What is a mouse bungee, and does it actually help you play?

The mouse bungee is an awfully simple fix for mouse cords that get stuck on player’s desktops, but are they really worth it?

Ask any first-person shooter player what the most annoying part of playing their favorite game is, and odds are they won’t answer with “lag,” “cheaters,” or “refresh rate.” Instead, we’d wager that the mouse cord is gaming’s biggest annoyance for those who don’t play wireless. It gets caught on desk corners and monitors way too easily, making the easiest clutches turn into embarrassing fails in an instant, and there never seems to be an easy solution for what should be a simple problem.

Mouse bungees are the accessory every wired gamer needs

Enter the mouse bungee, the weirdly shaped and oddly named desktop peripheral. While many companies offer their own takes on the bungee, they all sport the same basic design of a heavy base that holds a tower with a clip at the end. Players then clip their mouse cord to the clip at the end of the tower, lifting it up off their desks to limit the number of things that it can get caught on. The result is a mouse cord that is kept away from any drinks, monitors, or desk corners that could potentially stop a clutch flick from connecting.

It’s a genius idea, and it’s one that pro esports players have been using since the bungee first appeared. It’s not just a gimmick to sell the bungee either. The device really works, but is it worth the money players will pay?

For many players, it definitely is. If players haven’t made the jump to a wireless mouse yet, the bungee is a fantastic addition to any desktop setup. Even if a player’s mouse cord rarely gets caught on a monitor or keyboard, the small amount of friction between a cord and a desk corner is enough to throw off a player’s aim. Consistency is key in all types of video games, but it can be easy to forget that the little things can affect player performance just as much as the big ones can.

Companies such as Razer and Zowie have their own versions of the mouse bungee, complete with RGB lighting and game state integration. But players on a budget will be happy to know that almost all bungees are created equal. Pros have even been caught using their own home-made bungees using things like legos. That’s how simple and effective the idea is.

At its core, the bungee is just an elevated clip, and that simple idea means that every bungee functions in almost the exact same way. Players can save a few dollars by picking up a cheaper bungee from Amazon and skipping out on all the bells and whistles. There’s almost no reason to spend $20 on a bungee from Razer when the product is identical to a no-name bungee that costs less.

The only alternative to a mouse bungee is switching over to a wireless mouse, and while the price of wireless peripherals has dropped, buying a $12 dollar piece of equipment is more easily doable than switching over to a more expensive mouse. In the end, the mouse bungee is the hidden gem of PC gaming. It’s cheap, it does its job well, and the lack of complicated parts means it’s guaranteed to do what it was made to do.