Hack your Bluetooth Mighty Mouse to use less power

Riddle me this: what uses more power when it is stationary as opposed to when it is in use? Apple's new wireless Mighty Mouse.

Ram Sripracha noticed that the Mighty Mouse features a LED which provides the user with some feedback. When the mouse isn't paired with a computer the LED flashes, a fairly standard Bluetooth peripheral convention. It gets a little more interesting when the Mighty Mouse is paired with a machine, the LED stays on when the Mighty Mouse isn't being moved but turns off once you move it.

Multimeter in hand, Ram figured out that the mouse was drawing more power when it was stationary and less when it was in use. So hee did what any good hacker would do: disabled the LED to save power and posted instructions on how to do it for the rest of us.

I am certain this voids your warranty so crack open your Mighty Mouse at your own risk.

[via Hack A Day]

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Source: http://www.lifeofram.com/roots/index-0-0-mightymouse-1.html

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Riddle me this: what uses more power when it is stationary as opposed to when it is in use? Apple's new wireless Mighty Mouse. Ram...

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Jan Peters

How much battery life did it have before and how much does it have now?

August 01 2006 at 1:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

arkowi

ChrisM70,
I have had a wired mighty mouse since they came out. I use it daily. I have never had to crack mine open to clean the scroll "nub". It will act a little funky once in a blue moon (turn but not actually do anything). I just have to turn it the opposite direction a few turns and this generally clears whatever is jamming it up.
-arkowi

August 01 2006 at 11:15 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sonyc

Did you know mmbt add a new feature ? You can zoom like using apple-command an "+" or "-" but with the mmbt button holding control pressed !

August 01 2006 at 8:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brandon

People at engadget already figured this out, the guy was wrong about his power... the light normally goes off.

(I don't own one, just reading from the other posts about this subject.)

July 31 2006 at 10:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ciprol

Is the guy sure of his observation? My WMM does not light up when it's stationary. I've just checked. The real behaviour is this, if WMM is lifted off the table surface and nothing is over the laser hole, then it will light up. It will turn off when it can detect a surface in front of it, such as a finger placed 3-4mm in front of it. While on the table, it will NOT light up whether moving or not.

I think this guy has really screwed up and voided his warranty for nothing!!! Haha!

July 31 2006 at 8:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ChrisM70

Of course, you are probably going to need to crack it open anyway to clean the crappy scroll "nub" every few days, so why not go all the way?

July 31 2006 at 8:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply