Modern gaming is not just a popular hobby but a lifestyle choice and a lucrative competitive sport with a huge fan following to boot. Inevitably, the technology and design of games and gear undergo constant revision. For instance, one of the latest design fads is gaming mice with holes, commonly referred to as honeycomb mice.

Why Do They Have Holes?

Some gaming mice have holes in them to make them lighter. Many gamers prefer lightweight ones, finding them quicker to move and less tiring over long gaming sessions. For many people, they are simply an aesthetic preference.

Considering gamers spend many hours each day playing their favorite video games, the design of gaming gear can make a significant difference to the experience.

With this in mind, it’s easy to see why mice receive so much attention. They’re crucial to performance and also make a significant impact on comfort.

Over the years, the design and efficiency of gaming mice have steadily improved. Engineers continue pushing the envelope, seeking to squeeze out minor improvements in performance and experience.

At the same time, they cannot afford to ignore the aesthetics of their designs either. Even mouse pads are evolving, and gaming mouse pads are offering more than just a surface for a mouse to track on.

Today, gaming mice have better sensors, better form factors, more buttons, and better software than ever.

Their sleek and colorful designs are also eye-catching. However, one key innovation in recent years is a little confounding – the honeycomb design, also known as mice with holes in them.

Is putting perforated cases on gaming mice merely an aesthetic preference? If so, it’s a pretty odd and divisive choice.

Alternatively, is the honeycomb a practical design with significant performance and comfort-enhancing advantages?

Many Players Prefer Lighter Mice

The main advantage of the honeycomb design for most is its reduced weight.

It seems obvious to expect that reducing the amount of material used in a mouse can reduce its weight, but the extent of the difference these design features make can still be startling.

While mice without holes in them tend to weigh at least 3.53 oz (100 g) or more, many mice with a honeycomb design come in at well below these numbers.

The lightest models now available come in at under 2.12 oz (60 g), a significant advancement by any measure.

There are two reasons many gamers prefer lighter mice:

Lighter Mice Can Be Moved Faster

For many years, gamers preferred heavier mice because sensor technology and lower mouse sensitivity or dots per inch(DPI) meant lighter ones were usually not to be as accurate as heavier ones.

However, sensor technology improvements and ever-increasing DPI allow modern mice to get lighter without sacrificing accuracy.

Since a lighter mouse takes less time and effort to move, gamers can shave minute fractions of time off each move.

While that may not seem revolutionary, at the highest level, all elite sport is about minute advantages.

Cumulatively, a series of quicker moves can make all the difference between winning and losing.

Also, games have gotten much faster. Many of the most popular esports titles these days require players to make several moves per second, and top pros may execute as many as ten moves each second.

First Person Shooters(FPS) are among the fastest in terms of gameplay, with extremely popular titles like Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Valorant, Overwatch, and PUBG requiring simultaneously quick and precise movements.

No wonder professional gamers have championed the honeycomb’s ultra-light mouse trend. FPS pros, in particular, seem to love the design.

These influential early adopters are a large part of why the trend has picked up so fast.

For instance, the gamer and social media influencer Ninja. An early adopter of ultralightweight mice has partnered with manufacturer Finalmouse to produce a line of honeycomb mice.

Many other manufacturers and players believe that having fixed many other issues with mice over the years, being lightweight is the single most significant advantage a gaming mouse can offer a player today.

Lighter Mice Reduce Fatigue

As substantial as the performance improvements for a lightweight mouse, many people flock to them for comfort.

For a sedentary activity, gaming can be highly exhausting.

With prolonged mouse use, which is a given for many gamers, wrists are at particular risk, and there are fewer groups more at risk of injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome than gamers.

This is where lightweight mice can make a world of difference. Multiple moves a second translates to millions of actions a year at pace and with quick direction changes.

By lessening the burden shifted with each move, a lightweight mouse can significantly reduce stress on the wrist, arm, and hand muscles when gaming consistently over hours.

Holes Provide Better Ventilation

Another explanation for the honeycomb design is that it helps improve ventilation.

As electronic items typically heat up with prolonged use, increased ventilation can be a great improvement for long and short-term use.

Sweaty palms don’t help improve game performance or comfort when playing either.

However, the improvement that a honeycomb provides over conventional mice is minimal in this respect.

You’re likely to get much better results by controlling ambient temperature with fans, air conditioning, and improved ventilation around your gaming setup.

This is important not just for your comfort but also for the long life of your machine and its components.

Still, it is at least theoretically possible that the perforated case of an ultralightweight mouse allows hot air to circulate out of a mouse’s body and thus keep it cooler.

Some Gamers Like the Honeycomb Design

Finally, gamers have their own aesthetic preferences. These are evident in the increasingly sleek designs of gaming mice and other design elements, such as the increasingly common use of brightly colored LED lights.

However, if the honeycomb design is an aesthetic design choice, it’s an extremely bold one. Many people despise the look and reference Trypophobia in relation to it.