Building a Homemade Wireless Gaming Mouse with the New nRF54
YouTuber juskim turned a collection of modules, including Nordic Semiconductor's new nRF54, into a fast and lightweight wireless mouse.
In his quest to make the best personal gaming mouse, YouTuber juskim has created a plethora of designs and prototypes that vary in form, usability, and speed. So in this latest video, he explores how combining a more capable sensor with the new nRF54 microcontroller from Nordic Semiconductor can produce one of the fastest and lightest gaming mice around.
Finding the right sensor
The typical mouse sensor, while relatively inexpensive for what it delivers, falls short when used in such a high performance, low power-draw scenario like wireless gaming. From his research and experiments, juskim discovered that his go-to choice drew an alarming 40mW on its own, and when combined with other components, meant his mouse would run out of power in a little over 10 hours. However, swapping it for the PAW3395 sensor module means a power draw of just 2.5mW, an 8,000Hz polling rate, and a DPI of up to 26,000.
Making it wireless
The first prototype involved soldering the mouse sensor to a breakout board, attaching it to a Nordic Semiconductor nRF52 development kit, and then adding a LiPo battery charging circuit. On the receiver side was a corresponding nRF52 that listens for packets over the Nordic ShockBurst protocol (helps eliminate latency that would be introduced if using Bluetooth) and then translates them into USB HID inputs for the host computer. Once the concept was proven, the mouse side's microcontroller was swapped for the nRF54 and its 320MHz multicore Arm Cortex-M33 CPU, 1MB of RAM, and built-in support for multiple wireless protocols.
How does it compare?
These components, including the nRF54, sensor, power management IC, and buttons, were then promptly soldered together and mounted into a custom, 3D-printed mouse shell.
Although the plastic buttons weren't perfect, they were good enough to ensure solid victories across a variety of games. And even better, it weighs 10 grams less than its commercial rival: the Logitech Pro X Superlight. In the near future, juskim plans to replace the handsoldered connections with a PCB and improve the overall usability.