Why Do Gaming Mice Have Holes?

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.

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.

In this article, I’ll explain how the holes in gaming mice help improve gaming experience and performance.

I’ll also look at other cutting-edge design features in gaming mice today. By the end, you’ll better appreciate mouse design, whether you’re into honeycomb ones or not.

Why Do Gaming Mice Have Holes?

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.

Other Important Gaming Mice Features

Honeycomb mice are gaining in popularity and are among the most sought-after products on the gaming market today.

Of course, there are also many other features a mouse needs to have to serve gamers well.

While weight and movement speed have their part to play, they’re simply part of the overall picture.

As a result, understanding everything that makes a good gaming mouse will make getting one for yourself much cheaper.

If nothing else, it’ll at least help you understand where the honeycomb mouse stands in the grand scheme of things.

Stable Real-Time Connectivity

Stable connectivity is one of the most basic requirements of a gaming mouse.

While lag can be a mere annoyance in regular mice, it can have dramatically adverse consequences for gameplay.

Continuous connectivity is so essential for gamers that for the longest time, top professional gamers avoided wireless mice, despite the greater freedom of movement that they offered, merely because of their poorer connectivity.

With improvements in wireless technology, there is no longer a need to trade connectivity against freedom of movement.

Gamers who prefer wireless can now find wireless mice with excellent connection stability, responsiveness, and speed.  

Responsive and Accurate Tracking

The other significant improvement in mouse technology has been the development of better sensor technology.

Whereas conventional mice usually use optical sensors and LEDs, most gaming mice now use laser technology for greater precision.

Advancements in sensor technology mean the current generation of gaming mice has far greater DPI.

But these are not just headline numbers used to confound naive consumers. The sensitivity of a mouse has a direct impact on how fast and accurately a player can move.

Thus, high-DPI sensors improve the accuracy and responsiveness of each move a player makes.

When performing hundreds of actions a minute, the superior sensors in gaming mice consistently provide a far greater degree of speed and precision than has been possible in earlier models.

Moreover, in many mice, the sensitivity can be adjusted to a player’s preference. For gamers who find their mouse too sensitive, lowering this option quickly solves the problem.  

Software Customization

Sensitivity is not the only adjustable feature of a mouse. Many gaming mice allow users to fine-tune parameters that determine the mouse’s response to user actions.

Often, these settings can be saved under different profiles. This way, different players can switch between saved mouse profiles so that the device is customized for each user.

Additionally, most gamers will want to play several games, each of which may have very different operations and gameplay styles.

Instead of constantly changing mouse settings between games, they can switch to a different saved profile when they move to another game. 

Ergonomics Design

An ergonomic design is one of the most vital qualities of a good gaming mouse.

For players who consistently spend long hours on their machines, it can make a notable difference in performance and also lessen the chance of picking up injuries or experiencing discomfort.

Contemporary gaming mice usually offer some key ergonomic advantages compared to conventional alternatives:

• Comfortable size and shape: A lot of thought goes into picking the contours of a gaming mouse. It needs to fit well in the hands of various sizes and work well for both right and left-handed users.
• Good grip: As with contours, the choice of material is vital in designing gaming mice. They need to provide adequate resistance for a good grip but must also be well-ventilated enough to avoid sweaty hands.
• Customizable weights: Many gaming mice come with customizable weights. By moving the weights around, users can find a suitable speed-precision trade-off for their unique gameplay style. Rearranging weights can also “center” the balance in a mouse precisely the way individual players prefer it.

These unique features help gamers play for long hours without experiencing discomfort while allowing them to move quickly and with precision. Ultimately, they lead to better performance and a more enjoyable gaming experience.  

Additional Buttons

Most traditional mice only have two or three buttons — right, left, and a clickable scroll wheel. 

However, games often feature dozens of commands.

For instance, there can be individual commands for choosing different weapons, toggling between various camera perspectives, or moving in each direction.

Executing so many challenges using a few buttons can be challenging, if not impossible.

This is why gaming mice often feature several additional buttons. Often, these are on the thumb side of a device.

With these customizable buttons, players can efficiently execute one of many distinct commands in a fraction of a second.

Because the buttons are customizable, players can usually arrange different profiles for their favorite games.

They can also save profiles under different names. This way, multiple users can use the same mouse and switch to their preferred setup with a few clicks.

Durable Build Quality

Durability may seem like an afterthought, but it is essential when selecting a good gaming mouse.

These devices are often used for hours on end, day in, day out. They need to be built from the sturdiest materials to ensure they do not deteriorate with use.

Stylish Design

A cursory look at contemporary gaming gear will show that gear design always respects aesthetic concerns.

Increasingly gaming gear has become sleek and streamlined. The use of brightly colored LED lights is also increasingly popular.

With each new generation of devices, engineers and designers try out innovations in design, hoping that some will catch on. Who knows what the gear of tomorrow will look like?

Conclusion 

Gaming products are sophisticated devices that are key to improving the gaming experience. Well-designed mice enhance performances and are less fatigue-inducing than poorly designed ones. 

Many newer mice have holes in them because this makes them lighter. Lighter ones are easier to move and less strenuous to use continuously for long hours.

However, the trade-off between speed and precision is crucial to all gameplay aspects.

Some players may prefer greater accuracy to speed as their games may require more control than swiftness.