Final fall, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber was roundly ridiculed after suggesting the corporate want to produce a “Without end Mouse” — a mouse with a month-to-month subscription price for software program updates. It appeared to betray a lack of information: many individuals who purchase mice don’t need software program in any respect, a lot much less software program they need to pay for; the concept they’d pay each month is ridiculous.
However as I sit right here with a wonderfully good Logitech mouse, the most effective I’ve ever owned, I’m beginning to assume some form of “without end mouse” wouldn’t be such a nasty thought. Logitech has a possibility and a duty to make its mice last more, and I’ve a part of the proof proper beneath my palm. I exploit an amazing mouse that’s slowly disintegrating.
In some methods, my wi-fi Logitech G502 Lightspeed is already a without end mouse. I could by no means need to cost or change its battery once more, as a result of I exploit Logitech’s magic wi-fi charging mouse pad to mechanically preserve its battery on the good degree. I haven’t plugged on this mouse as soon as in practically three and a half years.
Fortunately, the mouse’s buttons and sensor have held up effectively over the identical interval, so far as I can inform. However the comfortable rubber grips that allow me maintain the gadget? After just some years of use, they’re reaching the top. They’re worn down, so grubby and discolored that I can’t merely clear them anymore. Worst of all, one of many grips is starting to delaminate from the mouse’s body and is beginning to peel off. It squishes uncomfortably beneath my thumb each time I grip the mouse.
There’s one apparent resolution: Logitech ought to promote alternative mouse components. The corporate even claims it sells mouse components by way of the restore website iFixit. Here’s a quote from Logitech chief working officer Prakash Arunkundrum in an iFixit press release: “Regular put on and tear is inevitable, which is why we try to make it easier for folks to entry unique Logitech alternative components for his or her gadgets.”
However as of at the moment, Logitech doesn’t truly promote the components that might deal with “put on and tear.”
Right here is the full checklist of components you can buy for a Logitech mouse on iFixit:
- $10 for a set of screws
- $15 for a set of mouse skates
- $20 for a battery
Don’t get me flawed, it’s refreshing to see official components on the open market. However these aren’t the components I, or anybody who needs to restore a Logitech mouse, really want.
We want grips. Buttons. Shells. Mouse wheels. And optimally, microswitch assemblies. These are the issues that put on out over time — or all of sudden, if in case you have an unlucky accident. Logitech and iFixit are additionally solely promoting three completely different sorts of mouse batteries. You probably have a dying Logitech G900 mouse battery, like my spouse, iFixit doesn’t have that half.
Months in the past, I reached out to each Logitech and iFixit to search out out why the half choices are so slim, however I didn’t get very far. Logitech declined The Verge’s request for an interview about its restore technique, and iFixit didn’t wish to communicate out of flip.
Right here’s what Logitech did say, by way of spokesperson Leila Lewis:
Sure, there are plans so as to add extra alternative components for current merchandise supported by iFixit, in addition to new merchandise, to the Logitech Restore Hub on iFixit sooner or later. We actively discover and consider different essential restore parts (corresponding to switches, buttons, and scroll wheels) primarily based on alternative feasibility and compliance necessities throughout geographies.
iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens informed me:
Logitech is fairly aware of what persons are asking for. If there are explicit components folks need, please communicate up! We’ll work on increasing the choice.
I informed them each that for now, I merely want the grips. A number of months later, Logitech’s half choice has not expanded. I haven’t discovered replacements wherever (although Amazon will fortunately promote me some grip tape).
I can’t think about changing a whole $100 mouse over a few items of rubber. If I’ve to, I in all probability received’t decide Logitech once more. Peeling rubber coating is strictly why I needed to cease utilizing my beloved Logitech MX518 over a decade in the past. I don’t anticipate mice to actually final without end, however I believe it’s value sending the world’s main peripheral maker a message which you could’t construct disposable merchandise whereas claiming they’re repairable.
How a lot loyalty may Logitech encourage if its mice have been really repairable? What number of extra mice would possibly it promote if phrase bought out that — like Logitech’s legendary C920 webcam — they have been made to final? That in case you purchase Logitech, you don’t need to trash a tool that matches you want a glove, don’t need to preserve retraining your hand for barely completely different shapes of mouse? What if, at a minimal, Logitech shared 3D printer recordsdata like Philips simply did with shavers, so we may print our personal buttons and grips?
Or do Logitech’s income depend on folks trashing completely good mice simply because they’re beginning to get gross, I’m wondering? I’d hate to assume that. (The corporate’s financials don’t say.)
Fortunately, Logitech now has a solution to disprove that concept. Without end Mouse, however overlook the subscription; embrace the concept that mice ought to final.