Turning off Magic Mouse to preserve battery?

Well I believe that you will definitely save battery life if you turn of the mouse at night.

I personally do not ever turn off my magic mouse as I have discovered it keeps my iMac from waking properly and I have not yet found a fix, so I just leave it on and my batteries last about 3-4 months of average use maybe 6 hours a day.

When I use the mouse heavy 8-12 hours a day I get about 3-3&1/2 months out of it.

I have now decided to go with the lithium batteries as that is what I ran in my mighty mouse and they worked well, so maybe these will help the life a little.

Over all I love the magic mouse and will continue to buy batteries for it.

Can't live without my Magic Prefs though...

http://magicprefs.com/

Hello David:

IMHO, turning mouse (or KB) on and off is a waste of time. Apple BT devices go into a very low power use mode after a brief period of non-use.

A suggestion…..

Buy some (I have about 25) rechargeable batteries and a 15 minute recharger. I use Duracell 2650 mAh batteries and a Duracell charger (both new from eBay at a very reasonable price. The rechargeables do not last as long as Lithium batteries (different voltage, I think is the cause) but I am never more than 15 minutes from fresh batteries. As a plus, this approach is environmentally sensitive.

If you have further questions about BT devices, there is a forum especially for those questions.

Barry

Hi again:

Does it take a while for my Mac to calibrate its read of the battery in it?

I don't know. I think that batteries recover a bit after non-use, but that is a guess.

Barry

Thanks for the tip Barry. I'm about ready to switch to rechargeables as you wisely suggested. I'm impressed by the above poster who gets over three months of life out of nonrechargeables. I bought an 8 pack of Energizer Ultimate Lithiums a while back (I believe another forum user had suggested them). I am sorely unimpressed, especially taking price into account. I've only gotten 5 to 6 weeks of use out of them with 3 to 4 hours a day of Magic Mouse use (I don't turn it off at night either).

A weird thing about the Lithiums is their power discharge curve. They'll show 100% battery level for most of their life and then plummet precipitously and die quickly.

Regards,
Steve M.

You are welcome, Steve.

Incidentally, I have noticed that the battery life meters are less than accurate (I do not know why). I have had a reading of 50% and then have the device tell me +"low battery"+ (rechargeables) and 15 seconds later go to zero.

Barry

Hello David,

If you're going for rechargeable batteries you might take a look at the eneloop battery and charger package at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Sanyo-277265-eneloop-Power-Pack/dp/B002NSX60I/ref=sr12?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279229601&sr=8-2

These batteries have the ability to hold a charge without fading while on the shelf unlike many other rechageables. I bought the above set for use in my MM and two cameras and am quite happy with them. A full charge takes several hours (4 to 6) but once charged they can be stored without losing their charge. There are enough in the set so that you can keep several in storage and, because of that no fade feature, don't have to do a quick charge when you suddenly need them. Here's an on-line review of the set shown:

http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/sanyo_eneloop.html

Note that the pack contains eight aa and two aaa batteries. What looks like c and d batteries in the set are just adapters in which the aa s fit so that you can use them instead of c or d s in a pinch.

Rick

Message was edited by: Richard Segedi

Hello David:

I am not familiar with "magic pref." However, the zoom is reversed by moving the finger in the opposite direction while holding the control key down.

Barry