While the shapes of mice such as the Logitech G Pro X Superlight, Razer Viper, Zowie EC2, or Endgame Gear XM1 have served as "inspiration" for countless new releases, the SteelSeries Sensei has been largely forgotten. SteelSeries themselves last updated the Sensei back in 2019 with the Sensei Ten, but since then, a proper successor has been nowhere in sight. With the OGM Cloud, Waizowl addresses this vacancy, and successfully so.

Even though the OGM Cloud resembles the Sensei closely, it is not a carbon copy. Being slightly wider around the middle, a decent bit wider at the rear, and marginally longer, the OGM Cloud lends itself even more to larger hands than the Sensei did. In addition, the main buttons are now framed by ledges, though their curvature has been kept intact, as comfort grooves continue to be absent. Beyond the shape, the most notable difference to previous Sensei releases is, of course, the weight. At 57 g, the OGM Cloud measures up well to the likes of Razer Viper V2 Pro or Endgame Gear XM2we, which are similarly sized and utilizing a solid-shell design, too. And much like on the OGM Pro, build quality is on a remarkable level. On my unit, there is no rattle when shaking the mouse, no creaking or flexing of the shell when applying lateral pressure, and actuating the side buttons by pressing below them is impossible. Likewise, the stock feet are just as good as those found on the OGM Pro, with excellent glide and above average thickness, and since the recesses for the feet are much larger than the feet themselves, skates of most sizes and shapes can be used instead of the stock ones. A replacement set of feet is included in the box, and for even better handling, a set of grip tape is also included with the mouse.

Unlike the OGM Cloud, which came with TTC Gold main button switches, the OGM Cloud has been outfitted with main button switches from Huano, more specifically of the transparent blue shell, pink plunger variety. These are familiar from the LAMZU Atlantis, and they fare comparably well on the OGM Cloud. Despite moderate levels of pre and post-travel, button actuation is quite firm and snappy, and the button design is indeed superb, as lateral movement is essentially nonexistent, even when trying to provoke it. The side buttons too have been outfitted with Huano switches, although regular ones with a white plunger, but since the PCB has been screwed to posts part of the bottom shell instead of the top shell, these don't feel as good as they could. Notably, the actuation point isn't entirely even, and pre-travel varies quite a bit depending on where the buttons are pressed. In addition, post-travel is high, as the side buttons can be pressed in a decent bit past actuation. One of the few weak spots of the OGM Pro was the scroll wheel, and this has been improved greatly on the OGM Cloud. Instead of a TTC Gold encoder, an F-Switch brown/green core sees use, which too suffers from high noise levels, but tactility is significantly better, and most importantly, scrolling is now controlled instead of overly light.

When it comes to performance, the OGM Cloud truly shines. The only major issue concerns CPI deviation. Typically, CPI deviation on 16-pin sensors such as the PAW3395 will be highly consistent across the entire CPI range, which is a good thing, since it keeps things predictable when trying to adjust in-game sensitivity to account for the deviation. Exceptions such as the Glorious Model O 2 are exceedingly rare, and the OGM Cloud joins this exclusive club. Whereas 400 CPI has positive deviation, all the other tested steps are negative, and what's more, CPI adjustment isn't working correctly, as certain values such as 850 are ignored altogether, making it impossible to compensate for the deviation. This no doubt qualifies as a bug, and hopefully Waizowl will fix this in a future firmware update.

This issue aside, the OGM Cloud delivers in the performance department. Without MotionSync and at 1000 Hz, the OGM Cloud posts a motion delay differential to the Logitech G403 (control subject) of roughly 0.5 ms, which is increased to a bit more than 1 ms upon enabling MotionSync. Aside from MotionSync, which synchronizes SPI reads with USB polls at the cost of increased motion delay, ripple control (smoothing) is also available as a setting, though my testing suggests that it has no effect and remains disabled. Another setting is a so-called High-speed mode, enabling which changes the sensor run mode from default to corded mode, effectively forcing the sensor to behave as if it were wired. Naturally, this increases power draw and therefore decreases battery life, but cuts motion delay down by another 0.5 ms, reaching parity with VAXEE wireless mice set to competitive mode, which is an equivalent setting. Furthermore, polling is stable throughout, and general tracking without flaw. Click latency numbers are also excellent: At the lowest debounce time, 1.5 ms are averaged, with higher debounce time values scaling linearly. For the record, 0 and 1 ms are equivalent settings and can be used interchangeably. Since the OGM Cloud is using traditional defer-type debouncing for the switches, lower values will inevitably lead to slam-clicking, which describes inadvertent button actuation upon resetting the mouse, and eventually double-clicking as well. On my sample, I had to set debounce time to 2 ms to get rid of slam-clicking, but over time, one can expect this threshold to go up, as switch chatter increases due to wear and tear.

For those still not satisfied with these numbers, Waizowl offers a dedicated 4K wireless dongle, which is compatible with both the OGM Pro and OGM Cloud. Upon pairing the OGM Cloud to the 4K dongle, it is turned into a USB high-speed device, allowing for native support of polling rates higher than 1000 Hz. Even at 1000 Hz, this change already improves performance, as motion delay is on the same level as with High-speed mode enabled on the regular USB full-speed dongle, and upon enabling High-speed mode, motion delay is lowered even further. Click latency also is significantly lower at 0.7 ms, and polling remains stable throughout. At 2000 Hz, we see motion delay going even lower, resulting in an advantage of roughly 1 ms over the G403, provided MotionSync is disabled. Polling, however, isn't fully stable at 2000 Hz, as off-period polls are quite common, and click latency is essentially not improved at all over 1000 Hz. 4000 Hz appears to be bugged in some way, as motion delay varies considerably throughout the motion, making it difficult if not impossible to give proper numbers, polling still isn't fully stable, though click latency is marginally improved at 0.6 ms. While the pairing process is easy, the OGM Cloud can only be paired either to the regular or the 4K dongle, but not both at the same time. Since the 4K dongle carries no regressions over the regular dongle, this hardly matters, though. Overall, the 4K dongle provides a decent performance uplift, though I'm unsure whether it is worth the $15 surcharge.

Waizowl cites a battery life of up to 80 hours, presumably at 1000 Hz with High-speed mode disabled. Even though the software includes a percentage-based battery charge indicator with seemingly single-digit precision, I found it to be rather unreliable, and therefore have a hard time gauging expected battery life. That said, given the capacity of 300 mAh, I consider the value given by Waizowl plausible. In addition, the very slow charging of little more than 0.1 A suggests that the battery has been optimized for capacity (lower C rating), further supporting the belief that battery life is rather high. Unfortunately, on top of the slow charging, the charging cable isn't all that flexible, either, albeit still flexible enough to allow playing while charging without feeling too restricted. Battery charge indicator aside, the software works well and has all the important options, at a pleasantly low resource footprint to boot.

At $99.99 on Mechkeys.com, the OGM Cloud is priced similarly to releases from LAMZU or Pulsar, such as the Atlantis Pro/4K or X2V2/X2H, while largely matching them in quality and performance. That said, support and warranty have a question mark to them, so not everyone may be willing to take the plunge with the OGM Cloud. At the same time, those looking for a wireless Sensei with modern internals simply have very little choice in this matter, as the OGM Cloud is the only option around. As such, the OGM Cloud receives our Recommended award.