Ok, I have to do ONE tech-heavy post this month…..It is ME after all right?
Here’s the thing: I’ve done BOTH wired and wireless in my life. The fact is that both are good. I can already feel people on both sides of the camps aiming weapons at me in defence of one side or the other, but both wired and wireless have advantages that could work for you.
- Advantages of wired – I lived with a wired keyboard and mouse at home for years. I’m not talking about (old man voice) “Back in my day, they didn’t have any of this new fangly electronic technology.” I’m talking about the mechanical keyboard and mouse I had pre-Covid and well after Covid. At the time, I wasn’t working in my office as much as I do now, so it made sense for me to have a keyboard and mouse that I wasn’t worried about changing the batteries all the time. The other nice thing is that with wired devices, you don’t need to worry about firmware updates, as the devices are always connected to your computer and will always work.
- Disadvantages of Wired – THE CLUTTER!!!!!! THE CLUTTER!!!!! The problem with wired is that the cables are on your desk, and unless you become an expert at cable management (and I am the first to admit that I am not), it just looks like there is crap all over your desk. This is something that I was willing to put up with in my home office when I wasn’t working there more than once a month or so, but when I started working there more regularly (Definitely during Covid when I was there every day), the Cables snaking all over the place like the Honest to goodness snakes in Raider of the Lost Arc when they found the thing drive me crazy.
- Advantages of wireless – I will admit I do like wireless things. Because of how much of a Mac fan I am and the fact that wireless has been their general direction for a while now, going wireless is much easier for me. I like how clean a desk can look when the devices don’t have wires snaking to and fro around your desk. I’ve never had the “Cable management” gene, and despite my best efforts, my desk always looks cluttered. If possible, having one less thing to manage on my desk is always ideal. Having a wireless device that can switch between devices is also nice. I’ve had the opportunity to use such a device, and it’s nice being able to swap between projects if you’re working on two completely different systems while still using the same interface (the interface being the keyboard)
- Disadvantages of wireless – The obvious disadvantage is firmware updates that will need to happen occasionally. Like all updates, they need to happen, but I get that they can be annoying. The real difficulty can occur when the batteries of the device run out. On several occasions, I have been in the middle of a thought, and my keyboard would simply stop working for me. Being the sound-minded IT guy that I am, I quite naturally panicked. “I’M BEING HACKED!!!! SOMETHING HAS GONE HORRIBLY WRONG WITH MY SYSTEM AND I’LL HAVE TO REBUILD EVERYTHING AND….no wait….damnit….batteries.” So, if you leave your wireless devices for an extended period of time without use, it would be good practice to turn them off before you leave and or plug them in so they don’t die when you intend to use them.
The fact of the matter is (and here I am flying in the face of convention over here) BOTH wireless and wired are equally good solutions, but you should find the best solution for you. Personally, I do whatever I happen to be feeling at that specific moment. While I admit that most of the time I do my best to be a wireless guy, I do enjoy the comfort of wired products for the sheer value of the guarentee that they are going to work. The beauty of technology as it stands now is that there is no hard and fast rule about basically anything. In the old days, if you wanted to use a Mac, you had to use their software and hardware; the same thing happened with Windows. Now, you can use Mac hardware with their operating system but run Microsoft products, and they work just as well as they do on PCs. The best part is that the choice is yours.
Which do you prefer? Wired or wireless?
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