In essence, optical mice are armed with an optoelectronic sensor (a small low-resolution video camera) which makes successive photos of the surface on which the mouse operates. The pictures of the surface that the sensor takes are captured in continuous succession and compared with each other in order to determine how far the mouse has moved.

Present-day optical mice work on almost all surfaces. Several exceptions are glass, mirror and other specular materials. Some laser mice like the glaser laser mouse mouse work on glass.

Dissimilar to ball mice optical mice don’t have any moving parts which which is why they rarely have mechanical malfunctions and optical mice are less breakable.

The light emitting diode (LED) of battery-powered wireless optical mice only glows steadily when movement is detected. The rest of the time it flashes intermittently in order to save power.