Mouse Latency Test
Measure how responsive your mouse click is. Each click is timestamped twice — once by the browser when the event is created and once when this page's handler runs — to show the event delivery delay, while short reaction trials record how fast you can click when the pad flips. Move over the pad to see the live event rate the browser receives.
Click to arm a trial
When the pad flips, click as fast as you can. Every click also logs its event-to-handler delay.
Recent click latency
lower is betterHow this test works
Every pointer event carries a timeStamp set the moment the browser created it. When your click reaches the handler, we read performance.now() and subtract the two to show the event-to-handler delay — the time your click spent travelling through the input stack and event loop before this page could react. Separately, the pad runs reaction trials: it waits a random interval, flips state, and records the gap between that flip and your click as a click-latency figure you can compare across attempts. The moving readout counts how many pointer-move events arrive each second, which mirrors how often the browser is told your cursor moved.
What causes mouse latency
- Switch debounce: the firmware waits a few milliseconds after a press to confirm the contact is stable, which adds a small, fixed delay to every click.
- Polling rate: a 125 Hz mouse reports at most every 8 ms, a 1000 Hz mouse every 1 ms, so a lower rate can hold a click back until the next report.
- Connection: wired USB is direct; wireless adds a radio hop, and low-power or crowded 2.4 GHz links can add jitter, though good modern dongles are close to wired.
- USB and OS scheduling: the host polls the device on a schedule, and the operating system then has to wake, queue, and dispatch the event to the browser.
- Browser and page load: a busy main thread or heavy page can delay when your handler actually runs, which is exactly what the event-to-handler figure captures.
Mouse latency vs input lag vs polling rate
These three measure different links in the same chain. Polling rate is how often the mouse reports its position and button state, in hertz — the Mouse Polling Rate Tester estimates it from the spacing of move events. Mouse latency, measured here, is how quickly a click turns into an event the page can handle. Input lag is the full end-to-end delay from your action to a visible change on screen, which also includes the display's own response and refresh — the Input Lag Tester covers that reaction-plus-display loop. A high polling rate reduces one source of mouse latency, but latency and end-to-end input lag also depend on the OS, the browser, and your monitor.
How to reduce mouse latency
- Use a wired connection, or a quality low-latency 2.4 GHz dongle placed close to the mouse rather than Bluetooth.
- Raise the polling rate in your mouse software (500 or 1000 Hz) if the sensor and connection support it steadily.
- Lower the click debounce time in the manufacturer software if that option exists, balancing it against the risk of double-clicks.
- Keep drivers and firmware current, and close background apps that saturate the CPU or USB bus.
- Plug the mouse directly into the computer rather than through an unpowered hub or a long extension.