Tuning out outside noise is a huge barrier in the way of your workspace focus. Anything from a TV in the background to the clicks of your keyboard could, at any moment, bring you out of your productive little coma. But to what lengths are you willing to go to shut them up? Do you play background music? Did you pay a premium for noise-canceling headphones? Or do you want to make your office a silent haven with this silent-click mouse from Nexus?
The Nexus SM-8000 Silent Mouse might be the most quiet mouse ever. Even with five very click-able buttons, it stays perfectly silent. A welcome sonic break for sensitive ears.
Nexus Technology's CEO, Michael van der Jagt, told eChannelLine about the mouse: "We have many TV and radio studio customers that have been pushing us for this product and we notice that it is appreciated by home and office users also. You will be amazed how much more relaxing it is when you get rid of this useless sound."
Even still, when I first spotted this mouse, I immediately cast it aside. I've never noticed my mouse clicks to be bothersome before, so it seemed like a waste of money. Many of us have been conditioned to ignore "office white noise" like mouse clicks and the gentle whir of a cooling fan.
But of course, ever since reading about it, I've now taken notice of my noisy mouse—finding its clicks more irritating than two songs played at once (it's my biggest tech pet peeve).
But is it worth the price?
We can't know for sure. This new, silent Nexus mouse is still an enigma, with a release date and price yet to be determined. But it's predecessor, the SM-7000B, sold for around $35.
And, guys, if $35 is the cost of office nirvana, I'm buyin' in. How about you?
(Top image: Flickr member JF Sebastian licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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I was just thinking the other day how nice this would be. It was one thing to have the click as an indicator that the button had been pressed but I think we are way beyond that now.
If you're distracted by noise of that nature in the workplace, I'd think that the simple tactile sensation of clicking the mouse would be equally distracting. After all, you're depressing the button softly and with even pressure, and then it suddenly gives, snapping into a new position, which is somewhat jarring. Plus, there's no mention on the product page of whether or not the scroll wheel is silent (though I would think it is), and I've always found that to be a far more annoying sound than the click from the mouse buttons.
Might as well get Apple's Magic Mouse or something of that sort, which eschews buttons altogether in favor of a touch-sensitive surface, that way you have no moving parts that react in ways that might be distracting.
I just double tap my laptops trackpad so no clicking for me. although I heard a click when I have to right click something.
i have always wanted a silent mouse.
I also find the noisy scroll wheels to be more annoying, but regardless...
Coming from a background of human-computer interactions, there are lots of things that signify to you that something has worked and we need these things in order to be as efficient as possible. This is why the iPhone's very enlarged keys when you type are so large and why they defaulted to having keyboard sounds, because all the other tactile affordances have been taken away so you need as much data as possible in order to understand something happened and move on. If you take away the click sound, since your mouse pointer or what it's clicking on doesn't always visually indicate you did something, the tactile part of it will have to be the same (the snap back into place) or more exaggerated in order for you to be equally as efficient at using your mouse as your are now. I'm all for it, it's just a very interesting field and you can't just take away an indicator without accommodating for it, otherwise you'll see more difficult, frustration, and slowness with users.
I would get one in a heartbeat! I sit near the IT head and a bunch of software engineers and the incessant mouse clicking is slowly driving me round the bend. I'm in admin and can't have headphones on most of the time - so a silent oasis in a sea of clicking would make me happy.
I'd love one. Sitting in a room full of people working on 3d models is a non stop click-fest.
As others have said, in an open plan office this should be a must have.
Also great for hands free phone calls or conference calls when multi tasking in the background.
Yes, playminxie. That reminds me of a recent disaster at my workplace.
50% of our office was flooded with water due to the warming Minnesota days. Production engineering (my dept) was completely underwater. We had to move where ever we had room for the next two weeks while repairs were being made.
We stuffed 5 loud, clicky, typie, talkie mechanical engineers directly into the heart of the HR department. I felt so bad for the gals in HR, being that I was the worst of all of the mech engineers.