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Gyration
GyroMouse Pro Review
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Author
: Wayne Date : 18th January 2001
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Radeonic would like to thank
Gyration,
and in particular Marc Harris - Director, Marketing Communications
for their invaluable help and generosity in supplying this mouse
for review.
So what is it?:
Put simply, the GyroMouse
Pro is one amazing piece of technology. Pop it on your mouse
mat, and you have a conventional ball mouse, but lift it off
your mat and you have a device that literally operates in mid-air.
Using patented gyroscopic motion tracking, it senses your every
hand movement, which is then translated into cursor movement
on screen. I don't mean massively exaggerated hand movements
either. Even the slightest and slowest of motions is faithfully
reproduced. I've christened this one "The Maid" (Mid-Air
Input Device) because it does what you tell it
to, like all good maids should :)
The box contains the mouse
itself, a combination receiver/recharging cradle, a 6volt DC
supply (of the wall wart variety unfortunately), a PS/2 to serial
adapter, a rechargeable battery pack and of course the usual
assortment of warranty cards and other literature. Although
I prefer DC adapters to be mounted mid-cable, it has to be said
that this particular adapter is nice and compact and shouldn't
block any other sockets. You may be wondering why the adapter
isn't incorporated into the cradle, and I would assume this
is to save on weight when packing your kit and heading for the
next presentation. Obviously with a 13 hour life at full charge,
there would be no need to carry the adapter with you too unless
you were not returning to base, and the cradle operates quite
happily with no DC supply until the actual mouse battery runs
flat.
The battery is a 3.6V NI-Mh
as found on many cordless phones, which when fully charged should
be good for around 13 hours of continuous use before giving
up. Perfect for the person on the move. Use the mouse all day,
recharge it at night in your hotel room. What could be easier?
At the heart of this mouse
lies the MicroGyro 100. This compact and low cost inertial
sensing unit is already integrated into a range of pointing
and remote control devices, and will almost certainly make
an appearance in a lot more. A vibrating beam is driven using
electromagnets which also sense slight variations in its position
as a result of movement. Internally the whole assembly is
cushioned meaning no additional external damping, and thus
bulk and weight, are required.
The radio side of things
is based around an eight channel, sixteen address system.
The eight channels means you can have multiple GyroMouse users
in close proximity without them interfering with each other.
Sixteen addresses allow for a suitably interference free address
to be located, which in simple terms means reliable and error
free data transfer. Remarkably, the RF unit in this mouse
has a power on time under 1 mSec, meaning the RF module can
actually power down between individual packets of data, thus
offering considerable power savings. At 22mA, the unit also
copes happily with USB power feeds.
Getting Started?:
Let's start at the beginning.
Once out of the box step one is to install the battery. Looking
at the mouse itself gives absolutely no clues as to where
the battery is located, that's a compliment not a complaint,
so I did what any self-respecting newbie would do and consulted
the manual.
This is what I should
have done.
Once the battery compartment
cover was off, the first thing that went though my mind was
how! How, with all that space available behind the battery
compartment cover had they found room for a conventional ball
mechanism, a gyroscopic unit and a radio transmitter! Is this
really a mouse or a Tardis? A plump heap of Kudos goes to
the designers for getting so much into so little, truly a
miracle of miniaturisation. As you can see below, there is
a standard connection port into which you plug the battery.
Battery connector "D"
The battery then sits
flat in the compartment before finally replacing the cover.
Neat, tidy and fuss free, just how I like things.
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