The ULTIMATE CUSTOM Gaming Mouse?? RIGID CLR1 Review

You’re going to struggle to find a mouse that’s more interesting than this one – this is the RIGID CLR1, a fully custom 3D printed shell wrapping a top spec motherboard, offering the most unique gaming mouse on the market. The fact this is made by a solo maker is already incredible, and the attention to detail and quality is unbelievable. Let’s take a look at this thing and see exactly what you get, so you can decide (quickly) if you want to get your hands on this limited edition and rather exclusive mouse! 

First, let’s stare at it. This is, by far, the most unique looking mouse I’ve seen in, well, possibly ever. This tiny little wedge is just 80mm long, 62mm wide and 20 mm tall. It’s a fingertip grip mouse, meaning there’s no bulge for your palm to rest on. It has slightly angled but otherwise flat sides for your thumb, ring and pinkie fingers to rest on, and the left and right clicks are straight all the way from the spring points at the back. The scroll wheel pops out, but otherwise that’s it. That’s the mouse. The scaffolding inside means that most of even the solid looking sections are hollow, which means this thing, PCB and all, weighs just 27 grams! On my scale it’s actually closer to 26 grams for my unit, which is absolutely wild. We’re over here going mad over mice just under 50 grams, and here’s a 3D printed boi at HALF that. Amazing. 

And, like, this doesn’t feel 3D printed. There’s no layer lines, there’s no trace, other than the slightly rough texture from the SLS powder which actually helps a lot with grip. The micro texture – even after the polishing step that’ll come on the final units you’d be buying – gives the perfect level of grip that’s honestly much nicer than rubber, and miles better than the perfectly smooth plastic you get on injection molded shells. The other key benefit 3D printing offers, besides the inherent roughness and otherwise impossible geometry, is the ability to rather easily customise the design. RIGID is offering a direct one-on-one customisation session where you can not only pick the colour, but any text or designs you want to add in, especially up by the back of the left and right clicks. They’ve sent over a bunch of shells to give you ideas – one in every colour way you can pick from, that being red, orange, purple, blue, green or black – and a number of interesting designs. Everything from text to a scary octopus head – and this is what you can do with yours. You get to make it your own, properly. Not just ‘engraved’ like an iPhone, but truly yours. That’s pretty sweet.

The customisation doesn’t really stop there though, as even the PTFE pads can be as minimal as one per corner, or especially if you’ve got a softer mouse mat, you can add up to 12 in total around the entire perimeter, which combined with the complete lack of weight means this thing glides like a dream. It’s so smooth, sliding so damn easily it isn’t even funny. That means this acts as an almost nonexistent extension of your arm, and lets you translate your desire to click on heads into actions so, so easily.

One thing we haven’t yet talked about is specs – what sort of sensor and microcontroller have we got going on here? Well in here is a Zaunkoenig M3K modkit PCB, which offers a PixArt PAW 3399 sensor, an STM32F7 MCU with open source firmware than can offer up to 8,000 hertz, changeable lift off distance and CPI, and Omron D2F-01F switches. That’s some pretty decent highlights, right? That 3399 sensor is good for 20,000 CPI – not that you’ll ever use it near that – 650 inches per second of tracking speed, up to 50g’s of acceleration, and 1, 2, or 3mm of lift off distance. That sensor is the same one you’ll find in basically all gaming mice from the last year or two, so naturally this feels great tracking wise. I’m still working on my peripheral testing tool to be able to give you any useful data on this, but at least to the arm it feels great. No hitching to speak of, it’s nice and smooth. 

There are a few quirks from that M3K PCB, like while this does have the option to run at 1,000, 2,000, 4,000 or 8,000 hertz, or programmable CPI, and programmable lift off distance, the way that you access those controls isn’t by opening a bit of software, going to a webserial website, or pressing dedicated buttons on the mouse… no you lift the mouse off the desk, hold the left and right click buttons down for 5 seconds, then the mouse will start moving on screen. You press left or right clicks to change the CPI, then hold the buttons again to exit out. To change lift off distance and polling rate you’ll hold the buttons for 10 seconds, then it’ll make a square to show you lift off distance, then draw either a one, two, four or eight with the cursor to show what setting it’s on. Hold the buttons to exit out again. Wild. 

Once you’ve set it up how you like though, it returns to being a normal-ish mouse, and a bloody good one at that. The mixture of insane lightness, smooth tracking, effortless gliding and beautifully tactile clicks makes this a dream to game with. The fingertip grip style definitely takes some getting used to, in fact I don’t really think I have it down even after a week of toying with it, but at least the size is suitable for all hands, and it’s still a great little thing to game with. That lightness means setting it to a really low CPI and flicking like there’s no tomorrow is absolutely no problem. There’s no fatigue here, just fun.

Naturally I did use my open source latency testing tool to test the click latency, and I am incredibly impressed. Whether that’s due to the distinct lack of pre-travel – the shell sits tightly on the actual switches so actuating the switch is almost instant – or what, this is the best mouse I’ve tested for latency. Just 1.6ms of click latency on average. For context, the DeathAdder V3 Hyperspeed took 2.5 milliseconds on average, and even Glorious’ Model D 2 Pro wired running at 8,000 hertz too 2.2 milliseconds on average, so this is truly top notch.

There are a couple of little problems though, like the cable. While it’s nice and long, incredibly thin and light weight, it is just loose coming out the front of the mouse. It’s held in purely by the micro molex connector, with no strain relief at all. Now I mentioned this to RIGID when they were initially talking me through the mouse, and they came back with an updated design which includes a clip so the cable is actually attached to the shell, rather than running wild. I also suggested adding a taper to that clip so if the cable gets snagged it’s pulling on the sheathing rather than the delicate pins, and again they were excellent at incorporating feedback and came back with this modified version – so yeah, all customer units will have strain relief built in now. That level of communication, understanding and continuous improvement is incredibly rare these days, so I have to thank RIGID for their excellent attitude and dedication. We need more of that in the tech world, or actually in the world in general.

Another obvious catch is the lack of the usual amenities gaming mice offer – not just software (or even hardware buttons) to customise your experience, but extra features like optical switches, LED lighting (not that I ever understood why you’d care as it’s literally covered by your hand the entire time) or simple stuff like back and forward buttons that make it a hell of a lot more usable for day-to-day use. You’re giving up those niceties here for the ultimate in lightweight gaming, and as someone who rocks to mice permanently anyway (and MX Master 3 for editing and browsing, and an EndGame Gear OP1 8K for gaming), I don’t mind that so much.

The other big catch is the price. Buying one of the initial run of 10 units will set you back a cool 250 european shillings (euros), which is a hell of a lot of money for a mouse. To be fair, a lot of that cost goes straight into the PCB which I think are 120 euros each, which is a very hefty chunk, but with this level of craft, quality, customisation and just outright being a hell of a good mouse, I can see why you’d splash that much cash for one of these. Of course, with only 10 being up for sale, if you do want one, you might need to act fast. If you do miss this batch, RIGID are in production of their own PCBs for much more consumer friendly mice which should be coming somewhat soon, so maybe check them out on socials if you’re interested in that.

As for the CLR1, it’s obvious this isn’t for everyone. The price alone will put 95 percent of people off of it, but seeing as there’s only 10 on offer, if you can stomach the unique shape and grip, the lack of buttons and weird customisation steps, this is an absolutely incredible and truly unique gaming mouse. This can’t be judged on value, it’s both art and product, and at least on the product side I sure am impressed. Of course those are my thoughts, but I’d love to hear yours in the comments down below. What do you think of the CLR1? Are you interested, or is this just not for you? Let me know in the comments below!