Yes, Logitech’s high end mice store settings themselves. The app is just a programming interface. It sometimes does per program profile switch, too, IIRC.
Keyboard is infinitely more flexible since you can wire it without much obstruction.
Roccat user because of the size of the mouse is bigger than others and all the buttons can be reprogrammed, along with the wheel. No background software needed and all configuration changes are OS independent.
Not a Logitech user because the wheel could not be programmed to control the sound volume. Last time I tried their products. Even contacted their support to verify the wheel, most useful for controlling audio, is fixed to page scrolling only.
Razer mice are too small for my hands and I feel like an Eagle clawing at a minnow. At least they allow for fully reprogramming all the buttons and wheel, unlike Logitech. And you don't need background software for the programming with it being OS independent after programming.
Only bad part is that Roccat is no longer Linux supported. The original developer that reverse engineered stop supporting the products. Roccat also is like most business and blows off 1st party support for Linux. Windows VM is needed just to program the mouse, which only done once.
If that's your biggest gripe with Logitech, then I can say they're pretty successful. Personally, I'd not prefer to reach to my mouse just for volume, but everyone is to their own.
> A true programmable mouse doesn't need software running in the background.
Logitech Mice doesn't need the application to run in the background. I'm using my G700's profiles (which I set once under Windows) under Linux without any tools for (checks notes) 14 years at this point.
> Windows VM is needed just to program the mouse, which only done once.
How this is different from Logitech devices? It's exactly the same with Logitech.
I need to try that. Mine is USB with no battery.
I've got one of the lesser G USB 6-button "gaming" RGBs that was unused for well over a year. Never did try any Logi Windows apps or do any gaming either. Used as a mild-mannered office mouse instead :)
A while back I started using it again, this time on a Linux PC and it still glowed with the default pattern which I had never changed. Fine by me.
Then started dual booting Windows 11 and all was well until I connected to the internet, the Logitech firmware on the mouse got autoupdated, and lights out :(
Still glows during POST but LEDs go out unless Windows kicks it back on in some way or another.
You want it to do what it once was doing without an app? Your Windows 11 may already be updated far enough itself to give RGB control now.
Otherwise you can use the Logitech app.
Which doesn't have a Linux version.
Looks like mine needs a background app of some kind now if I want glowing again. Oh well.
Still looking forward to trying Solaar when I get back to that particular desktop :)
My first one was a g9x, followed by a g700s. Those may look a bit "gamery", but I later had a g703 which was as sober as they come.
And, even though it's not as critical for office use, I found it very pleasant to have next to no lag on a wireless mouse. I now have a mx master 3s, which has "ok" wireless performance and is surprisingly nimble for its size and weight. I can't complain about it while I use it, but I immediately feel the difference when I switch to a Logitech G Lightspeed or a friend's Razer with whatever their equivalent technology is called.
And since these aren't that expensive (the MX is actually the most expensive mouse I've ever had), this tends to reinforce my considering them as full competitors to logi's "office" line.
This is not only useful in games to increase or decrease the sound in real-time while to shunt loud sounds and to improve hearing the environment you are in. It is also useful in business. Quickly controlling the volume when a person interrupts.
*Note that the scroll wheel secondary meta key is used as volume control. Primary function without active meta is page scrolling.
User experience scenario. Click on a link that starts playing a video or audio source. The source is too loud with the same volume setting that worked with the previous video. It is faster to press the meta button on the mouse and scroll the wheel or press the middle button to mute then actually moving to a physical speaker, volume control on the OS, or keyboard, which often needs a meta key too.
Volume control is more natural with the wheel because it is no different the the rotational volume control on speaker versus continual button press to decrement or increment the numeric setting.
Yep. Definitely sounds like something requiring a 150 Mb program to manage the complexity..
Imagine you have both a desktop and a laptop, with your laptop screen positioned below the display connected to the desktop. You can make your Logitech mouse act as if they were one device; if you slide past the top edge of your laptop screen, both the mouse and the keyboard switch over to the desktop.
You can even press ctrl+c on one device, move your mouse to the other and press ctrl+v (with the same keyboard of course), and it's going to do the right thing. I think even drag and drop across computers works, at least in some circumstances.
I avoid therefore any peripheral devices which need additional software.
Ducky provides DIP-Switches and keyboard shortcuts. Perfect :)
And I didn’t bricked it with a firmware update, which I did with the K850. Because Logitech suffered so many security issues.
That of course would make it optional like with most programmable keyboards but then there's the need to manage pairing via their wireless dongles and then it quickly becomes necessary.
Outside of it all being intentionally proprietary I don't see why they couldn't take an approach similar to VIA in managing their devices. There's also prior work for flashing microcontrollers from the web browser, I'm thinking of ESP32s specifically.
https://support.logi.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360059641133-Onbo...
It's so powerful. Any custom buttons for any program, without ever having to think about it. On Linux, without it, I'm stuck manually cycling through the 3 on-board profiles.
I just get the mouse to always use the same onboard profile and send the higher F-keys that aren't on the keyboard (F13-F24), and ahk detects those and does whatever crazy stuff I can think up. I even have long-press/short-press for some buttons set up. Works great.
There must be a way to do something similar in Linux.
#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0
#SingleInstance force
MsgBox(A_ScriptName " started",, "T0.5")
SendLevel 1 ; allows triggering of hotkeys and hotstrings of another script, which normally would not be the case
LongPress := 0.2 ; 200ms
F18::{ ; first pointer button
Switch WinGetProcessName("A") {
Case "firefox.exe" :
Send "+{F3}" ; Shift-F3 - Find previous
Case "vlc.exe" :
Send "PgUp"
Default:
NoFunctionDefined(A_ThisHotkey)
}
return
}
F20::{ ; third pointer button
activeapp := WinGetProcessName("A")
Switch activeapp {
Case "vlc.exe" :
Send "s"
Default:
}
if (activeapp = "firefox.exe") {
waitvar := (KeyWait(A_ThisHotkey, "T" LongPress)) ; waits LongPress seconds maximally for F20 to be released
if waitvar {
; Short press action
Send "{F24}"
}
else {
; Long press action
Send "{F5}" ; F5 - reload tab
}
KeyWait A_ThisHotkey ; waits for F20 to be released (avoids key repeat from retriggering)
} else {
Send "{F24}"
}
return
}
NoFunctionDefined(hotkey)
{
Tooltip("No function defined for " . hotkey "`nActive app is " WinGetProcessName("A"))
SetTimer () => ToolTip(), -2000
return
}
; --- Shift-Media_Play_Pause will Reload this script ---
~+Media_Play_Pause::{
MsgBox(A_ScriptName " Reloading...",, "T0.5")
Reload
Sleep 1000 ; If successful, the reload will close this instance during the Sleep, so the line below will never be reached.
if MsgBox("The script could not be reloaded. Would you like to open it for editing?","Reload", "YesNo") = "Yes"
Edit
return
}Just to highlight: The offline installer (supposedly for business environments) does not include AI. It can be installed directly on top of the regular application.
https://prosupport.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/10991109278871...
If you want to use some of their more advanced features, you need to use the app.
For example, I have it setup so that if my macbook is on, I can push my cursor to the far left of my windows screen and my mouse will automatically switch to the macbook bringing along anything in the clipboard.
Also, why does my mouse config software need AI features? Uninstalled.
My new mouse. No need Logitech. It's a mouse.
To give Logitech some credit, there's an off switch for "diagnostic data" right there in the settings.
Management absolutely cares, they have a whole design guidebook why wouldn’t they follow it??
And the drivers likely aren’t cross-platform in the sense of “the windows DLL is just dead code on a Mac”, but the UI of the software can be the same across platforms. The executable is likely a tiny bit of platform-specific launcher code and then cross-platform electron fun.
So the same question applies: yes they have a whole design guidebook but why ? Does the users care ? My opinion would be that most don’t and that those who care are horrified by all those apps with all their own guidelines.
Computers used to be (and I’ll be giving credits to old windows for that) « once you learned the system/ergonomics you only have to adapt to each program’s feature set » and is now « relearn everything on my app and btw it’s not compatible with other apps except our partners ».
I mean as an example, we pretty much had a working standard in how to discover features of a program (the menu bar) and how to give back data to the user (saving and opening files). Just knowing those patterns made you apt to discover most of programs features.
I’m not saying it was perfect or intuitive, but it was not hard and OSes could have improved that.
But we collectively ditched that for, it seems, easier deployment on the web (which is not something Logitech is concerned by, btw) and since there is no UI framework, why not hire UI designers to write UI guidelines ? It’ll make marketing guys happy anyway.
I’m sorry I recognize that I’m a little salty on this topic but I do feel like the industry stole something important to the users, or at least if I’m honest, to me, which is the basic knowledge of how to use a computer.
I was one of those people who thought XP/ME went too far (im a System 7 Stan tbh, but 98 was solid enough). And then when Office got the ribbon I was so unhappy lol. I don’t like a lot of how MS has embraced trendy UI, outside of windows phone which I actually really liked (and that made sense, it was a system that didn’t have much to go on, and they weren’t living up to any expectations outside of “be different than Apple and be better than Google”. I will def be salty here because MS had a great opportunity with windows phone and just blundered it. For every solid idea they have, it feels like they fumble 10000 other actually decent products).
I personally really appreciate that Apple has largely not changed the fundamentals of their OS in regards to the dock and menu bar - sure the dock is “new” as of OSX but that’s going on what, 20 years old now? At least? And the menu bar has been with us since always. Using native MS apps in 11 and not having a visible File menu drives me bonkers.
> I’m sorry I recognize that I’m a little salty on this topic but I do feel like the industry stole something important to the users, or at least if I’m honest, to me, which is the basic knowledge of how to use a computer.
I feel this. For the company I work for, we have an A11y group that is comprised of representatives from different departments (across engineering, product, marketing, and design) that meets regularly. Our component designs focus on accessibility, discoverability, and usability. If we are going to say “well we want a blue button with a drop shadow” instead of whatever the browser and OS do, fine, I’m going to make sure it’s still USABLE and accessible dammit. /rant
I use Solaar because there wasn't a Linux application.
You have to remember that, besides the extra engineering effort, having a separate, native UI for each platform also increases the support burden for dealing with people having issues with the program. Companies the size of Logitech bend over backwards to reduce their support costs, so it shouldn't be surprising that they opted for the path of least resistance here.
A switch that must be turned on (opt-in), rather than a switch that must be turned off (opt-out).
The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. “I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium and Hard”, said the master. “Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human.”
“Pray, great master”, implored the novice, “how does one find this mysterious setting?”
The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it underfoot.
And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
— The Tao of Programming, Geoffrey James
Asking on install just gives room to implement a dark pattern and trick people into opting in undesiredly anyway.
Or you can just use Solaar :) and don’t feel bad about it, you already gave Logitech money for the freaking mouse.
Solaar handled the pairing in 30 seconds flat, and I can't be happier. The only thing is, since Bolt doesn't look like proper BT to the OS, battery levels can only be monitored from Solaar itself.
I also have an MX vertical which uses the unifying receiver. Then I also have a pro x superlight, which has yet another receiver. I believe they call that one lightspeed or something.
So now I have 3 separate adapters for 3 devices, all of which theoretically support pairing multiple devices (I think the lightspeed only does 3 though).
(1) https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500012483162-Wha...
I have experience with Dell and Apple keyboards on Linux, and they don't suffer from this issue. The problem is not terrible, but requires a special udev rule to exclude them from powersaving, which is annoying.
What I understood is, the switches on these mice (I have G700) are practically abuse-proof. However, they don’t like to be used lightly and start to glitch possibly from fine dust. Using the switches more aggressively cleans them up.
My first generation G700 still works great.
I’m about to open my second bottle. My first bottle is from the 1990’s.
But that's only me, of course.
Maybe for some of the newer mice it’s an easier ordeal, though.
So, just turn off the mouse and blow in it a few times. It will work normally for a few days after that.
I found this solution on approximately the 12th page of a Google search ~9 years ago. Every other solution was wrong.
I found replacement switches for $10 on amazon, pre-wired with little plug, easy enough to install with just a micro-screwdriver, no soldering. This problem is common enough that there is a good selection of different switch brands/types available. Fantastic. Not disappointed at all anymore, honestly.
I removed a switch from the Pi 400 desktop kit mouse I had laying around and replaced it with that.
Upgraded the slider pads while I had everything apart. These actually made more of a difference than I anticipated.
Virtually brand new, although amuses me that left and right click sound different now.
All I wanted to do is turn off the rainbow LEDs
Next time I get a new mouse I'll try Solaar.
This thread is about Solaar and i suggested parent try the reciever to resolve their bad connectivity.
You telling us that your macbook is great helps who exactly?
I am a solaar user on arch linux, btw ;-)
My suggestion to use the bolt reciever was in response to that.
Why you suggest to me and parent to just forget about it because you have such great experience is depressing to me.
I have the MX Master 3 and MX Keys Mini. Using Solaar on Linux for 2.5 years without a single issue.
I did have more issues using pure bluetooth with an external bt antenna (intel bluetooth hardware).
I found Solaar a couple months ago after getting repeatedly frustrated with bluetooth connection issues. It really is exactly what it needs to be. Better interface than Logitech's, simple, lightweight. Devs have my thanks; what a great show of the goodness of open source software.