Software

The Helios II Pro comes with its own lightweight software. All options are accessible through three different tabs. The first page allows for button remapping to mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions, along with the ability to adjust debounce time, which effectively controls click latency, at a range of 0 to 30 ms in increments of 1 ms. Profile management is present as well. The second page houses CPI adjustment settings for up to six color-coded levels, ranging from 50 to 26,000 CPI (32,000 CPI through interpolation), in increments of 50 CPI. Values cannot be put in directly, as this function appears to be bugged. Also included are polling rate (125/250/500/1000 Hz, additionally 2000/4000 Hz when using the 4K Wireless Dongle), LOD (1/2 mm), and angle snapping (on/off) adjustment options. "Ripple control" is disabled by default, but can be enabled to apply smoothing, which lessens jitter at higher CPI steps at the cost of increased motion delay. "MotionSync" can be turned on or off, which turning on synchronizes SPI reads with USB polls at the cost of a motion penalty typically roughly equal to half of the set polling interval. Furthermore, a setting that allows modifying the sensor mode is present. If plugged in or set to 2000 or 4000 Hz, the sensor mode will default to "corded" with no way of changing it. Hence, only when setting polling rate to 1000 Hz or below in wireless mode one can choose between "LP" (low power) and "HP" (high performance) modes, which determine the sensor run mode and therefore battery life. Lastly, "Peak Performance" defines after how much idle time sleep mode is entered. A macro editor can be found on the third page.

All settings changes are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or even installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of roughly 47 MB on average when running in the foreground, which changes depending on which page is open, and which doesn't change when minimized to the system tray. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Battery Life

Fantech cites up to 60 hours of battery life at 1000 Hz and up to 40 hours at 4000 Hz. Given that the sensor mode at 1000 Hz is unspecified, this figure isn't too helpful, and since battery life at 4000 Hz usually is a quarter of the battery life at 1000 Hz, one of these numbers is likely false. Based on my experiences with other mice using this solution and the same type of battery, I consider 60 hours in LP mode at 1000 Hz plausible, and would expect around 15 hours at 4000 Hz. The software features a battery life indicator, though it lacks any sort of percentage or segmentation within the gauge, so giving any sort of estimation is plain impossible. In addition, the indicator did not budge at all even after five hours of continuous use at a polling rate of 4000 Hz, so it may not be functional to boot. By changing the line "ShowBatteryValue=0" to "ShowBatteryValue=1" within the config.ini of the software folder, the software can be made to show a percentage, though it will be inaccurate.

Sleep mode is entered after 30 seconds 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 during the constant current stage, which sits around 0.288 A when lifted and 0.273 A when not lifted. The battery has a capacity of 300 mAh (3.7 V) and utilizes a 3-pin JST connector.