I will learn to build a mouse and write my own damn drivers first.
I actually know how to do this off the top of my head and you don’t need to write a driver for it, you could simply use an Arduino Micro.
The Micro (and other Arduino-compatible Atmel ATMEGA 32u4-based microcontrollers) have native USB support so they have a library you can import that will work with generic USB keyboard/mouse drivers. It would be up to you to rig up the sensors and buttons, make a case and write a little firmware.
Nice! Thank you!
Coming from the same side as you, in my experience just about any microcontroller that includes USB hardware support (which is very common even in the stupidly cheap ones) has software support for acting as a mouse or keyboard, not just via the Arduino framework but also in the manufacturer’s libraries.
This is because the comms for that stuff in USB is an USB standard called USB HID (stands for Human Interface Device) which works not just for mice and keyboards but also for stuff like joysticks, game controllers and so on.
Meanwhile on the computer side, also because of all of this being standardized, support comes include in the OS and no drivers are needed. In fact even back in Windows 7 when you might need to install a driver, all that the “driver” was, was a text file telling the OS to, for a USB device with a specific ID (USB devices identify themselves using a two number code), use the OS’ built-in USB HID support.
Nowadays the difficult part in making a good mouse or a keyboard is the mechanical side, not the hardware or software.
Unsurprisingly you can buy a basic mouse for 2 bucks from places like Aliexpress that’s actually decent and reliable.
I really have no clue how Logitech expects to get away with this idea of theirs. Maybe they intend to leverage Brand loyalty for it?
Yeah what Arduino brings to the table is easily purchasable electronics and reference material/tutorials written for middle schoolers and not electrical engineers to understand. They invent basically nothing but make things more accessible.
The thing I would need to do the most googling on is the actual XY sensor. I don’t know off the top of my head how available an optical mouse sensor is, or if you’d have to build a ball mouse, etc. I have occasionally played with USB HIDs but never for anything legitimate.
Ah yes, the industry first MaaS. What will they think of next. nuclear facepalm
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I really hope there aren’t people stupid enough to buy or even want that.
I’ll pass
They already have a forever mouse - its called Logitech MX518 - at this point its over 18 years old, and beside some small paint deficiencies it has no other issues. And it was used quite heavily - it survived years of intensive button mashing in Diablo2 and many other games…
Oh neat, I think I might subscribe to that community.
Wait a goddamned minute
My Halo account name is fuckmandatorysignins@personalDomain.com
Fuck you Microsoft, fuck you Logitech, if the Internet goes down, I’m fucked…
I always give “companyname@personaldomain.com”
That way datasets are harder to correlate and I know who leaked 😝
That’s what I’ve been doing since 2002. If I get spam, I set up a forward to their customer service.
Lol! I need to start doing something like this when one of those email addresses eventually ends up in a breach. :D
Be wary though, it might get your domain blacklisted for spam. I’ve been lucky so far.
Oh man I was hoping this would be a sub for alternatives to subscriptions, rather than just pointing out that everything is going to a subscription model.
It’s not against the rules of that community to post alternatives. I suspect the community members would love that.
Alternative to subscription based mouse…any other fucking mouse. Hell, I’d rather use that piece of crap they sell at walgreens for $15.99. It looks like crap, has only 2 buttons, is wired, but it doesn’t have a damn subscription.
are mice not supposed to have only 2 buttons??? (excluding scroll wheel)
this type of shit should be illegal
I’d rather just spend a few coins on a cheap mouse every 5-7 years which don’t require a subscription to use and also don’t bother me by asking me to update them either.
I don’t want a hardware that always needs updates. Are they stupid?
Here’s my rule of thumb:
- if it connects to the internet, it should receive security updates
- if it doesn’t need to connect to the internet, it shouldn’t, and it doesn’t need updates
Mice are firmly in the second category. In fact, I think cars are in the second, and any features that need internet access should go through my phone.
The problem is ALL of the other subscription services available now are thriving even with all the massive price hikes this just invited companies like this to jump on the bandwagon. It’s ridiculous how nearly everything has some kind of subscription service…
Wait is this an onion?
Arent mouse already “forever” mice. Like what goes wrong in them? I’ve never had a wired laser mouse fail, and the batteries ones I usually lose the adapter or let it corrode before the mouse actually fails
And if anything I only buy a new mouse for aesthetics. Or when their old mouse is grody
By “forever” they mean you will be paying them forever for the privilege of using the mouse. Unless you break it that is, or they feel like they no longer want to support it at which point it will likely become a forever brick.
I’ve had buttons stop working. The mechanism inside that registers the click is a mechanical switch and they eventually die
Ask a razer user if their mouse/keyboard last forever.
I had the wheel button stop working on it once, it was still usable, just annoying, when I needed to do a middle click.
Also that happened after a decade of use.
The switches eventually fail, but most mice use the same Omron switches and they are easy enough to replace if you know how to solder. The teflon skates wear out too, but you can find replacement for most name brand mice online.
Yes, mice are forever mice. That’s the problem, it’s just a one time sell.
Or when their old mouse is grody
That’s planned obsolescence. They cover the mouse in soft touch plastic that turns to glue in 5 years. It ensures that you buy a new mouse every 5 years while claiming they are reliable.
I read that acetone transforms the gluely soft touch coating to hard plastic. I did it to my old Logitech when it got grody and it is still not grody after 20 years.
They cover the mouse in soft touch plastic that turns to glue in 5 years
This is my pet peeve of modern electronics in general. Even my $3000 work-supplied Dell laptop is coated in this soft touch material that will inevitably turn into a gooey mess after a few years 🤦♂️
Also own a second-hand tablet computer that feels disgusting and sticky to hold because the soft touch coating has degraded so badly on it 😭
I fixed a bunch of ThinkPad laptops that were turning into sticky messes, I put a movie on, used a whole bunch of goo off and stripped all of the sticky plastic off of the devices. Now they feel great
This shit is so absurd. I’ve had to replace several mouses because of the scroll wheel, until I began opening and saw that it was basically programmed obsolescence that was easy to fix. Logitech has seen how rampant programmed obsolescence is in cheap mouses and is basically taking advantage of it.
My issue is double-clicking. I would like it to be much easier to replace switches.
I’ve found liberal amounts of contact cleaner to solve inadvertent double clicking.
mice
Meece
I live in a heece that’s full of meece.
That crazy moose is loose in the hoose
Hehe :)
I’ve already got a “forever mouse”.
I plug it in, it needs no updates because it’s a fucking mouse.
logitech’s software is trash across the board.
Have their MX keyboard and their logi+ software regualrly craps out making the function/special keys unusable until i log off/back on. Sometimes WHILE im using the keyboard.
And their gaming stuff is no better. Many times just having the logitech g suite software running means my mic will randomly stop working, if i remove the software the headset runs fine.
Their hardware is solid, but there is a 0% chance i would pay for their software.
I use their G Hub to remap my mouse buttons and sometimes my config just gets ignored and I increase mouse sensibility instead of pausing the music
Give autohotkey a try instead. I was able to get rid of the Logitech software because of it.
I’ve found that’s because their mice will go to sleep and upon first waking they’ll briefly use an onboard profile before switching to the G Hub profile. This is also why it might feel like it has a different DPI briefly or different light settings for just a flash. The only way to fix this is to use their totally separate OnboardMemoryManager software to change the onboard settings while running G Hub. It solved this issue for me and it’s infuriating that this isn’t built into G Hub…
Interesting, I’ll give that a try before switching to something else entirely. Thank you.
I used to swear by their K350 keyboard unified with their mouse, so much so that I bought the exact same models at work. After 10+ years and key prints rubbing off one of them started to get choppy…and around the same time the other did as well. Since they don’t make them anymore and are pure Bluetooth with connections I had to find a refurbed one on Amazon. And even that one got questionable after a few months.
I will stop using a mouse and get really good with hotkeys rather than pay a subscription.
I do this as much as I can already, but certain tasks have no hotkey in aware of :/
Gonna be trapped in a VM forever when my mouse dies.
Tiling window managers and vim keybindings are your friends
Then they’ll make you get a keyboard subscription…
