Battle of the Mice - Optical Mice
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Optical mice do not have mechanical parts. An optical mouse has neither a ball nor rollers. As a result, it requires a lower level of maintenance. Its main parts include a LED, photodiodes and optoelectronic sensors. Its design approach in a sentence: LEDs illuminate the tracked surface, the sensors take snapshots of the changes, and these results get interpreted by a DSP (digital signal processing) procedure. Therefore, the movement is acquired via signal changes and DSP, unlike in mechanical mice with the use of a ball and rollers.
The common problem with optical mice is that with certain surfaces the interpretation doesn't work and the mouse will struggle or eventually not work at all. Some exaples of problem surfaces include shiny surfaces, a pure black desk, a mirror, unfrosted glass, a white and clean sheet of perfect quality paper. Usually the optical sensing process is possible due to the tiny irregularities in the surface; those tiny irregularities in everyday surfaces make the detection of movement possible.
All in all, optical mice offer far greater accuracy and lower maintenance than mechanical mice. They also eliminate the chance of mechanical failures. The downside is how finicky they are about the surface on which they are used. This invention originates from ~1980.
The picture below illustrates the interior of an optical mouse.
(Disassembled Logitech MX310)
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