Heliotropic tracker

No, just MX. I am using Enloop AA cells in it. There are no other identifying marks on it unless you want the FCC number. The main thing I don't like about it no pocket for the transmitter dongle. They say it is a "nano" so you don't need to take it out, but my last laptop bag was destroyed because of one of these. It started to wear the pocket at the top which developed into a seam tear and eventually the entire side of the bad came apart. It was a great bag and of course you can never buy the same thing twice... The replacement has a pocket that is just as tight, so I'm not pushing my luck. I have to keep track of the mouse bag, remember to put both the mouse and the dongle in it. I don't like handling small things like this in strange places so it sucks.

I use a mouse because the touch pad is one with the built in button and has never worked well. Basically without the separate buttons they will never work for my style which is to leave my thumb on the touch pad. This one sees my thumb as moving the mouse sometimes and messes up the pointer position and even when I'm typing I could never get it to stop recognizing palm swipes. I have it turned off and I find it turns itself back on from time to time. Lenovo really is trying hard to piss me off.

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Rick

You make it sound like this was some mouse from the days of dinosaurs. This was a mouse from two years ago when I gave up on my laptop touch pad. It was a cheap mouse, but still. It's not expensive to do things right.

You seem to be focusing on the radio link. I don't have a problem with a small delay to get the mouse out of power save. The real problem is the mouse has to be "on" to some extent to know you are moving it. That LED takes some current. I suppose it can be pulsed when in low power mode and other power saving features can be implemented. But in reality all they need to do is to let me click a button which would require literally wrist watch levels of current. I don't need it to be transparent, especially when "transparent" means messing up what I am doing.

I am probably using my mouse for 10 hours a day, nearly 7 days a week.

Anywhere MX. That's all it says.

That would mean they make them all last over a year. If a user buys a new keyboard and/or mouse and the batteries die in a month and the user thinks it is bad, they won't buy *that* model again.

Label vs table. One of those *has* to be spelled wrong.

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Rick

It's probably a cost issue. I'd probably buy one. I have a charging pad for my phone in between my monitor and keyboard. One pad could charge both.

I have had mice that had to be "hung up" on a charging cradle after use. It worked quite well. I always knew where it was when I started work. Now I lock my mouse in my desk, so I know where it is (doesn't sprout feet in the desk).

I was actually replying to the post before yours. It seemed bizarre to allocate a power budget to physically moving a solar cell around when that power could just as easily just a charge the phone.

Why couldn't that power come from solar cells on the platform being moved? I don't think it's going to have a long extension cord to a wall socket. ;)

I think I'm going to build one of these. It won't be what has been discussed so far, but will be interesting to build and have in operation. Ideally it will not charge a phone which would be very slow and cumbersome. Instead it would move a mirror that will reflect sunlight to a stationary solar cell, but maybe that will be the Mark II version.

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Rick

Anagram for "cheese". (I'm lousy with anagrams and had to look it up).

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

That would be a heliostat. (search of heliostat on the page) Sounds like a fun build.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

There's usually a label inside the battery compartment. That might help.

Logitech has quite a variety of mice: In the MX series, there's MX Master, Anywhere Mouse MX, Performance Mouse MX, MX1100R, MX1100 Laser, MX Air, MX 620, MX700, MX1000, MX610, MX610 Left Handed, and MX Revolution. Any of these look or sound familiar?

Logitech makes money selling replacement dongles. Why should they help you NOT lose the dongle? About $10/ea or about half the cost of a new mouse with the receiver.

I've had the same problem with my laptop bag. The edges of the dongle are not sharp, but they manage to shred the laptop bag anyway. Most of my new laptops come with BlueGoof built in, so I'm recommending BT mice when possible.

I turn off the touch pad. All it does for me is get in the way. I also don't like touch screens. I got started with a stylus on Palm devices, and find the pen quite adequate and much faster than either a mouse, tablet, or touch screen. The absolute worst is speech input and control, which tends to drive me nuts when someone does it in a crowded restaurant or airport. I have and use a Wacom Bamboo Connect tablet: but am undecided if it's worth the effort dragging it around.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I pick anywhere MX, do I get a prize?

No, the mouse was $35.

I'm leery of a BT mouse. The touch pad is turned off as much as I can. I find BT to be a very unreliable interface. Everything I've ever used with BT resulted in driver crashes and devices locking up. Hell, one time just connecting to my cell phone locked up the damn machine!!! If the BT mouse hangs, I have no way to straighten out the machine other than carrying a second mouse with me.

In reality the proprietary mouse interfaces work great. They should all adopt a standard interface and then incorporate that into all laptops. Who is the idiot who thought every brand should have a separate interface?

The one interface my laptop doesn't have that it should is an IR for a remote control. I use it for watching movies and shows a *lot* but only in my lap. I could connect it to the TV but then it's across the room and no way to control it. Stupid computer. Did Bill Gates at one time think the PC was going to be the center of the home entertainment? How the hell can you do that without a remote?

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Rick

Yes. You are condemned to answer at least one badly written question on Usenet, where the author hasn't bothered to waste any of his precious time supplying sufficient information to answer the question. Not this thread please, as I've already forgot why I needed to know the specific mouse model. I think it might have had something to do with battery life, but am too lazy to check.

Is that an Anywhere MX? or an MX Anywhere 2:

You overpaid: $15 from China or $20 from a random US source: Incidentally, if you search eBay for many Logitech mouse model numbers, you'll find listing for replacement switches. One of the services I provide for my customers is cleaning the filth out of the insides of their mice. This usually more than doubles the life of the mouse if performed regularly. After about a year of "normal" use, I find many of the switches to be in need of replacement. It's generally not worth the time to replace them, but the PR generated seems worthwhile. A 3 year battery life doesn't make much sense when the switches will only last 1-2 years, and the rubber paint turns into a sticky mess after about 2 to 3 years.

Same here for the older BT mice. I paid almost $100 for a Microsloth BT Presenter Mouse: It seems that MS couldn't be bothered to read the specs and supplied it with no provision to exchange a password (0000 or 1234) making it useless connecting to anything other than the supplied dongle.

That does not depend on the mouse, but rather the BT receiver in the computah. Crashes an hangs were a feature of the WIDCOMM/Broadcom drivers. BTLE devices are MUCH better and more stable (so far). I'm using several Lenovo BT Laser mice with cheap Chinese BT dongles. Although about half the dongles were dead on arrival, the one's that work have been running for about 2 years without any surprises.

Yep, being without a mouse is hell. With a laptop, you could revert to using the touchpad. With a smartphone, there's the touch screen. With a desktop, a spare mouse (and keyboard) are not a major imposition.

I believe the legal department has something to say about such policies. Normally, proprietary is the result of avoiding or protecting patents. As someone once said, "Standards are a good thing. Every company should have one".

Have you ever used anything with an infrared interface? I dragged around HP 95LX, 100LX, and 200LX machines at various times. In its day, it was a wonderful palmtop..... except for the serial port emulating infrared interface. Lack of speed, reliability, interference protection, and range were the common misfeatures. Somewhat later, IrDA appears, which helped, but did not solve any of these problems. I've also done some work with outdoor mesh networks based on FSO IR communications. Fortunately, the company collapsed before I did. Actually, I think IR is very useful, when protected by a pipe or glass fiber.

Yep. Media Center Edition, which included remote control support. HP and Sony provided both a USB plug in IR receiver, and an IR remote control. I have several but prefer to use a full keyboard with Kodi (formerly XBMC). Something like this:

There is also voice or gesture control. I once saw a demonstration of a "magic wand" type of remote, where symbols painted in the air provided the control functions. This later became a MEMS accelerometer base "air mouse". There are plenty of ways to control a computah at a distance.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I was saying this mouse was only a year old so why wouldn't it have all the current power saving technologies? It is the "Anywhere MX?". I mentioned before it uses disposable batteries and I'm using Enloops. I used good quality alkalines for a few months until I switched to the Enloops. Battery longevity didn't change much.

I can always return it to Costco.

I can't remember why my last mousef failed, but I've never had one go in just a year and I'm a very heavy user.

Three different computers and three different... no, four different BT interfaces. I think it is the software. I bought a BT audio board which I added to some powered Sony speakers. Worked ok when it worked, but 1 time out of 10 it would not connect and I had to play with the drivers. I really liked the improved sound and much better volume. All the BT speakers I can find are battery powered and I don't need that. I want something more like a sound bar, but not the kind that are more expensive than a TV! The Sony speakers were from Freecycle and the BT board was around ~$15 bucks. Too bad it didn't last. Seems to be t*ts up now.

Need a mouse to turn the touchpad back on!! At one time everything under windows could be operated from the keyboard, but that was likely win3.1. lol

You are talking about data comms. I'm talking about using a remote control when the PC is being my Roku box. I actually prefer watching Hulu and Netflix with the PC as the UIs are better. But when it is plugged into the TV it needs to be by the TV and I'm not. So a remote control is needed. I expect if I shop around I can find one that works by RF via a USB dongle or maybe BT.

A friend watches Netflix through one of those game things. He waves his wand around to control it and sometimes it works.

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Rick

That data sheet (click on View Full Specifications) indicates that it uses two AA alkaline batteries with a claimed battery life of 7 months. That's quite a bit less than the multi-year specifications of other Logitech mice (of the same vintage). For example, the M705 uses the same 2 AA batteries, but claims 3 year (maximum) battery life: I would guess(tm) that not all Logitech mice use the latest and greatest technology. I'll spare you my marketing rant on "product differentiation" which explains why companies intentionally produce a range of products, usually with corresponding prices.

The local Costco only carries very high end and expensive mice, usually as part of a keyboard/mouse set. I don't recall seeing any $15 Logitech mice or I would have stocked up.

I think the 7 month spec for the Anywhere MX mouse might explain the problem, at least for this one model. For outright failures, I see (in order of frequency):

1. Switch failures
2. Leaky batteries
3. Filth, goo, food, dust, water, hair, and grime.
4. Lost battery cover
5. Lost USB receiver
6. Friction pads falling off due to solvent and sweat attacking the adhesive. Occasionally, I see the adhesive completely disappear, which makes me wonder if it was formulated to evaporate.
7. Ground down friction pads and mouse base due to abrasive mouse pads, grit on the desktop, and excessive pressure by the user.
8. Rubberized paint breaks down and turns to sticky goo. This seems to be epidemic on Logitech mice. I've tried various potions to fix the sticky mess (including assorted chemical vulcanizing agents) but haven't found anything that works.

One failure, that drive me nuts is the loss of range as the battery discharges. A mouse with new batteries may have more than adequate range, while an almost dead battery will still function, but at a much shorter range. Microsoft mice are notorious for that problem, with the range being reduced to about 0.5 meters before any indication of a battery failure. This can also be aggravated by using NiCd and NiMH

1.35v batteries in a mouse that was designed to operate with 1.5v alkaline cells.

Well, if the software is old or defective and using it on 4 different machines produces identical dismal results, I would think that perhaps looking for a replacement BT receiver and driver might be helpful.

Yuck. I've had similar experiences with BT speakers. I installed a pair for a neighbor so she could have Pandora music in the kitchen. She complained that occasionally, the music would drop out. I traced the problem to her microwave oven and proximity to her Comcast gateway (with wi-fi). Moving things around reduced the interference until it worked. I must confess that this is the only experience I've had with installing BT speakers.

Oh wait, there was one more. The user had managed to pair the speakers with his smartphone. When paired with the BT adapter plugged into his hi-fi, it would work, until he walked into the room with his smartphone. The speakers would revert back to pairing with the smartphone, and disconnect from the hi-fi. That was fun to troubleshoot.

As I recall, you have a Lenovo laptop. Looks like there are different ways to do this on the keyboard, depending on muddle number: Looks like Fn+F6 or Fn+F8 are the most common.

Yes, but see my following comments on remote controls with MCE and Kodi. There are all kinds of strange remotes available.

Agreed. I have a Roku 3 box. The remote and on screen user interface seems to be designed for the most simplistic user, not a power user. What I like to do is setup my watching schedule as favorites on the computer for Netflix and YouTube, and then use the simple Roku remote to play them on the TV.

I know of some high end remotes that will do RF, BT, wi-fi, and IR, but nothing cheap. I'll search for something as I have the same problem. I've become rather addicted to NOT pointing the remote at the TV because of the RF Roku remote.

Yeah, I know the problem. I bought several types of "air mouse" and gave them away as gifts. Most came back with comments such as "useless" or "worthless". I tried giving a talk using one of those and found it difficult to use, even with practice. I had to switch to a wired USB mouse in order to finish the talk.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I still have no reason to believe they would intentionally shorten the battery life of a mouse. The "anywhere" part of the name refers to how it detects the surface, supposedly working on even glass. I expect the marthon mouse is optimized for battery life (given the name) and other aspects are secondary. So the difference isn't "latest and greatest", but rather incompatible features.

Good thing I only need about 1 foot then! I have no trouble with NiMH cells.

You aren't following. Four different BT devices on the computers. Make that five. I forgot the Palm I used a GPS BT dongle with... or tried to. It would just disconnect for no good reason maintaining connection for less than an hour *ever*.

This last one is built into the Lenovo laptop. It works every bit as well as the rest of the computer. Lenovo consumer products are pure crap!

It is just not a good idea to use your phone with the speakers. I guess this was to listen to music from the phone?

Yeah, F6 worked. Now if I can just get the touch pad to actually work decently.

Yeah, "strange" is the right word. I looked up the Kodi and it said it was for Android. I didn't see anything about Windows.

They also seem to work very slowly. I expect the processor is more like the Raspberry Pi than a PC. Just not much umpff. Also, my friend's Sony box has problems from time to time and has to be reset or reconnected or just messed with. Call Hulu about a problem watching their channel and they say it is a Sony problem and you need to get an update from them. It's just another cranky appliance of the 21st century.

All the modern inconveniences.

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Rick

possibly it needs a stronger laser, or more thirsty sensor to manage that "anywhere" bit.

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  \_(?)_

It appears (to me) that we're both overlapping areas of discussion. Logitech is not crippling or handicapping their products in any way. Companies that tend to release new products that both compete with and obsolete older models partly protect themselves by carefully changing a minimum number of features in new products. The next models will then have the missing features. This is sometimes called "product differentiation" where the average user is able to distinguish the difference between different models and participate in carefully orchestrated price/product comparisons. In many cases, the only differences between models are cosmetic. Or, there are substantial changes to the electronics that are not easily visible if the packages are identical. The very last thing such a company would want are successive indistinguishable products, or radical improvements in new products that decimate the sales of older products.

Some stuff that might be of interest:

How much power does a wireless mouse use?

Microsoft mouse battery exec summary

Mouse runs on LlIon battery

How Logitech aims to prove wireless latency is a thing of the past

Anywhere MX battery life Notice that you're not the only person getting short battery life with the Anywhere MX.

I run Kodi on Rasperian, Ubuntu, and Windoze 10. Pick your flavor: However, if you want to do it the easy and right way, start here: Do the "install", followed by the "configure" to install the "Fusion Installer": and the "config wizard": At some point after the install, Kodi is going to download and update a bunch of stuff, which can take a while depending on network speed. Be prepared for that.

Not all of them. My original Roku N1000 was VERY slow to respond and frustrating. I updated to a Roku 2XS, which was faster, but still to slow. I currently have a Roku 3, which is still a bit slow, but not so slow that I want to defenestrate the player and remote. Several friends have Roku 4 players, what I think are sufficient.

Also lacks RAM. My Roku 3 features a BCM11130 Dual ARM Cortex A9

900MHz CPU and 512MB of DDR3 RAM. Details: Fast enough to do the job today. Slow enough to make me want to buy the next model.

Every device I've ever purchased, that has firmware installed, has require updates in order to fix known bugs. In other words, the products get shipped with version 1.0.0.0 firmware and you are expected to download and install the latest version. We even launch space probes that require firmware updates along the way. Get used to it and don't expect it to go away.

I would say that there has been some progress, despite the occasional screwups.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Blue laser: which requires dust on the glass to work. Good excuse not to clean up my mess.

Steampunk mouse:

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558