[TriLUG] wireless mice - avoiding mutual interference?

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008, Jason Watts wrote:

> Joe,
>
> I dont blame you... I would be taking it back as well.

Intrex wanted to charge a restocking fee until I 
demonstrated that it didn't work. They thought having to 
resynch each time was dumb (don't think people at Office Max 
type stores would know the difference). Since I was more 
interested in a working optical wireless mouse than my money 
back, I said I'd take another of the same item, if they 
could demonstrate it working in front of me. They pulled the 
only other one from the shelf and it didn't work either 
(this one wouldn't synch up at all). It seems like the 
LabTec mice are broken by design.

I said I'd wait a week or so, rather than going to Office 
Max, if they intended on getting another line of mice, since 
this line was only going to produce unhappy customers (this 
one wasted about $80 worth of my time). The guy looked up 
the computer and said that it was a current line and they 
weren't going to be replacing it.

It seems then that the stores (franchisees?) don't have any 
say in the items they carry and that no-one is doing QA on 
items before they decide to carry them.

I bought a replacement at Office Max, which I would rather 
not have done.

Joe

>
> The logitech's that I have had have all remembered the proper chanel... even
> when the batteries in the mouse die.
>
> On Jan 5, 2008 6:41 PM, Joseph Mack NA3T <jmack at wm7d.net> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 26 Dec 2007, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:
>>
>> Heartened by my success with the wireless optical mouse
>> below (from Circuit City, because my son wanted that
>> particular type), today I bought another wireless optical
>> mouse (LabTec) from the local store (Intrex, who have served
>> me well over the years and who I support when I can). This
>> mouse requires you to press buttons on both the mouse and
>> the usb receiver each time you boot or reinsert the USB key,
>> for them to find each other. The button on the USB dongle is
>> recessed and small and requires you to stand up and look
>> over the screen and use a bit of agility. I didn't mind
>> doing this once for setup, but after that I expect them to
>> remember which channel they're on. I'll be returning this
>> mouse.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>>> I bought my son a 27MHz wireless USB mouse for xmas and was surprised to
>> find
>>> that it worked out of the box on linux, since not much works out of the
>> box
>>> on Linux.  According to the spec, the mouse has a range of 5'. If you
>> have
>>> multiple wireless mice working in proximity, do they interfer with each
>>> other, or are they like garage door openers, which have codes? The
>> device has
>>> no way of setting a code that I could find (in the docs, on the device,
>> or on
>>> the manufacturer's website).
>>>
>>> Thanks Joe
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
>> jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
>> generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
>> Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
>> --
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>>
>

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!