacturers advertise their wireless peripherals, most gamers do not want to “cut the cord” because they do not trust the precision of wireless mice . Is this fear founded? In this article, we are going to explain how wireless technology in gaming mice works and whether or not it is a cause for concern.
There are many gamers who think that a wired mouse has lower latency and therefore better precision than any wireless mouse, and they are partly right. However, wireless technology has evolved a lot in recent times and, according to manufacturers, we have the same performance with wireless gaming mice as with those that use cable. Has this technology evolved enough for us to be confident in its accuracy?
How Wireless Gaming Mice Work
When you are about to buy a wireless gaming mouse you will find options that connect via Bluetooth and / or with a 2.4 GHz USB dongle that connects to the PC. The Bluetooth SIG, made up of more than 36,000 companies, develops the standards for this technology, and like many dongles they also use the 2.4 GHz band to connect to devices.
Bluetooth mice divide that band into 40 different channels, providing multiple “paths” for the mouse to connect to the PC. This is called frequency hopping spread spectrum, and “spread” refers to many frequencies. It takes approximately 0.625 ms for a mouse with Bluetooth 4.2 or newer connection to jump between channels at the standard hopping speed of the Bluetooth specification (1600 hops per second “.
The 2.4 GHz technology used in Bluetooth gaming mice is standardized, but the radio frequency (RF) technology used by USB dongles varies. While Bluetooth splits the band into 40 channels for frequency hopping, many manufacturers develop their own schemes to allow dongle mice to find the best open channel, the one that performs the best for them, and this is particularly important if there is interference or other wireless devices nearby.
Thus, companies that make wireless gaming mice design their own hardware and firmware in an effort to make their proprietary dongle connections more reliable even than Bluetooth, and while some are more successful than others, this also reduces latency in comparison.
Wireless with USB dongle is better than ever
Over the years, wireless technology in gaming peripherals has become increasingly reliable, and this is in part because manufacturers have focused on developing their own implementations of it. There we have Razer‘s HyperSpeed or Logitech’s LightSpeed technology as the headliner, promising even lower latencies than wired mice to prove it.
For example, adaptive HyperSpeed technology scans available channels in the 2.4 GHz band every millisecond to find the fastest route to send and receive information from the PC. This technology is tested in “multiple scenarios” starting with anechoic chambers to ensure clean signals and proper functionality.
For its part, LightSpeed technology has also proven to be one of the most reliable, and is in fact used even with wireless keyboards, not just mice. Logitech claims that thanks to its next-generation transmitters and receivers, they achieve latencies of less than 1 ms, which is the 1000 Hz polling rate that most wired gaming mice promise.
Wireless gaming mice are reliable, but it depends on which one
The wireless transmission technology used in gaming mice has come a long way to get where it is. Game providers are so confident in this 2.4 GHz technology that they are putting their stamp on dongles, betting on the reputations of the manufacturers, and this speaks volumes for their confidence in the technology.
However, after all, wireless technology is always going to have a disadvantage compared to operating via cable, interference. As much as the technology is well developed and promises what it promises, there are scenarios in which it works better than others, so in the end it always depends a lot on the environment in which we have it working.
In summary, wireless gaming mice do not lose any precision thanks to the great evolution that technology has undergone, but you must bear in mind that not all manufacturers develop it in the same way, so if you are interested in it you should have Take into account possible nearby interferences and, of course, that the manufacturer is reputable and does not use a generic technology but one of its own development.