Silent Mice for Silent PCs?

UnrefinedLayman asks: "In the quest for a silent PC, one item that seems to be consistently overlooked is the mouse: it's one of the more noisy computer components if only by virtue of the fact that it is a staccato noise. I don't notice my fans or hard drives very often, given that they are constant background sounds whose levels don't noticeably change. My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it, and while providing a pleasant tactile feedback, it keeps my girlfriend awake during my late-night work sessions. So I turn to the Ask Slashdot community: have you found a silent mouse for your silent PC? Numerous Google searches have yielded little. It's not as though it's impossible, as touch pads for laptops have been around for quite some time, and the iPod makes great use of the technology. ThinkGeek also sells a force-free keyboard with a "mouse replacement" built into it, but while the keyboard technology looks very promising, I prefer to stick with a mouse (not to mention something a bit cheaper). Mouse manufacturers have long touted optical mice as being superior to their trackball cousins for having no moving, mechanical parts, but it seems like they're overlooking the most obvious and still mechanical function: the buttons themselves! So what say you Slashdot? Are there force-free, truly non-mechanical and silent mice out there to be had?"

Comments

Blast it!

[Ske]

You just made me notice how loudly my mouse clicks. *sigh* Thanks for ruining my weekend! (-;

Modify an existing mouse?

[Silh]

This may not be a practical suggestion, but it came to my mind as I was reading this, since I have dabbled in some minor electronics and case modification in the last while... if one knew what they were doing, perhaps one could modify an existing mouse to replace the existing microswitch with something else, perhaps a IR emitter/sensor which is blocked by a tab when the mouse button is pressed. That would eliminate the clicking sound of the microswitch.

Or perhaps a touchplate ... though could be interesting trying to rest your finger on there.

One would have to consult someone more experienced in building this sort of stuff regarding feasibility though. :)

Come on over to my house...

[R2.0]

And you can have your choice of keyboards:

IBM Model M
Omnikey 102
Ortek MCK-142

All nice & clicky...Oh.

Nevermind.

Silent Mice for Silent PCs

[Caktus]

My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it, and while providing a pleasant tactile feedback, it keeps my girlfriend awake during my late-night work sessions.

You dont't snore, do you?

Several suggestions...

[blankmange]

First of all, I too, thought that this was not a serious posting... then I discovered that it was not humorous at all.

Try these:

++ Learn to use the keyboard - there are easy keystroke shortcuts to perform the mouse clicks for you.

++ Move the computer out of the bedroom into another room.

++ Tell your girlfriend to get over it.

++ Get another girlfriend.

++ Go to bed with your girlfriend (what the hell are you doing at night anyway?).

++ Get on with your life.

Could someone please explain why this was submitted???

Other hand?

[Kj0n]

My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it...

Why do you use your other hand?

*ducks*

The mouse isn't the problem

[peeping_Thomist]

If your gf is busting your chops over this, you have much more serious problems than a loud mouse. Lose the gf, keep the mouse.

Re:A modest proposal...

[stienman]

Thing is, I think he was talking about his sister, not his SO.

Well, let's see...

"My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it, and while providing a pleasant tactile feedback, it keeps my girlfriend awake during my late-night work sessions."

Hmm. If you're from a redneck community I could see you interpretting "girlfriend" as "sister," but I like to avoid that kind of assumption until I see more evidence...

-Adam

Missing the point.....

[jsimon12]

Your girlfriend isn't complaining about the clicking per se. In my opnion she is probably complaining because you are on the computer. So even if you find a quieter mouse she will complain about something else. Pay more attention to her and she won't care about the sound your mouse makes.

Razor Boomslang

[squisher]

There is a mouse out there that does not click when you press the button: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/66 89/
At least the older model they sold like 2 years ago did not click because that would make the sniper move the mouse about 1nm and then he'd miss... ;-) Maybe a little expensive but a very precise and good mouse - except that maybe the zero-force approach makes you click more often then you intend =). I heard though that you get used to it.

~Squisher

Re:Razor Boomslang

[lewp]

It's worse than that. The buttons are so sensitive that picking up the mouse and setting it back down will cause them to click. Resting your fingers on them normally will hold them down. This is difficult to get used to. Eventually you learn to keep your fingers hovered slightly above the buttons and you compensate for not being able to pick up the mouse by cranking up the sensitivity high enough so that you never need to.

One unfortunate thing I was never able to figure out is how to get the buttons to click rapidly. Since there is virtually no tactile feedback to clicking it's hard to tell if you're actually clicking or just holding the button down without really exaggerating the finger motion involved.

There's a much bigger problem: I had three older Razer Boomslangs (before they went bankrupt, or whatever happened). The first one I actually bought, and it broke the day I got it. Razer, thankfully, had a rather good return policy, and had a new one on the way after about 5 minutes on the phone.

My second Razer lasted through a couple months of off and on usage. The difficulty of rapidly clicking the buttons made pistol shooting in CS a major pain in the ass, so I kept switching it with my IntelliMouse Optical. Finally it just stopped working one day. The mouse would only move vertically and the primary button would not work. Another call to Razer, 5 minutes, and another mouse was on the way.

The final Razer lasted about a week of me forcing myself to use it exclusively. Just as I was getting used to it, it fell off my desk. The mouse wheel became jammed inside the mouse, and even when I freed it so that it would rotate properly it was no longer functional. I didn't bother to replace this one.

There's a lot of upside to the mouse, it's incredibly smooth and accurate. There is really no comparing it to standard consumer mice in that respect. You want headshots, to be a railgun god, or just be incredibly precise in your Photoshop work? You can't beat it. It's good enough that, despite my problems with it, I'm thinking of buying one of their new models just to see if they've fixed their problems.

Unfortunately, if you can't count on them to last more than a week at a time they aren't worth much. I've stepped on, dropped, thrown, and even backed over IntelliMouse Optical mice with my car and had them work perfectly afterwards. I don't expect every mouse to handle that, but one that can't handle falling off a desk on some carpet is just unacceptable. Oh, and once you get used to optical mice, going back to cleaning a ball is just annoying.

My advice: if you decide to buy one, buy two. You'll need the second one while you wait for the first one to be replaced. Also, prepare to forget a bunch of your mousing habits if your current ones aren't compatible with what the mouse likes.

Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this, it works great for me: Go to bed when your SO goes to bed.

Actually, that's probably what she's really asking for anyway. I'm sure when you fix the mouse clicks she'll complain about the keyboard. Then when you fix that she'll complain about the excess heat coming from the processor. Then when you freak out on her for being absolutely crazy she'll say "but I only wanted you to come cuddle with me instead of working on your computer."

Of course, if you wanted that advice, you wouldn't be Asking Slashdot. So drop the female and make a robot, or something.

Lessons on "Asking Slashdot"...

[jtheory]

When the editors post an "Ask Slashdot" question, they aren't doing it to help the person asking the question. They post it because they think it might be a problem shared by lots of people. You, the original questioner, are not the primary audience of these posts. You're just one of hundreds of thousands of readers, some of whom are just looking for the funny responses, some of whom have similar problems, some who's curiosity is piqued (because hey, I've never seen a silent mouse... let's see what people say) and some of whom just want to get a frist pr0st out there.

Slashdot's moderation system is designed to keep the content as helpful as possible to the general readership (which includes you, but also includes lots of other people).

Lots of the posts that you are slamming in your response were good posts -- they just weren't useful to your specific situation. Well, they're still good posts. Someone buying a new computer might like to know that they can get s silent Mac mouse. Someone with a yen for taking stuff apart might like to read how they can mod their mouse to silence it. Personally, I was sorry to see that there doesn't seem to be a standard-but-silent mouse (and I think you knew that already, since you've been searching for a while), but I might get one of those TouchStream keyboards on ThinkGeek to try it out... it looks cool. I thought the "learn how to avoid using the mouse" is a decent solution to your actual problem, which is noise. There are plenty of silent keyboards, some with touchpads (which would also help). If you know all the key combinations, you can certainly reduce the need for the mouse.

I guess my main point is that I was kind of shocked by your reaction to a decent discussion on an interesting question. If you didn't find what you wanted, maybe it's not out there at the moment... that's no reason to flame a bunch of people offering helpful advice for free.