This $30 mouse jiggler makes it look like you’re working when you’re not

Employers are monitoring productivity more than ever, thanks in part to the telecommuting boom.

Employees are turning to gadgets to outsmart surveillance software. One such tool is a mouse mover or mouse jiggler, which should keep your screen on. I decided to try one to see if it worked.

I learned about mouse jigglers on TikTok. Mouse mover is a device that claims to be undetectable by your computer. As the name suggests, the device simulates mouse movement, preventing the computer from going into sleep mode.

So-called “tattleware,” or monitoring software, is installed on company-issued devices to track employees’ screen time, keyboard usage and clicks. The mouse motor may not help with keyboard use or clicks, but it should handle monitoring screen time by keeping your computer’s display on.

This is how the mouse jiggler works.

I ordered a $30 Vaydeer Mouse Jiggler from Amazon and tested it for a day.

Setup took less than a minute. You simply plug the power cord into your computer’s USB port or attach it to the power brick and plug it into the wall. Use the power wall if you’re paranoid. You probably don’t want to plug any type of device that helps you avoid work directly into a work computer, especially since USB ports also pose a host of security issues.

On the left side is an orange power button that you can press to turn it on and off. The turntable moves when turned on. That’s where you put the mouse sensor. Once your mouse is in the right position, you will start to see the cursor on the screen move very slowly, thus preventing your monitor from going to sleep.

That’s pretty much it. Once your mouse is on the jiggler, you can get up, make lunch, do whatever you need and your computer won’t go to sleep.

This won’t make you more productive, of course, but it might trick some monitoring software into thinking you’re still working, at least if that software is checking to see if your computer is active.

We shouldn’t need these gadgets though.

I was surprised to learn that employer surveillance is more common than I thought. A recent study by The New York Times found that 80 percent of the 10 largest private employers in the U.S. track the performance of individual workers.

And secretly monitoring employees makes them more likely to break the rules these systems are trying to deter, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study.

Transparency is key to maintaining worker morale. Explaining the scope and purpose of monitoring can increase employee acceptance of the practice by about 70 percent, according to a recent study by Gartner, a management consulting firm.