Software

For several more recent mouse releases, ASUS offers Armoury Crate Gear, which is a stripped-down version of Armoury Crate. Unlike Armoury Crate, which is a single application that can be used with any ASUS mouse, one needs to download and install the specific version of Armoury Crate Gear for the Harpe Ace Mini. Furthermore, Armoury Crate Gear is incapable of recognizing changes to connectivity; hence, when going from wired to wireless (or vice versa), one needs to close and open Armoury Crate Gear again. In terms of functionality and layout, Armoury Crate Gear is largely equivalent to the mouse settings part of Armoury Crate, though a function such as Rapid Fire, for instance, is absent.

All available settings are distributed across several tabs. The first page houses button remapping options, allowing one to rebind all but the left button to mouse, keyboard, multimedia, or macro functions. The second page includes options for CPI adjustment (100–42,000 CPI, increments of 50, four steps), polling rate (125, 250, 500, or 1000 Hz), and angle snapping (on/off). CPI adjustment is done either through a slider or by inputting the value directly. Furthermore, angle adjustment is possible, ranging from -30 to 30 degrees. The third page has lighting options and is detailed below. The fourth page houses LOD adjustment options. Several pre-calibrated surfaces are available to choose from, which then can be fine-tuned manually by adjusting the high/low-selection. Performing a manual calibration may lower LOD beyond the default. The fifth page gives access to several power-saving settings. One can set the minimum battery level at which a low battery warning is displayed, and define after how many minutes the mouse enters power-saving mode, which disables all illumination. Battery status is displayed in increments of 1%. Lastly, profile management and a macro editor are available as well.

All settings are updated live and saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 223 MB on average when running in the foreground, which does not change when minimized. Upon exiting the application, several processes with a RAM footprint of 123 MB keep running. Please note that the number of active processes and their associated RAM footprint will depend on one's system configuration.

When uninstalling Armoury Crate Gear, several leftover files on the C: drive remain, requiring manual removal, though unlike with previous versions, no services are installed to begin with.

Lighting

The Harpe Ace Mini has a single zone for RGB lighting, which is the scroll wheel. A total of four pre-defined lighting effects are available: Static, Pulsating, Color Cycle, and Reactive, along with the option to synchronize the lighting with other AuraSync-enabled devices or display battery status. Color and brightness can be adjusted on most effects. Of course, disabling the lighting altogether is also possible.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are good throughout. Here's a short demonstration video of the Color Cycle and Pulsating lighting effects:

Battery Life

Without illumination, ASUS cites up to 139 hours of battery life using Bluetooth and up to 105 hours using 2.4 GHz at 1000 Hz. With illumination, up to 113 hours are cited using Bluetooth and up to 79 hours using 2.4 GHz at 1000 Hz. The software includes a percentage-based battery charge indicator with single-digit precision, which is reliable and accurate. For every four hours of continuous usage with illumination enabled at default brightness (50%) at 1000 Hz, the indicator went down by 5%. As such, assuming linear consumption, the 79 hours cited by ASUS indeed appear to be correct.

Sleep mode is entered after three minutes of inactivity by default, but can be adjusted within the software.

Using the included USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, I measured the charging speed, which sits at 0.126 A when lifted and 0.108 A when not lifted, but since this was outside of the constant current stage, actual numbers may be higher. The battery has a capacity of 300 mAh (3.7 V) and utilizes a 3-pin JST connector.