I bought my new 21" iMac back in October and today got a message from Magic Mouse that batteries need to be replaced.
What kind of battery life other folks are getting from MM? Is there anything can be done to increase battery life of MM?
My first set of batteries lasted for only 14 days of heavy use (12 hours per day). I let them drain all the way down until the mouse became inoperable. Toward the end, the batteries drained at an alarming rate (dropping 20% on the last day) as if there were some sort of electrical short inside the mouse. Is that a possibility?
So I took some half-used batteries from a bicycle light and put them into the mouse. It wouldn't even start up. Intrigued by that discovery, I took the original batteries that the mouse had "drained" and put them into the bicycle light. The LED was bright.
I eventually settled on an old pair of Ni-Cd rechargeables. After charging them overnight, I put them in at noon today. Twelve hours later, the battery charge has dropped from 91% to 46% (as of a few minutes ago).
As a user of Macintosh for the past 15 years, I am rarely disappointed in Apple products, and the
initial performance of the Magic Mouse is impressive. But the battery drain is a *FATAL FLAW*, and the +flimsy battery hatch+ will surely break before next summer.
As I didn't see it anywhere on here, I am wondering if anyone who has the magic mouse can tell me:
what is the rating of the batteries included in the magic mouse? I'm undoubtedly going to be buying some rechargeable NiCd batteries to whack in it, probably 2650 ones, just wondering how these will compare.
also, I think the magic mouse has an on/off switch? anybody know how turning it off/leaving it on when the comp is in sleep/off relates to battery life? i.e. is the bluetooth on the mouse still plowing away draining battery life?
The batteries supplied with the mouse are alkaline and have a different discharge voltage curve than NiMH batteries (certainly you don't mean NiCd here!). The mouse is designed for alkalines and cannot use NiMH batteries as efficiently. I'm still on my first Magic Mouse set off alkalines, but on my old Mighty Mouse I'd guess the NiMH batteries lasted about half as long (not longer!) than the alkalines. The advantage, of course, is they can be recharged rather than thrown away.
Your mouse may be defective. I purchased two 21.5 iMacs for Xmas. Last week, my wife's machine needed batteries. No big deal. They lasted 3 days. I tested the ones I removed. One was near death, the other was fully functional.
Replaced them and marked them 1 & 2. The iMac wanted new batteries again today saying they were down to 18%. The #1 battery was near death. The #2 battery had full capacity.
Conclusion, the one battery slot is working and the other is not.
My Mac is still on its original batteries. A call to Apple is forthcoming.
I really want to get a Mighty Mouse because all the other mice I've tried have bad drivers and don't play well on Macs. If I do get it, BetterTouchTool would increase my workflow significantly compared to the stock options of mouse gestures. The only thing I'm worried about is the battery life. It seems like the consensus is that the battery life is crap. It's a shame they don't make a wired one.
I bought the wired keyboard because I wanted the numeric keypad. I stuck with the wireless mouse and do go through batteries. I was considering the wired mouse until I read on the Apple product website that it is a roller-ball mouse. I've used those things in the past and have had less than satisfactory result.
Alkaline / NimH / Lithium are differents.
Alkaline are 1,5v...not more
NimH are 1.2v...but they could be discharged very quickly...their discharge curve is faster.
Lithium are 1,5v...but they can supply more than 1,5v ( 1,6 or 1,7 ).
About amperage:
You can think that if you've got more "mAh", the batteries will last longer...it's not right.
You can have a big capacity ( 2600mAh or 3000mAh ) and a very high voltage ( 1,7v )...but every "stuff" using batteries will consume more because of the high voltage.
Using batteries with high capacity and high volatge ( like Li-ion or Lipo batteries) is not good for the mouse.
Use Alkaline batteries...batteries are not the problem, that's I think.
My parents got an iMac 27" ( the last one ) with keyboard wired and the Magic mouse...they have change the batteries twice on a month.
I've got a PowerMac ( PowerPC G5 and OS 10.5.8) with Belkin bluetooth mini-adapter...I use the Magic Mouse since the 5th of February...the batteries are at 55%...just one month without switching off the mouse !!
So, the mouse battery management could be the root cause...
Can't seem to keep batteries in mine either using Duracell batteries 3. I got this 27 iMac on January 8th and after a few sets of batteries, using it 3 to 5 hours a day, I began keeping track and these are my stats.
Replaced mouse batteries on March 22
Replaced mouse batteries on April 14th
Replaced mouse batteries on May 8th
I like this mouse to but something should be done to fix this problem. Called apple support and they made me do a reset (forget what keys I had to hold while rebooting) and to turn it off when not using it which didn't fix the problem. My old logitech nano lasted a lot longer than this with the same use on my dell studio 1735 laptop. For those traveling with laptops and don't want wires or big receivers sticking out of the usb port, the nano is a great mouse to use with it.
The Magic Mouse participates in Computer Sleep. When the computer is sleeping, the mouse will not respond to lateral movement or to stroking on its back. It
will respond to a click, just like the keyboard (and will wake up the computer).
Extra energy is required for the mouse to sense motion or stroking. To minimize this, set the computer to sleep after a reasonable interval. If your usage requires that the computer remain awake, turn off the mouse when it isn't in use.
It's not clear how much difference in battery life this will make, but it can't hurt.
