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Developed by Agilent Technologies and introduced to the world in late 1999, the optical mouse actually uses a tiny camera to take 1,500 pictures every second. Able to work on almost any surface, the mouse has a small, red light-emitting diode (LED) that bounces light off that surface onto a complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor.
The CMOS sensor sends each image to a digital signal processor (DSP) for analysis. The DSP, operating at 18 MIPS (million instructions per second), is able to detect patterns in the images and see how those patterns have moved since the previous image. Based on the change in patterns over a sequence of images, the DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer. The computer moves the cursor on the screen based on the coordinates received from the mouse. This happens hundreds of times each second, making the cursor appear to move very smoothly.
lthough LED-based optical mice are fairly recent, another type of optical mouse has been around for over a decade. The original optical-mouse technology bounced a focused beam of light off a highly-reflective mouse pad onto a sensor. The mouse pad had a grid of dark lines. Each time the mouse was moved, the beam of light was interrupted by the grid. Whenever the light was interrupted, the sensor sent a signal to the computer and the cursor moved a corresponding amount. This kind of optical mouse was difficult to use, requiring that you hold it at precisely the right angle to ensure that the light beam and sensor aligned. Also, damage to or loss of the mouse pad rendered the mouse useless until a replacement pad was purchased. Today's LED-based optical mice are far more user-friendly and reliable.
Benefits of Optical Mice
There are many benefits to using optical mice over its predecessor the track ball or commonly called manual mouse. First of all there are no moving parts. Since the optical mouse uses and LED instead of a tiny rubber ball, there is no way for the LED to stick or get dirty. This leads to high reliability. Many people complain that their manual mice need constant maintenance or repair. Optical mice usually work well for years without a malfunction.
Because the technology is more advanced and uses an LED and CMOS instead of a rubber ball to measure tracking, you will get much better response and performance. Usually, the better the tracking, the smoother the total experience.
Another great reason that the Optical mouse has become the most popular mouse technology is that you can use an optical mouse on lots of different surfaces. Manual mice need a mouse pad made out of a special material to function optimally, optical mice do well on almost any kind of desk top or materials.
Optical mice are also very inexpensive. Most optical mice are less than $30 and some can be purchased for less than $15.
Laser Based Optical Mice
A new technology has recently emerged piggy backing off of the LED optical mouse. The laser based optical mouse works similar to the LED based optical mouse. It uses a laser instead of a LED. The benefit is that because it uses a laser beam, the mouse can track much better, giving the user ultimately better response times, tracking and the ability to be used on even more surfaces.