So you are sick of replacing batteries in your optical mouse, and despise the traditional rolling ball mouse. However, up until now, you've had to choose between the two. Welcome the ION Wireless Air Mouse, a unique design integrating the mouse right onto your hand – literally. Wear the futuristic mouse on your hand like a glove, providing a unique solution from those who suffer from carpal tunnel.

Design

The ION Wireless Air Mouse takes technology from the Gyration Air Mouse Elite, hand waving actions, and places it into a spandex glove. Put on the glove and get to work, the hardware of the mouse is contained within the glove right on the back of your hand. A button is attached to your index finger thanks to Velcro, controlled by the hardware in the glove. Connect the wireless mouse via USB 2.0 dongle, providing 2.4GHz signal and 35-foot range. Yes, you could use this in a presentation, but keep in mind you're wearing a funny looking glove. You may want to rethink this decision.

There are three tiny buttons on the fingertip attachment. Two are for right- and left-click, and the other is used to pause the motion control, for example, when you are typing. This transforms the mouse experience as we know it: gone is point and click. Instead it's pinch and click using your thumb and pointer finger. An on/off switch is on the top of the glove, as well as a USB connection allowing you to charge the mouse's internal battery. There is an LED indicator to alert you to a host of issues: red means the mouse is charging; green means the power is turned on; yellow means the motion is paused.

I've been describing the ION Wireless Air Mouse as a glove, but it is more like a hand wrap. Loop spandex around one finger, stick your thumb through its hole, and adjust the Velcro at the wrist. This means heat and sweat are never an issue as with other ergonomic mice, and choose between stylish all-black or grey with black trim.

Features

After charging the batteries, go ahead and plug in the USB dongle and turn the glove on. There is no software to slow you down as it is plug-and-play, and is compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, and iOS. It also features a one-year warranty.

Once you have the glove on comfortably, use it like an air mouse. Move your hand up to make the cursor go up, down to make it go down, etc. The ION Wireless Air Mouse has 1,200 dpi sensitivity out of the box, but as with any other mouse, this can be changed in Control Panel.

The glove was tested in gaming situations, and while slower-paced games were enjoyable, the faster paced, multi-player online games weren't. In laptop testing, it worked very well until introducing a second monitor into the picture. It seemed that the mouse worked well with either of the monitors separately, but not both at the same time. If the mouse crossed over to the other monitor, it caused an issue with the motion control requiring you to pause motion control and try again. However, it still performed wonderfully in every other test, including intricate tasks like highlighting text. The downfall of the mouse: it requires some getting used to.

Value

If you suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome or you are a tech nut always thirsty for the latest technology, this mouse is great. If you don't mind spending some time getting to know how to use it and don't mind wearing your mouse like a glove, the $79.95 price tag isn't that bad at all.