Software

Much like all recent Glorious releases, the Model O 2 Mini Wireless is compatible with Glorious Core. Currently at version 2.1, Core has received a large overhaul mostly in terms of looks, though the interface itself has been redesigned as well. Compared to pre-2.0, both the installation size and RAM footprint have increased, and some settings are much more difficult to use now. To give an example, CPI adjustment no longer permits editing set values directly, as was possible pre-2.0. Instead, one has to delete the existing steps, and then add the edited values one by one, and if one wants to have them in ascending order, then adding them in ascending order is necessary, as the list of steps isn't ordered automatically. Accordingly, if one would have a selection of 400, 800, 1600, and 3200, and wants to add a 600 step between 400 and 800, one would first have to delete all steps but 400, and then add them all back including the new 600 step one by one. Editing the color for each step isn't possible either, so if you don't like the randomly assigned ones, tough luck. In other words, CPI adjustment is realized in the most backward way imaginable. Overall, I consider Core 2.1 a step back on every level.

All settings are distributed across several tabs. The first tab houses profile switching, either from local or cloud storage, the latter of which requires a Glorious ID. The second tab has performance settings. Lift-off distance can be set to either 1 or 2 mm. "Debounce time" effectively controls click latency, with lower values decreasing it while increasing the likelihood of eventual double-clicking. The selection ranges from 0 to 16 ms and can be adjusted in increments of 2 ms, with 10 ms being the default. Polling rate can be set to 125, 250, 500, or 1000 Hz. In addition, MotionSync can be enabled, which synchronizes SPI reads with USB polling events at the cost of up to an entire interval of added motion delay. The second tab concerns lighting settings and is detailed below. The third tab houses CPI adjustment, which ranges from 100 to 26,000 CPI in increments of 50, for up to six color-coded levels. CPI values can be entered manually when adding new CPI steps, and any non-native values are automatically truncated to the next native value. The fourth tab includes button remapping options. All buttons can be bound to mouse, keyboard, media, or macro functions, the latter of which may be created in the macro editor.

All setting changes, including macros, are 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 360 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn't change when minimized, be it to the taskbar or system tray, along with considerable CPU usage, which goes down when minimized. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Lighting

The Model O 2 Mini Wireless has two physical zones for RGB lighting, which are the two LED strips on the sides. A total of eight pre-defined lighting effects are available in the software: Glorious Mode, Seamless Breathing, Breathing, Single Color, Breathing Single Color, Tail, Rave, and Wave. For most effects, brightness and the speed of transitions can be adjusted. Of course, the lighting can also be disabled altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Below is a short demonstration video in which I go through the Glorious Mode, Seamless Breathing (RGB), and Tail lighting effects. Please note that illumination was set to 100% brightness:

Battery Life

Without illumination, Glorious cites a battery life of 110 hours when using 2.4 GHz wireless at presumably 1000 Hz, and 210 hours when using Bluetooth. Even though the software does include a percentage-based battery charge indicator, it did not budge at all during testing, even after several hours of continuous usage with illumination enabled at full brightness. As such, I'm unable to gauge expected battery life.

Using the included USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, I measured the charging speed during the constant current stage, which sits at 0.366 A. The battery has a capacity of 450 mAh (3.7 V) and utilizes a 3-pin JST connector.