Mice: USB 2.4 GHz RF vs. Bluettooth

[Barryng]

I looked at Bluetooth mice to use with a laptop (native Bluetooth) and noticed, in addition to Bluetooth, there are the so called "USB 2.4 GHz RF" mice.

Are these mice Bluetooth by another name as Bluetooth is a 2.4 GHz radio (RF) technology or is it a different technology than Bluetooth also using a 2.4 GHz RF channels?

Also, if it is different than Bluetooth, is a USB dongle needed or would my late model megalaptop be likely to support it with a native adapter?

 

[Bobnova]

Odds are they're a different protocol/radio that uses the same 2.4GHz ISM band.
A genuine bluetooth mouse seems like it ought to be able to interface directly to a computer that supports bluetooth. I'd certainly hope it could.

If it's not bluetooth, your laptop won't speak the right language for it without a dongle.

 

[Barryng]

Bobnova, thanks for the response.

The reason I asked the question was because Newegg lists 534 RF Wireless but only 87 Bluetooth mice. I was expecting to see the opposite. This very large imbalance with over 6 times as many RF wireless mice than Bluetooth make me think that RF wireless is not some specialized protocol and maybe is a Bluetooth protocol.

In any case, whatever I get will not have a dongle as that is the reason for buying a new mouse in the first place.

 

[Bobnova]

Bluetooth certification is expensive, I expect.

There's a ton of different protocols and signaling methods in the 2.4GHz ISM band, it's almost certainly far cheaper to grab a radio transceiver pair and write your own software protocol for it than to pay whoever owners Bluetooth for certification and licensing.

 

[NiHaoMike]

Apart from Bluetooth, there's also Zigbee (not very common for PC use apparently) and many variants of raw FSK like what the nRF2401 and related chipsets support.

I once came across a mini PCIe card that could not only send and receive Wifi and Bluetooth, but also raw 2.4GHz FSK. Sort of like SDR, but the card handles the modulation/demodulation while the software handles the high level processing.