HACKER Q&A
📣 kakadu

Why are there no mice without an extra wireless adapter?


In a mac, you have the mouse which does not need "unified adapters" and communicates directly, what mice are there out there that can do the same on a *nix machine?


  👤 PaulHoule Accepted Answer ✓
Logitech packs those because of endless problems w/ Bluetooth on Windows laptops.

I have two Dell laptops, one of which struggles to work with a Bluetooth headset in the same room, another which can communicate with the same headset throughout a 2200 sq ft house or through 10 walls in an office building.

Never mind problems with drivers on top of that.

If you are selling a premium product with a premium experience you’d best supply some kind of receiver because there is no premium experience with a computer that has subprime Bluetooth.

Those receivers usually look like a USB keyboard, mouse, or audio device and should do fine on Linux or Mac for that matter.


👤 ofalkaed
Bluetooth is not perfect and other things in the computer/environment can affect its reception. On my old laptop there is a small hole in the bluetooth reception exactly in the ideal spot for me to keep my trackball, took awhile to figure it out and I only have to move the track ball a half inch in any direction to get it out of that void but it never seems to fail that either laptop or trackball will eventually move and it will lose the connection. So I just use the dongle with that laptop and I am glad it came with the dongle.

👤 smoldesu
There are, just look up "Bluetooth mouse". On Linux, I've had no trouble with my Microsoft wireless, Magic Trackpad 2 or my Razer Basilisk X.

👤 toxic
The apple magic mouse also works just fine with nix and windows machines. It's just a fancy bluetooth mouse. Basically any bluetooth mouse will work, assuming your nix machine has bluetooth hardware that it can connect to.

👤 breckenedge
Bluetooth?