4 ms·

No question about it, wireless is the GOAT.

riceart 4y ago
Buddy, I posted a link - the actual difference in latency in time to click and movements with wireless mice with dedicated receivers. Some do better than wired models - in any event the latency of the RF link is on the order or hundreds of microseconds and the wired part of the peripheral bus (ie USB) and the software is at least a couple milliseconds. It's very well possible my wireless mouse setup has lower latency than most wired setups. That’s why I said essentially no lag. A good gaming wireless mouse will do better than many wired mice. In those cases it’s better but it’s still not enough difference to matter to anyone. The advantage of wired is not just aesthetics. This thread started because of any accessory to deal with the wire. I don't need to bother at all with a damn wire in the way. > This might as be considered a law of physics - electromagnetic energy will always travel faster, more accurately, with less interference, with less required current through a conductive medium than through air. I mean you might want to go back and read a high school physics textbook - because you’ve got the speed of light exactly backwards. The reason digital wireless signals may have additional latency has nothing to do with the propagation which is faster in air. Also I’ve never seen a networking over powerline system that worked better than Wi-Fi. Not all conductive paths are effective for signals. > Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal. Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm)
- rektide 4y ago
  A good number of these mouse show a difference of 0.2 ms betwen wired & wireless. That's one frame at 500fps. As you say, there are so many other factors that radically dwarf this transport concern. It's hard to take this as a discussion when people protest so vehemently against such a tiny figure, when it's such a small factor. Also griefing about battery seem like horseshit too. I have a travel mouse with a single rechargeable AA battery in it. I have a variety of gaming mice, including a Razer Naga Epic from ~2010 that I've literally worn the buttons through to unreliability on. These mice all have li-ion batteries and they all work fine. Maybe in aggregate I've worn through like a single rechargable AA cells worth of use over a decade. The rate of attrition on rechargeable batteries is tiny. It's just incredible what the cables-or-die undead-alliance goes through to justify their fanatical anti-cause.
  - anonym29 4y ago
    I agree, the real world difference is negligible.
    - rektide 4y ago
      Oh I absolutely have a long-held aversion to the sight of cables. Because I have had to live among them, among many many many many of them, because I have had to manage them, growing up amidst so very many of them. They have never been fun to manage. I have long toiled to not be so enwrapped by cables. Slower? Not really, not according to the links already shared. Less bandwidth? My headphones, my mouse, my keyboard are nowhere near their practical limits over wireless. Higher latency? I just cited 0.2ms, which seems absurd to grumble over. Higher error rate? This is not a problem I've ever experienced. More prone to interference? Literally never seen an issue. There's just no real solid reports on this being an issue. It's not seen with any statistical significance in real reviews. Higher power requirements? Yes, having some awareness of batteries is required, but if you set things up (slash most devices are set up) to not be caught unprepared it's a remarkable low-toil system. Most devices can charge themselves. Most will operate for a week without charge. The only problem is being a total newb who doesn't have any handle at all, who gets caught out unprepared in the cold, by having absolutely no indicators & no warning. Once you actually start trying to use these devices, once you actually start looking at the battery level, the power concern is remarkably low issue.
      - anonym29 4y ago
        Many great points made.
        rektide 4y ago
        ok editing my reply here too thanks
- anonym29 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Upvoting for visibility.
  - riceart 4y ago
    Why do stage musicians use wireless microphones? Is it because they have a hatred strictly for aesthetic reasons? Nobody said you can’t use your damn wired mouse if it makes you happy - but latency is not an actual reason to prefer a wired mouse. > Again, wireless can be superior, but only when you are deliberately cherry-picking the least efficient wired setup to compare to the most efficient wireless setup, just like your argument for mice. But earlier I thought you said it was a law of physics that conductive mediums were always superior to air. Also that the speed of light in air is slower than a “conductive” medium. You don’t seem well.
    - anonym29 4y ago
      No argument here! Great points.
      - riceart 4y ago
        > Just to be clear, your wireless mouse, keyboard, headset, and network connection are not making use of light through air Yes they are. “The terms light, electromagnetic waves, and radiation all refer to the same physical phenomenon: electromagnetic energy.” https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy Light and radio are both electromagnetic energy. Radio waves and light both propagate at the speed of light. The speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant. The speed of light in various mediums is always slower. Among copper, air and glass, light/EM waves will propagate the slowest in glass and the fastest in air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light > cannot make use of light through air even a fraction as efficiently as light through fiber optic cable, due to a guaranteed minimum amount of light interference in air that a fiber optic cable will never have, right? No, not right. As someone else pointed out a point to point link through the air will have lower latency than fiber (glass or plastic). Whether or not a signal can be carried accurately and error free through any medium involves concepts beyond a basic understanding of the speed of light. But in the real world one will encounter reliable well designed wireless links and poorly performing wired links.
- serf 4y ago
  >Also I’ve never seen a networking over powerline system that worked better than Wi-Fi. Not all conductive paths are effective for signals. although I agree that powerline networking is garbage, I have encountered older construction houses that create an environment that is just about impossible to conquer without specialist wireless equipment. passive blocking via exotic wall materials, older drywall and fairing compounds that contained metallic particulate, various metallic accoutrements -- and accidental active jamming from poor wiring. >Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm) eh -- this is just an effective and allowed compromise. A performer will usually prefer not to drag wires around a stage just from the sheer physical discomfort from the additional weight and the worry of a trip hazard on an already hazardous stage. That said , many performers opt to avoid such conveniences due to a perceived difference in quality. [0] [0]: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-wireless-rigs-not-the-standard-in-guitar-live-performance https://www.quora.com/Why-are-wireless-rigs-not-the-standard...
  - riceart 4y ago
    > A performer will usually prefer not to drag wires around a stage just from the sheer physical discomfort from the additional weight and the worry of a trip hazard on an already hazardous stage. eh — this is not a “purely” aesthetic or superficial difference, which was the foolishness I was replying to: “Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal.”
    - serf 4y ago
      Ah, I better understand. Thanks, my mistake; I had forgotten the superficial element. I'm not sure if the mocking elements that you edited in after the initial reply added much, I wasn't trying to come across as derogatory, I just speak/type like that.
      - riceart 4y ago
        Sorry. I was not appreciative of the uncalled for personal attacks (not from you) - that have now been mostly edited away.
PaulBGD_ 4y ago
I don't agree with your either/or. My wireless mouse on the rtings table has a 6.3ms latency, is sub $40, and accepts a standard AA which I use a rechargable for. Battery life lasts 4-5 months on a single battery, and I'm reusing batteries I've had for 5 years. I do personally agree that unstandardized batteries are a problem in wireless mice as eventually you'll be unlikely to find an exact replacement, but I think there can be plenty of wins from wireless. No cable drag (annoying!), no cable running across the desk (I can stow my mouse in a drawer in less than a second to clear my desktop), and I don't have to worry about the cable fraying over time (legitimately something that happened with my razer years ago!)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> Let's be honest here, you're either prejudiced against cables or you don't really care about performance. Let's be honest here, you clearly have never used a decent or good wireless mouse, and have little or no knowledge of the marketplace (and oddly have a lot of opinions about them...) > Having to change batteries several times a year is objectively more expensive, wasteful, worse for the environment, and burdensome than never having to change batteries. Rechargeable batteries (either built-in li-ion or nimh AAA/AA) exist. Before you start going on about the inconvenience of charging: when I see my mouse dock's LED ring glowing orange as opposed to a more greenish color, I know I've got a couple of hours before I should go through the incredibly arduous process of...placing it on the dock for a bit. > Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal. Not having a cord is substantially nicer from a usability and feel standpoint, and not just for gaming. > "Essentially no lag" is objectively not the same as "no lag". Go look at rtings or any other site that reviews mice, and you'll see that just like wired mice, wireless mice can vary in latency, but there are plenty of mice (even non-gaming ones) with latency matching or so close to wired mice it's within the realm of measurement error and the difference could not possibly matter even in competitive gaming. You have a lot of opinions about wireless mice for someone who clearly has never used one.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kobalsky 4y ago
> This might as be considered a law of physics - electromagnetic energy will always travel faster, more... through a conductive medium than through air. it actually travels faster through air (no vacuum necessary) than through fiber or copper as those transmit information at 2/3rd of the speed of light while air transmits it at 99% [1]. which is why starlink could in theory achieve better latency than a straight run of fiber optic across the world [2]. this of course doesn't mean that it's better in a mouse because of the overhead of processing such a short distance. [1] https://archive.is/c859M https://archive.is/c859M [2] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=238 https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=238
- anonym29 4y ago
  Agreed and upvoted.
  - muti 4y ago
    In practice, microwave networks are used over long distances precisely because they are lower latency than fibre. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva...
  - kobalsky 4y ago
    > Right up until you account for interference. could you provide more info? the source I gave you has a real-world example of a wireless link used over fiber to achieve better latency.
muti 4y ago
What's the etiquette here or are we just being trolled? Parent has edited all their comments now making the rest of the comment tree less useful. Essentially they were arguing that wireless signals themselves couldn't be faster than a wired/optical signal despite physics disagreeing.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
I'd like a wireless mouse but I'm worried about security.

Buddy, I posted a link - the actual difference in latency in time to click and movements with wireless mice with dedicated receivers. Some do better than wired models - in any event the latency of the RF link is on the order or hundreds of microseconds and the wired part of the peripheral bus (ie USB) and the software is at least a couple milliseconds. It's very well possible my wireless mouse setup has lower latency than most wired setups. That’s why I said essentially no lag. A good gaming wireless mouse will do better than many wired mice. In those cases it’s better but it’s still not enough difference to matter to anyone. The advantage of wired is not just aesthetics. This thread started because of any accessory to deal with the wire. I don't need to bother at all with a damn wire in the way. > This might as be considered a law of physics - electromagnetic energy will always travel faster, more accurately, with less interference, with less required current through a conductive medium than through air. I mean you might want to go back and read a high school physics textbook - because you’ve got the speed of light exactly backwards. The reason digital wireless signals may have additional latency has nothing to do with the propagation which is faster in air. Also I’ve never seen a networking over powerline system that worked better than Wi-Fi. Not all conductive paths are effective for signals. > Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal. Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm)

rektide 4y ago
A good number of these mouse show a difference of 0.2 ms betwen wired & wireless. That's one frame at 500fps. As you say, there are so many other factors that radically dwarf this transport concern. It's hard to take this as a discussion when people protest so vehemently against such a tiny figure, when it's such a small factor. Also griefing about battery seem like horseshit too. I have a travel mouse with a single rechargeable AA battery in it. I have a variety of gaming mice, including a Razer Naga Epic from ~2010 that I've literally worn the buttons through to unreliability on. These mice all have li-ion batteries and they all work fine. Maybe in aggregate I've worn through like a single rechargable AA cells worth of use over a decade. The rate of attrition on rechargeable batteries is tiny. It's just incredible what the cables-or-die undead-alliance goes through to justify their fanatical anti-cause.
- anonym29 4y ago
  I agree, the real world difference is negligible.
  - rektide 4y ago
    Oh I absolutely have a long-held aversion to the sight of cables. Because I have had to live among them, among many many many many of them, because I have had to manage them, growing up amidst so very many of them. They have never been fun to manage. I have long toiled to not be so enwrapped by cables. Slower? Not really, not according to the links already shared. Less bandwidth? My headphones, my mouse, my keyboard are nowhere near their practical limits over wireless. Higher latency? I just cited 0.2ms, which seems absurd to grumble over. Higher error rate? This is not a problem I've ever experienced. More prone to interference? Literally never seen an issue. There's just no real solid reports on this being an issue. It's not seen with any statistical significance in real reviews. Higher power requirements? Yes, having some awareness of batteries is required, but if you set things up (slash most devices are set up) to not be caught unprepared it's a remarkable low-toil system. Most devices can charge themselves. Most will operate for a week without charge. The only problem is being a total newb who doesn't have any handle at all, who gets caught out unprepared in the cold, by having absolutely no indicators & no warning. Once you actually start trying to use these devices, once you actually start looking at the battery level, the power concern is remarkably low issue.
    - anonym29 4y ago
      Many great points made.
      - rektide 4y ago
        ok editing my reply here too thanks
anonym29 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. Upvoting for visibility.
- riceart 4y ago
  Why do stage musicians use wireless microphones? Is it because they have a hatred strictly for aesthetic reasons? Nobody said you can’t use your damn wired mouse if it makes you happy - but latency is not an actual reason to prefer a wired mouse. > Again, wireless can be superior, but only when you are deliberately cherry-picking the least efficient wired setup to compare to the most efficient wireless setup, just like your argument for mice. But earlier I thought you said it was a law of physics that conductive mediums were always superior to air. Also that the speed of light in air is slower than a “conductive” medium. You don’t seem well.
  - anonym29 4y ago
    No argument here! Great points.
    - riceart 4y ago
      > Just to be clear, your wireless mouse, keyboard, headset, and network connection are not making use of light through air Yes they are. “The terms light, electromagnetic waves, and radiation all refer to the same physical phenomenon: electromagnetic energy.” https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy Light and radio are both electromagnetic energy. Radio waves and light both propagate at the speed of light. The speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant. The speed of light in various mediums is always slower. Among copper, air and glass, light/EM waves will propagate the slowest in glass and the fastest in air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light > cannot make use of light through air even a fraction as efficiently as light through fiber optic cable, due to a guaranteed minimum amount of light interference in air that a fiber optic cable will never have, right? No, not right. As someone else pointed out a point to point link through the air will have lower latency than fiber (glass or plastic). Whether or not a signal can be carried accurately and error free through any medium involves concepts beyond a basic understanding of the speed of light. But in the real world one will encounter reliable well designed wireless links and poorly performing wired links.
serf 4y ago
>Also I’ve never seen a networking over powerline system that worked better than Wi-Fi. Not all conductive paths are effective for signals. although I agree that powerline networking is garbage, I have encountered older construction houses that create an environment that is just about impossible to conquer without specialist wireless equipment. passive blocking via exotic wall materials, older drywall and fairing compounds that contained metallic particulate, various metallic accoutrements -- and accidental active jamming from poor wiring. >Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm) eh -- this is just an effective and allowed compromise. A performer will usually prefer not to drag wires around a stage just from the sheer physical discomfort from the additional weight and the worry of a trip hazard on an already hazardous stage. That said , many performers opt to avoid such conveniences due to a perceived difference in quality. [0] [0]: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-wireless-rigs-not-the-standard-in-guitar-live-performance https://www.quora.com/Why-are-wireless-rigs-not-the-standard...
- riceart 4y ago
  > A performer will usually prefer not to drag wires around a stage just from the sheer physical discomfort from the additional weight and the worry of a trip hazard on an already hazardous stage. eh — this is not a “purely” aesthetic or superficial difference, which was the foolishness I was replying to: “Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal.”
  - serf 4y ago
    Ah, I better understand. Thanks, my mistake; I had forgotten the superficial element. I'm not sure if the mocking elements that you edited in after the initial reply added much, I wasn't trying to come across as derogatory, I just speak/type like that.
    - riceart 4y ago
      Sorry. I was not appreciative of the uncalled for personal attacks (not from you) - that have now been mostly edited away.

PaulBGD_ 4y ago

I don't agree with your either/or. My wireless mouse on the rtings table has a 6.3ms latency, is sub $40, and accepts a standard AA which I use a rechargable for. Battery life lasts 4-5 months on a single battery, and I'm reusing batteries I've had for 5 years. I do personally agree that unstandardized batteries are a problem in wireless mice as eventually you'll be unlikely to find an exact replacement, but I think there can be plenty of wins from wireless. No cable drag (annoying!), no cable running across the desk (I can stow my mouse in a drawer in less than a second to clear my desktop), and I don't have to worry about the cable fraying over time (legitimately something that happened with my razer years ago!)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> Let's be honest here, you're either prejudiced against cables or you don't really care about performance. Let's be honest here, you clearly have never used a decent or good wireless mouse, and have little or no knowledge of the marketplace (and oddly have a lot of opinions about them...) > Having to change batteries several times a year is objectively more expensive, wasteful, worse for the environment, and burdensome than never having to change batteries. Rechargeable batteries (either built-in li-ion or nimh AAA/AA) exist. Before you start going on about the inconvenience of charging: when I see my mouse dock's LED ring glowing orange as opposed to a more greenish color, I know I've got a couple of hours before I should go through the incredibly arduous process of...placing it on the dock for a bit. > Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal. Not having a cord is substantially nicer from a usability and feel standpoint, and not just for gaming. > "Essentially no lag" is objectively not the same as "no lag". Go look at rtings or any other site that reviews mice, and you'll see that just like wired mice, wireless mice can vary in latency, but there are plenty of mice (even non-gaming ones) with latency matching or so close to wired mice it's within the realm of measurement error and the difference could not possibly matter even in competitive gaming. You have a lot of opinions about wireless mice for someone who clearly has never used one.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kobalsky 4y ago

> This might as be considered a law of physics - electromagnetic energy will always travel faster, more... through a conductive medium than through air. it actually travels faster through air (no vacuum necessary) than through fiber or copper as those transmit information at 2/3rd of the speed of light while air transmits it at 99% [1]. which is why starlink could in theory achieve better latency than a straight run of fiber optic across the world [2]. this of course doesn't mean that it's better in a mouse because of the overhead of processing such a short distance. [1] https://archive.is/c859M https://archive.is/c859M [2] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=238 https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=238

anonym29 4y ago
Agreed and upvoted.
- muti 4y ago
  In practice, microwave networks are used over long distances precisely because they are lower latency than fibre. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva...
- kobalsky 4y ago
  > Right up until you account for interference. could you provide more info? the source I gave you has a real-world example of a wireless link used over fiber to achieve better latency.

muti 4y ago

What's the etiquette here or are we just being trolled? Parent has edited all their comments now making the rest of the comment tree less useful. Essentially they were arguing that wireless signals themselves couldn't be faster than a wired/optical signal despite physics disagreeing.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

I'd like a wireless mouse but I'm worried about security.