Recent innovations in mouse tracking technology?

During the last decade, great strides were made in mice - first there was optical, then laser came along, after that was Bluetrack, and finally we had Darkfield. Progress seems to have stalled since then, though - Darkfield is still apparently the most comprehensive tracking technology out there...

Have there been *any* breakthroughs since then? Or have touch screens and Force Touch trackpads drawn all of the attention away from mice?

 

Those really aren't "innovations" in mousing technology, from the perspective that those technologies you mentioned (optical, laser, darkfield, etc) actually did anything to improve the performance of a mouse. You can give me a $70 Darkfield mouse, or a $130 high-end laser sensor mouse, and I'd still throw those in the garbage and buy a $40 Logitech G400 because of its (superior) optical sensor.

The biggest things that happened to mice was probably several years ago, when 2.4Ghz wireless technologies no longer added tremendous amounts of interference and lag to wireless mice. Beyond that, you see mice trying to improve on the ergonomics of a mouse by allowing you to adjust shape, weight, balance, etc.

As for what's coming up? Most mouse manufacturers seem to be cramming on more and more "control" functions onto their mice... either by throwing in more buttons, or by adding some sort of inductive touch-sensitive area on the mouse that is gesture-sensitive.

As far as mice for gamers is concerned, not much has changed, and not much will change. Most gamers still want wired mice with high-accuracy sensors (not necessarily high DPI), and high USB polling rates. We've had those for years now at basically all price ranges for mice ($40 - $140). And you won't really find many upcoming mouse features that is going to change that.

 

logitech managed to make a high dpi sensor which doesn't suck like the laser ones

but then again, that sensor has an issue with variable framerate...

 

There's probably less change in tech and more change in PR.

If anything, some of the newer gaming sensors from Avago/PixArt consume noticeably less power than older ones, paving the road for true high performance wireless gaming mouses. Power management on those which money can buy now still suck though.