Lunar Adventures: exploring a little bit of everything

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Cool Idea of the Day: Heated mouse

My dad actually thought this one up — and I think it’s a good idea. Let’s all make it happen and split the cash, OK?

One of my favorite features on my Volkswagen is the heated seats. There’s nothing like getting into the car on a cold winter morning and a few blocks into my commute having a toasty warm behind and back. It’s proof that there are some options on cars that are worth every penny.

I tend to get cold hands while I’m at the computer for a long time — probably the position of the mouse leading to less than stellar circulation in my hands combined with a cold house. Now, what if you could have a mouse that gently warmed your cold hand?

I’m wondering if we could do this via USB and not need an external power source. I know that USB can’t transfer a ton of power, but it’s enough to charge my iPod, and my iPod tends to be nice and warm after a good charge. And mice have a pretty small surface area to have to warm. Make the top of the mouse a material that transfers heat well, stick some coils underneath, warm the coils and voila, heated mouse.

If you can’t get enough power out of USB, then fine, we can use batteries or even an external cord. We can even stick corporate logos on the mouse and sell them to companies as giveaways.

Now, who can make this happen?

Fri January 20th, 2006 12:45 pm

Filed under Gadgets

9 comments

  1. Dennis Bullock said:
    January 20th, 2006 1:46 pm

    Wow that sounds easy enough! I am sure there is a fancy engineer out there that could figure that out for you. My trouble is that I see things like this and think…..man why didnt I think of that. I bet a lot of people do that so you may be ahead of the curve.

  2. Andrew said:
    January 20th, 2006 1:52 pm

    Dennis — I think it sounds easy, I just need to find someone that knows how to do it! The extent of my EE training is wiring logic chips and stuff together to make really basic “computers” (if you can even call them that).

    By the way, checked out your site — like the simple white on black design. Looks nice! Thanks for stopping in and commenting. :)

  3. Dennis Bullock said:
    January 20th, 2006 6:34 pm

    Thanks hope to have you as a reader.

  4. momentum said:
    January 23rd, 2006 8:02 pm

    Andrew, you can probably take a USB coffee-mig-warmer, and use that. I think some well-placed faulty wiring in the mouse can heat it up pretty good. (that theme is called Hemmingway)

  5. Cori B said:
    January 31st, 2006 6:49 pm

    I had the same thought tonight and then searched it…guess what I found http://www.theheatedmouse.com Enjoy!

  6. Andrew said:
    February 1st, 2006 9:29 pm

    Son of a gun! So much for my great idea. I should probably research before I go spouting off. But that sounds like work…

  7. Lyle said:
    February 19th, 2006 3:13 pm

    A word of advice: The heated mouse sold at http://www.theheatedmouse.com/ is a scam. I’ve posted a story about my experience with this guy at my web log, but I’m not the only one who’s lost money.

  8. Steve said:
    March 6th, 2006 8:49 pm

    http://www.theheatedmouse.com/ is a scam. I thought of this idea in high school. Now, 7 years latterm, I can actually make them. It is very simple to do with a little research. Try it out.

  9. Athelas said:
    February 6th, 2007 9:07 am

    This one is as real as it gets. I am ordering one today: http://usb.brando.com.hk/proddetail.php?prodid=00219&PHPSESSID=69af7cc 1c616178a88ce8676b0a65e59

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