This mouse has no wires, no battery, and even no optical sensor. Could it be the future of gaming?

(Image credit: Mirai Create)

Your average $5 wired mouse has no batteries. Alternatively, wireless gaming mice are dime a dozen. Well, almost. But what about a mouse with both no wires and no batteries? Say what? Oh, and while we're at it, how about ditching the optical sensor?

That is the basic proposition offered by the Mirai Create Super EMR Mouse. Due to be unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show 2025, it's a completely wireless mouse that uses EMR or electromagnetic resonance technology for both tracking and power.

But how does it all work? There's a handy video on YouTube from an unrelated source to this Mirai Create mouse. But the video explains the technology neatly. EMR devices like this run on the same principles as Wacom's pen and digitiser pads. So, the power for the device actually comes from the pad, which contains an array of resonance circuits made up of a capacitor and an inductor coil. When a charge is induced in the inductor coil, the circuit resonates at a specific frequency.

That can then be linked to a physically adjacent coil, in other words a coil located in the mouse, via what's known as mutual induction. The strength of the resonance signal indicates the distance between the coils. There's no directionality in the distance measured, but by arranging two series of coils in the pad, one for the X and one for the Y axis, finely grained tracking can be achieved. And because only one of the coils in each resonant pair needs to be powered, that can always be the coil in the pad, not the mouse.

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Induction resonance tracking — (Image credit: PyottDesign)

Thus all the mouse needs is an inductor coil and that's it. Actually, that's not quite it. What about the mouse buttons? They can be achieved by having the buttons linked to a circuit on the mouse that slightly shifts the resonance frequency. Still no power source on the mouse required. Clever, huh?

Even better, the resonance technology allows for additional axis of tracking in both twist and tilt. So, you could maps those to, say, leaning around a corner in a first person shooter. There's no indication the Mirai Create Super EMR Mouse has that capability. And you'd need game support for that functionality. But the mere possibility is very promising.

Obviously, the one drawback to all this is that the mouse will only work on the inductor coil pad. So, it's not as versatile as conventional wireless mouse with an optical sensor that'll run on a wide range of surfaces and across a broad area.

And plenty of questions remain over accuracy, response and so on. But it's certainly an intriguing idea and seems to have the potential for creating the lightest wireless mouse yet and one that never, ever runs out of battery. For now, there's no word on price and availability, but we'll keep our scanners peeled.

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Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

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