Easy way to check keyboard and mouse battery levels?

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Level 1

19 points

Easy way to check keyboard and mouse battery levels?

Is there any kind of apple or widget you can easily check the battery levels on the wireless mouse and keyboard without having to click on them in prefs? Seems kind of a pain to have to go to prefs to see that. Seems someone could come up with something that could tell both at same time more easily and even give you a warning when depleted. BTW I've had my iMac for 6 days now and my keyboard is still at 100%. My mousse is 88% so I'm not quite sure whats all the whining about battery problems? Also my iMac arrived with zero problems and I haven't found one yet to complain about. For all who are afraid to jump into the water I think Apple figured out what might have been wrong and fixed any problems the new iMacs might have had.

iMac i7, none

Posted on Jan 4, 2010 6:32 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rick Lang

Level 4

1,237 points

Jan 4, 2010 6:39 PM in response to stevenhnyc

Steven, you can check on the right side of the menu bar of the desktop where your Bluetooth devices are listed under the menu bar icon; look down the list to see the keyboard and mouse. If you mouse over or click them, you'll see the battery charge for each device.

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Answer 2

Jan 4, 2010 6:39 PM in response to stevenhnyc

HI,

It's nice to hear positive input!

As far as battery levels... I know of no 3rd party software that can monitor the battery levels. Your System Preferences icon should be in your Dock.

Hold that icon down and you'll see the pop up menu so you can go straight to the Keyboard / Mouse or Bluetooth panes.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 3

dbax

Level 1

77 points

Jan 4, 2010 9:20 PM in response to stevenhnyc

Steven,

I'm pretty sure the widget, iStat Pro displays battery levels for a wireless keyboard and/or mouse. For this and a lot of other reasons, this is a good widget to have on your system.

Dave

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Answer 4

Paul_31

Level 6

14,172 points

Jan 5, 2010 5:04 AM in response to stevenhnyc

No need for any extra software as the OS pops a warning when you are getting low - firstly it gives a warning around 20% (in my case) and then flags up a warning telling you to change them pretty soon (about 10%). I know all this 'cos I've just had this flash up on screen. Fifth set of batteries just gone in to the Magic Mouse but the keyboard still says 100% after 2 months. Also, if you have Bluetooth showing in the menu a flashing graphic appears when the batteries start to get low. So, in short I think you'll get all the warnings you need 🙂

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Answer 5

dbax

Level 1

77 points

Jan 5, 2010 6:18 AM in response to stevenhnyc

Steven, My iStat Pro widget does show keyboard and mouse battery levels for my iMac (I don't have a laptop). Go to their info page: http://www.islayer.com/help/istatpro-manual/

Here, you'll see the following:
"...The battery section also shows the power left in your Apple bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse.

Please note: If you don’t have a battery or bluetooth keyboard or mouse, then the battery section won’t be displayed."

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Answer 6

lakeshore

Level 2

306 points

Jan 5, 2010 6:30 AM in response to dbax

My iStat Pro used to display the battery power for my Mighty Mouse, but it doesn't for my Magic Mouse, even though I still have the battery display turned on. Has anyone else lost the battery display after switching to the Magic Mouse?

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Answer 7

dbax

Level 1

77 points

Jan 5, 2010 7:48 AM in response to stevenhnyc

First off, let me say I don't have the latest version of iStat Pro. I have version 4.7. Assuming the latest is the same or similar in this regard, make sure you have set it up for batteries to be displayed. By hitting the little "i" in the upper left, iStat flips over, and you can then configure it. Click on the "Sections" tab and make sure "Battery" is set to "ON".

Hope this helps.

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Answer 8

cats01

Level 1

85 points

Jan 5, 2010 10:10 AM in response to stevenhnyc

I have the wireless mouse. I check the battery level periodically at Systems Preferences. If I remember correctly, when my batteries reached the "replace" level, an image of the mouse appeared in the lower center of my screen.

I sent a letter to Apple suggesting that the battery level ought to be available at the top of the screen where the day and date are shown. I had a battery monitor indicator on my old PowerBook G4. It's too bad it isn't available on the iMac.

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Answer 9

Jan 5, 2010 12:13 PM in response to stevenhnyc

I can remember that iStat pro DID display the mouse battery level on my MacBook in a previous version. Since I upgraded to SL and therefore also had to upgrade iStat pro the battery level disappeared.

I also use the Bluetooth icon in the upper menu bar to quickly read my battery status.

Matt

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Answer 10

dbax

Level 1

77 points

Jan 5, 2010 12:34 PM in response to stevenhnyc

"Obviously iStat doesn't show the keyboard or mouse" Hmmmmm.

I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to be working on your system, but I wouldn't give up on iStat Pro too easily since when it's set up and working right one mouse click gets you what you want to see.

To make sure it's not a feature that got lost in the latest version, I just downloaded the latest version (4.9). It is displaying the battery levels of my wireless magic mouse and keyboard just like v4.7 did.

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Answer 11

Jan 5, 2010 12:40 PM in response to dbax

Hi dbax,

I also have iStat pro 4.9. The battery section is displayed but only contains the MacBook's battery health, cycles and charge. No mouse battery. And there's no further option I could enable in preferences....

With Leo, the mouse battery level was displayed just under the MacBook's battery level.
It's gone now with SL.

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Answer 12

dbax

Level 1

77 points

Jan 5, 2010 1:52 PM in response to iMatt_Muc

Hi iM_M,

Well it does appear something strange is going on. I don't have a MacBook, just the iMac shown in my profile, and iStat is showing both the mouse and kb battery levels. As one of my earlier posts indicated, the iStat web site suggests it's supposed to have this option, so I'm wondering if there's a bug in this release causing it to behave differently for different Macs.

Sounds like contacting the iStat developer is in order. I'll make an attempt to do that.

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Answer 13

Jan 5, 2010 2:22 PM in response to dbax

I forgot to mention that I still have the good old Mighty Mouse Wireless, not the one currently known as Magic. 😉

Here are some screen shots...

http://matthias.altmann.de/share/iStat1.png
http://matthias.altmann.de/share/iStat2.png

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Answer 14

stevenhnyc Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 5, 2010 4:08 PM in response to stevenhnyc

+Love the widget. Would like to recommend a battery check or display for the wireless mouse and keyboard I'm using on my new iMac. Thanks.+

_*There will be support for the new keyboard and mouse in the next version.*_

Cheers,
_*Bjango Support Team*_

null

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Answer 15

stevenhnyc Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 4, 2010 7:10 PM in response to Rick Lang

Great! Good tip. Quicker then going into the prefs. Now if someone can come up with an alert at a low level that would be even better. Thanks for the quick response.

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