Battery Life in Bluetooth Mice

I have two BT mice: a Targus BT mini mouse and a Belkin and I'm unhappy with the battery life with both of them. The mini mouse has an on/off switch but the battery only lasts about 2 weeks in normal use. The Belkin mouse lasts about 3-4 weeks. The most annoying thing about them is the battery dies SUDDENLY. I see no low battery warnings (the mouse preference panel's battery indicator doesn't work with either mouse). I'd be using the mouse and it would abruptly stop working. Sometimes the button would still work but no mouse movement.

On 5/19/05, rbtmorgan <rbtmorganverizon.net> wrote:
> Kensington Support
> said that normal battery life should be 4-5 weeks and also said that
> "Bluetooth mice do not work with rechargable batteries."

This is a curious statement. It was my understanding that from a use
standing there was no difference between a rechargable AA and a
disposable AA. Perhaps what Kensington meant was that you can't charge
rechargable batteries in their mouse...

Christopher Appell
European Market
FreeRecruiting.com

That seems a common complaint among bluetooth mice users. You may
find this one a better bet.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006ZKX7Y/
002-0141519-4084068?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Some of my friends use it and they seem to like it.

Or macAlly has one that you can recharge (see smalldog.com)

Paul

> Has anyone had better experience with this or other non-Apple
> Bluetooth mice?

My Dad has a Bluetooth enabled iMac G5 as well and uses Apple's
Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse. His experience with batteries
in both the mouse and keyboard mirror your own with Apple's keyboard-
excellent! Based on his success, I too purchased the Kensington
(wanting more buttons). My experience is exactly the same as your own,
which is exactly the same as dozens of other users on Apple's
discussion boards. I've had nothing but Kensington mice for years now,
but have settled with a Logitech that uses Fast IR technology. It is
excellent. True, it's not Bluetooth, and it lacks Kensington's
excellent MouseWorks software, but it is otherwise excellent. For
whatever reason, Kensington does not have a Fast IR product that is
ergonomic like my MX 700.

http://www.kensington.com/html/4768.html

As for my PocketMouse, they must have been thinking ahead as they
included a convenient cloth case which now contains the mouse, the
batteries (removed) and lives in my wife's PowerBook bag where it is
used once in a blue moon. For this purpose, it is more than
satisfactory.

Don't lose hope on Bluetooth mice, however. With the new 2.0 spec
being incorporated into current Mac's and a rumor that Apple is working
on a two button Bluetooth mouse, a reliable solution may be on the
horizon.

Yeah, I have the Radtech BT500, and have had it for the better part of a year. The batteries do not last long at all, with two weeks about the outside for my typical usage.

My wife wanted one, but I couldn't bear to buy another mouse that just ate batteries. Aside from the toxic waste, the $$$ add up pretty quickly and eclipse the cost of the mouse. After a bit of research, I recently purchased a Macally rechargeable bluetooth mouse for my wife's powerbook. It runs about two days on a pair of rechargeable battery, which is fine if one returns it to the cradle each night. The feel of this Macally mouse is much nicer. In fact, I'm jealous :-)

[BTW, the Apple BT keyboard is excellent and is still on its original battery after 6+ months.]

--

I found a Digipower DPS 3000 at Compusa for pretty cheap ($30?) and it charges 2 or 4 AAs quite rapidly. I have a dozen or so rechargeable AAs laying around (my camera runs on 4 of them, I have 2 in my mouse). I usually have between 2 and 6 charged batteries in reserve, so I don't find the battery life of either to be much of a concern (unless my wife forgets to give me the discharged set from the camera when she changes batteries).

I've been buying additional sets of 4 rechargeables whenever I would be buying disposables for the diverse remotes, flashlights, toys, etc. laying about since getting this new recharger. -- Lorin Rivers Marketing Professional <mailto:lriversmac.com> <http://homepage.mac.com/lrivers> 512/203.3198 (m) 408/580.8588 (f)

On 19/5/05 7:34 am, "Christophe Appell" <butchfaggmail.com> wrote:

> This is a curious statement. It was my understanding that from a use
> standing there was no difference between a rechargable AA and a
> disposable AA.

Not at all.

NiCad batteries (the most common sort of 'standard size' rechargeable) run
at 1.2v. Alkaline non-rechargeable run at around 1.45v.

For most motor/light based equipment the difference is negligible,
especially since NiCads have a much lower internal resistance, so manage to
keep up a higher voltage during high current discharges. However, in some
electronic appliances, the difference between 2.9v & 2.4v may be critical.


--
Barry

Has anyone had better experience with this or other non-Apple Bluetooth mice?

I too have the BT500 from RadTech and only get about 2 weeks out of it as well. I had in fact, shelved if for a bit and went back to my usb mouse, but recently brought it out again.

As to why rechargables may not work in a device....sometimes right out of the charger, the recharge cell is over the voltage level and the device may not like that. Most systems are designed for an broader input range, but some are not.

Alex

On 20 May 2005, at 10:28 , RockyRoad wrote:
>> [BTW, the Apple BT keyboard is excellent and is still on its
>> original battery after 6+ months.]
>
> That's surprising. Mine only lasts about 1-2 months using
> Energisers or Duracells. I turn it off overnight.

I never turn it off and the batteries so far have lasted at least 4
months.

--
"I know she's in there," said Verence, holding his crown in his hands
in the famous Ai-Señor-Mexican-Bandits-Have-Raided-Our-Village position

At 09:28 -0700 5/20/05, Barry Wainwright opined:
>For most motor/light based equipment the difference is negligible,
>especially since NiCads have a much lower internal resistance, so manage to
>keep up a higher voltage during high current discharges. However, in some
>electronic appliances, the difference between 2.9v & 2.4v may be critical.

In addition, the internal resistance you mention can become a
critical factor. I once built a battery pack for a Canon printer. It
worked fine with NiCad cells (very low internal resistance), but with
alkaline or NiMH cells the current drain when starting the
paper-advance motor would drop the voltage low enough to reset the
electronics.

--Ron

I was thinking is not the voltage on NiMH the same 1.2 as NiCad but lithium is 1.5

How does one find rechargable lithium batteries and rechargers?

TCC:}

On 5/24/05 at 10:26 AM, group_listdapenguin.net (group_list) wrote:

> I was thinking is not the voltage on NiMH the same 1.2 as NiCad but
> lithium is 1.5
>
> How does one find rechargable lithium batteries and rechargers?

Last time I checked (and hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong),
there are no lithium-ion batteries in standard consumer formats (AA,
AAA, C, D, etc.).

The reason, as I understand it, is that lithium-ion cells are much more
sensitive to charging and discharging conditions, so that you need
'smart' circuitry built into the battery pack to handle this gracefully.

Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

On 5/24/05 at 7:07 PM, group_listdapenguin.net (TC Carr) wrote:

> found this
> <http://www.batterystation.com/lithium.htm>
> now any body know of a charger
> TCC:}

Right, those are simply *lithium* disposable batteries; not
*lithium-ion* or *lithium-polymer* rechargeable batteries. They're like
alkaline batteries, and not rechargeable.

<http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm>

Travis Butler
tbutlermac.com

On May 18, 2005, at 4:40 PM, rbtmorgan wrote: > Kensington Support said that normal battery life should be 4-5 weeks > and also said that "Bluetooth mice do not work with rechargable > batteries." They are sending me yet another mouse. > > <http://www.kensington.com/html/5529.html> > > I guess that depends on how you > define "work". If by "work" you mean supply power in > such a manner that the mouse works perfectly, then, in my experience, > rechargeable batteries work splendidly in Kensington Bluetooth Mice. I > have a PilotMouse that I am quite fond of, but the battery life is about I have also been fine using NiMh rechargables (AA) in my Kensington Pocket Mouse Bluetooth. I don't use it all that often but the batteries have certainly been lasting several weeks (or even a couple of months) between charges. The only thing I've noticed is that I keep getting a warning popping up which says "The batteries in your Kensington PocketMouse are extremely low and need replacing" (or something like that). This happens even with freshly charged batteries and usually when I moving the mouse away from the Powerbook (eg putting it away). I thought it might be due to software getting confused between a weak signal due to distance and a weak signal due to low batteries but after reading some of the other posts in the this thread it may be due to voltage characteristics of the batteries. I've also got a Radtech BT-500 mouse and it also lasts several weeks on a set of rechargeables (AAAs). It gets even less use as it only lives in my laptop bag for emergencies as I don't like the its small size as much as the Kensington. The main reason I don't use these mice as much as used to is that since I discovered SideTrack I've actually started to use the trackpad a lot more when I'm mobile. When I'm desk-bound I plug in a Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball (the one with the scroll ring and optical tracking is my favourite-pointing device of all time). The bluetooth mice usually only get use when I'm wearing gloves in the lab. I cover the keyboard with a a washable skin but the trackpad doesn't respond well and I would be comfortable cleaning it as I do with the mice. Adrian