RF Mouse and Bluetooth Mouse: Advantages and Disadvantages

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What we mean by the wireless mouse is a WiFi/RF mouse. There is another wireless mouse using a Bluetooth connection. What is the difference between the two? Let’s look at their advantages and disadvantages.

Hysteresis/response speed: Compared with RF mouse, the Bluetooth mouse takes a longer time of seconds to start up. The same thing happens when the computer is dormant. People believe that RF mice have better response in a wild range. However, the current Bluetooth mouse on the market is fast in connection after pairing. This cannot be a disadvantage of Bluetooth mouse.

USB port: The RF mouse requires special USB ports for the USB receiver/transmitter. This can be a problem if you have few USB ports. The Bluetooth mouse does not need other peripherals. But what will happen when you have connected your Bluetooth to other devices, like headphones? In this case, you cannot use the Bluetooth mouse.

Power usage/battery: Both RF mouse and Bluetooth mouse use AA and AAA batteries. It might be inconvenient to buy non-rechargeable batteries. But it is still an option. The battery life of the two depends on their usage. It also relates to the functions of the additional buttons. Some users believe that the Bluetooth mouse must remain open to keep connected for its two-way communication. It takes valuable time to reconnect. This consumes more battery power than its RF counterparts. According to the newer Bluetooth standard, Bluetooth 4 aims to reduce energy consumption and delay. Bluetooth 5.0 provides good optimization. So, this cannot be the defect of Bluetooth mouse.

Cost: Proprietary Bluetooth SIG certification costs have pushed up the price of Bluetooth devices. There are also costs of various other materials. The RF mouse is not like this. This may be the reason why there are not many Bluetooth mouses on the market. However, the Bluetooth mouse are becoming cheaper and cheaper in recent years. At the same time, their functions are more and more personalized. It still a good choice to buy Bluetooth Mouse.

Interoperability: You can connect the RF mouse to only one device at a time. This is its limitation. It converts only devices with USB ports. Bluetooth provides interoperability with multiple devices. You can use one Bluetooth mouse with the device that implements the HID profile. For example, wireless mouse, keyboard, smart phone, tablet computer, computer, etc.

Interference: As mentioned earlier, both Bluetooth and RF mice operate in the 2.4 GHz spectrum. At some point, frequency congestion may occur. This can result in reduced Internet speeds, unstable wireless device connections, and so on. However, the probability of such problems is small in normal cases. If they do happen, you may need to do some patches. You can change the port of the USB receiver and/or change the channel of the router.