Wireless is a trap (2020)
benkuhn.net
benkuhn.net
As for keyboards, a lot of people move their keyboard. For example, I move mine from my standing desk when standing, to a keyboard tray when sitting, since no one can seem to manufacture a standing desk converter with proper ergonomics when sitting. The keyboard always ends up at desk level, instead of just below. Unfortunately, they don't make a wireless version of my favorite keyboard, and the wire is always getting in the way when converting.
With 2.4Ghz instead of blutooth, the reliability and latency problems are gone. Wireless mice, at the high end, have no more latency than a wired mouse. No issues with reliability in my years of owning them.
The battery also lasts a week or two, with some clever software tuning so it runs at a lower polling rate when not playing games. It charges in an hour or two.
Once you've experienced a proper wireless mouse, going back is impossible. They're so freeing. You can move in any direction and amount with NO resistance. Never fight the cable again. It's the way mice were meant to be.
Wireless keyboards are a bit more dubious. In theory they can have way better battery life due to the size, but in practice most still use crappy bluetooth so they have shit polling rates. I wish I could have it though, because it's more clutter on my desk and constantly gets in the way. I move my board around a lot to put down notepads, eat, etc.
EDIT: To be clear, my battery life is a result of using an ultralight mouse with a small internal battery, for game reasons. If you want one with AAA/AA, you'll likely get months out of it no problem.
I have used a wireless mouse (I have one right now cause it's what work bought me). It is no better than a wired mouse.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m705-wireless-m...
This M550 mouse is rated for two years using the Bolt wireless adapter.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m550-signature-...
The K400 keyboard+trackpad I have routinely lasts at least couple of years despite only rated for 18 months, but it didn't get as much usage as a regular kb+m as it was mostly used as a couch keyboard or as a quick debugging combo for working on machines on a workbench.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k400-plus-...
I think I may have also replaced mouse or keyboard or both a while back, with identical models, so call that two battery changes in five years, if you want to be conservative. Maybe it helps that they're disposable instead of rechargeable.
If you travel a lot you might have to replace the USB dongle once a year, in my experience($5).
It is still used weekly or so!
That is surprising. I could have sworn we were way above that threshold now. I remember using some wireless Logitech mice that I never powered off manually and they lasted over 6-7 months of all day usage on one or two AA-batteries.
If you don't do any gaming and are fine with 125/s, you'll get a lot longer life.
My last mouse that used one AAA lasts ~3 months on a battery.
That's not remotely long enough for it not to be a pain to manage. Being battery-powered is my primary objection to wireless mice and keyboards.
That said, I do have a use case where the presence of cords are a larger problem than the hassle of being battery-powered and use a wireless mouse and keyboard there. But for everything else, nothing beats a cord.
My Logitech MX Anywhere 2 mouse would last me a few months on a single charge before swapping to this trackball. A recharge took like an hour or so, normally I'd get the low battery notification like in the morning, plug it in when I went to go to lunch, and it would be fully charged by the time I got back and be good for a few months. Or I'd get it near the end of the day, plug it in overnight, and it would be good for a few months. Really not a hassle in the slightest.
Cords on my mouse and keyboard (aside from the one use case I mentioned) give me exactly no trouble anyway, so wireless stuff solves no problem I generally have.
That was until I stepped away from my computer (on my desk at home) to have dinner and came back an hour later to it being dead (mouse buttons worked, just didn’t pick up movement).
I contacted support and they couldn’t offer any kind of support, I asked if they could do a firmware reset and they said not possible.
This was about 9 years ago now and last piece of Razer hardware I ever bought.
It can still be used while charging. So when charging it's not any different than a wired mouse.
Granted that I'm not the most avid gamer, the mouse I use on my gaming PC setup is a Logitech G604 Lightspeed which gets the better part of a year on a single Eneloop Pro AA battery, which I can swap out for a charged battery in seconds when it finally runs out of juice.
Wifi on the other hand...
I also prefer wireless mice on a lot of things because my main work machine is a laptop. Its way more convenient to just have it connected pretty much all the time. Its bluetooth as well, so I don't even have a dongle or nub constantly plugged into the laptop its just always there.
I'd really like to get a wireless mouse for my gaming desktop, but all the wireless gaming mice are pretty pricey, have relatively short battery lives, and sometimes have other oddities. Having a lower polling interval and normal DPI is fine for basic work stuff, but when I'm playing a twitch shooter like Counterstrike its just not going to cut it.
I have a wireless keyboard because it helps reduce desk clutter, and it pairs to multiple computers. Press F1, its on my personal machine. Press F2, its on my work machine. Press F3, its on my phone. This could kind of be done with a KVM switch, but why buy additional equipment when the keyboard can do it natively?
In the end the battery lasts months on a single charge, even with the backlight on. It charges with the same cable I have already on my desk for charging any USB-C device. Charging it for a few hours every few months isn't really a hassle at all. Meanwhile its normally cord free and can easily swap between devices very quickly.
The wire is less of a problem for keyboards and I don't use a wireless keyboard for my desktop, but there are still some use cases.
I find it's nice not to have that wire on my desktop, it would keep bumping on other stuff I like to have close.
This substitution has the additional benefits that a stylus is much more comfortable, faster and more precise than a mouse.
I discovered this only when I moved to a place that has a higher-than-usual incidence of helicopters flying by and my wifi would randomly disconnect. I eventually solved it by finding the channel within the 5GHz frequency band that was least used by privileged users in my area, and now I only have a drop about once a month. But it used to be 3 or 4 times a day.
When I speak on Zoom calls, people often comment on Zoom calls how good the audio quality is.
The only thing I miss is the ability to walk around taking calls.
It uses a base station, but runs a proprietary wireless protocol which can do very high quality bidirectional voice.
Comes with two batteries, one can charge in the base station while you’re using the other. I swap it each morning and lasts the day fine.
I also chose it based on its aesthetic choice of not looking garish like just about every other gaming brand headset.
They can also be used over Bluetooth too, but will be lower voice quality in such cases.
From some YouTube comparison videos I found before purchasing, the quality of the modmic/wireless is vastly superior to the builtin mic on most headsets - even the more expensive business/conference and gaming headsets. It's not quite as good as a standalone desk mic, but it's not too far off.
Plus if you already have a nice set of headphones that you like - I have a set of Bose noise cancelling ones - you can keep using those; you don't need to sacrifice incoming audio quality by moving to a headset.
The only downside is the battery life is ~12 hours. As an IC who doesn't have tons of meetings, I only need to charge it every 2-4 weeks. But if you're a manager that may be more annoying.
Tip: Use a hair dryer to heat up the adhesive on the magnet before you stick it onto your headphones. Otherwise it might fall off later.
Laptop may steal-connect headphones from the mobile, if it knows them.
I guess there's been some logic written for managing these auto-connects, but it's now a complete mess.
Had to install a special audio system in ubuntu to work with Bluetooth headset with microphone -- it took years for it to appear, apparently. It does work -- although you have to go down some menus to turn mic on, and with the last update you can't switch back to hi-quality playing without mic -- it just stops working at all. But the biggest disappointment was that the old Logitech H600 headset now stops working in a minute or two after connecting!
This is modern software. Instead of a mechanism that turns, clicks and snaps, it's just a contraption that may work sometimes or may not. Johnathan Blow is absolutely right in his observations.
PS. Despite that, I should say wireless USB-dongle-mouse works fine for me.
I much prefer using double sided velcro strap that can be easily removed and reused. It comes in a roll so you can cut it as long as you want. I mostly dislike using zip ties unless it's close to permanent or a quick fix.
> To route the power strip’s cable cleanly, I attached a cable raceway to the back of one leg.
Consider using wire duct (sometimes called Panduit, a brand of wire duct) to manage cables by mounting a length to the underside of your desk. The fingers allow you to break out wire and cables anywhere along the length then tuck the slack inside and snap the cover on. You don't even need to tie up the slack though it helps. Used all the time in industrial machinery control cabinets.
Wireless headphones are inferior to wired headphones in every way that matters.
Wireless mice — good ones — are worth the hassle. Mostly because they seem to just work for the most part.
I have a pair of wireless earbuds and a pair of wireless headphones that I use only when I want this convenience. But for meetings, I always use my wired headphones. Voice over bluetooth is always atrocious when using the microphone.
But that's an end-result, not a use-case, no?
I can think of only one situation where the faff of wireless headphones could be justified (though not for me), and that's exercise. Personally, I'll take the slight annoyance of cables getting in the way, but I can understand not everyone would.
Wireless headphones are a pet-peeve of mine, ever since Apple set the world off getting rid of the high-quality 3.5mm jack. It's sadly disappearing fast, and nobody notices the abysmal sound quality demotion, because they're mostly listening to poor quality streaming services anyway :(
During the work day my wireless headphones are pretty much always on. I'm able to get up from my desk and stretch, get something from across the office, go to the kitchen and make lunch, go check the mail, do pretty much anything around the house without needing to take them off. Having the headphones not physically tethered to the device is the point. I don't have to literally disconnect from whatever media I was consuming or conversation I was having just because I stood up from my desk.
And then I also don't have a cable flopping around while I'm at my desk. I don't have a cable to get tangled up. I'm not limited to whatever length of cable I need to connect properly, the headphones work anywhere in the room. I charge the headphones overnight at my desk every few days, so charge levels are never really a concern.
I'd use wireless headphones exclusively on my gaming PC if it wasn't for the latency and HSP using a lousy codec. Newer Bluetooth standards will solve that HSP quality problem and really reduce the latency concerns. Its a massive pain having to deal with my wired headphones on my gaming PC compared to my experience on my work setup or personal laptop with my bluetooth headphones.
And as for out and about, my bone conduction wireless headphones are leagues more convenient than any wired headphones. Not quite as high of quality, but for the convenience and non-isolation properties they're excellent for just out and about ambient music. I also wear them when gaming on the couch with my laptop while watching a show with my wife while she knits. I can hear the game just fine, I can hear the show, and can carry a conversation with my wife without wires all over the place on my lap and couch.
https://support.apple.com/guide/airpods/share-audio-on-iphon...
A couple of years ago I happened to mention to a non-technical person (I think HR) that I don't use Wifi. The person replied inquisitively, "Then how do you get internet?"
Some people don't realize there's another option.
If you want something new ( and no backward compatibility burdens), there are none
It was of course astoundingly and infuriatingly janky to do this - connect a wire to a completely superfluous radio just to dodge an idiotic software problem. But it worked, so I should just regard it as a clever hack.
Eventually though I got a MoCA adapter and ran a cheap Cat 6 cable to it, which has even higher speeds and is less janky, though I do have to snake the wire around the room. But after tacking it to the baseboard it’s barely visible. I own my house so I could run Ethernet through the walls but this MoCA gets me 95% of the way there so I doubt I’ll ever bother.