Logitech CEO Wants to Sell You a Subscription-Based 'Forever Mouse'
gizmodo.com
During a recent episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber shed some possible insight into the company’s view on one of its most important products. Saying that “the mouse built this house,” Faber shares the planning behind a Forever Mouse, a premium product that the company hopes will be the last you ever have to buy. There’s also a discussion about a subscription-based service and a deeper focus on AI.
For now, details on a Forever Mouse are thin, but you better believe there will be a catch. The Instant Pot was a product so good that customers rarely needed to buy another one. The company went bankrupt.
Come on. How many firmware updates can we really expect for a mouse?
I've had an m570 for about 10 years. Every time it broke, I fixed it. Why do we need a subscription?
This is not about you, but about them. It's not that you need a subscription. It's that they need you to have a subscription.
But they need to convince me that the subscription is worthwhile!
If you are going to ask questions maybe you are not the target demographic.
Damned straight! I'll stick with my boring old non-ai grandpa mouse.
Back in my day the mice had a tail, no scroll wheel, and only 2 buttons!
Back in my day, mice had balls.
We used trackballs and loved them. We greased the mechanism with our forehead sweat as was the fashion at the time.
When I were a lad, we used vi.
They'll remove any mice from the market that doesn't have a subscription model and others will follow suit.
Future mouse DLC: "Special promotion! $5 discount on unlocking right mouse button!"
Good luck with removing aliexpress mice from the market
I doubt the open source options will be adopting this strategy either.
I have a ploopy trackball and love it.
How does it compare to the m570?
I use a left handed one, so I can't really comment on most ergonomic computer accessories.
They look nice, but quite expensive.
If they only had a thumb trackball...
Like this?
Dang phone, not sure how I missed it. Thanks! Although oof on the price... Another poster mentioned elecom, they have a quite the variety of thumb trackballs, think I'll buy few of those for the price of one ploopy: https://elecomusa.com/collections/trackball Edit:spelling
True, they are expensive. But it's one of the very few left-handed, ergonomic mice/trackballs I've ever found.
Damn, I never thought to look there! Thanks!
Not if they and their competitors remove all the other options.
Nah. There will always be companies just selling a mouse.
You wouldn't print a mouse.
Are they bluetooth?
Hell yeah!
Almost none, why the hell would a mouse ever need firmware updates except to fix fuckups? It has one job, translate clicks and movements into signals for the computer.
I used an HP dead stock "this ships with every computer we sell" optical mouse for twenty years before it broke.
All my mice are similar ages, even my Logitech wireless.
I did just have a 15 year old one die, but it got used about 8 hours a day all that time.
So Logitech can bill every one of its customers every month.
No sale. It's ridiculous.
Joke's on you; they're into that shit. Their techno-feudalist wet dream is to force you into rentals for everything.
This from a company who refused to update their drivers for a USB speaker system for 7, even though it was still actively being sold at stores.
I had bought it a few months earlier at a Fry's, on sale. I think the sku was just about 2 years old, just expiring on their support policy, as a new OS dropped.
Their customer support told to me kick sand.
Fuck Logitech. Their Mice are the only thing I've continued to use because they are actually reliable. But now they're trying to enshitify that behind a subscription, so that's it.
Bull-fucking-shit. That's just not how any of this works.
There are plenty of companies that make appliances that last a long fucking time, and don't have to rely on fucking DLC micro transaction AI bullshit. The reason Instant Pot went bankrupt is the same reason a ton of popular companies have recently had issues: They got bought by private equity (who also owned Pyrex and fucked them over), saddled with a shitton of bad debt, squeezed of every bit of brand value they had, and then left to fall apart as the PE firm made off with millions.
The fact that the writer correlated "quality, durable good" with "unsuccessful business and bankruptcy" is absolutely one of the worst takes, and really shows just how pervasive this disgusting idea of "must be disposable to be profitable" really is.
Thank you for typing this up because I was not capable of doing it because vitriol messes up my WPM.
Partially true, but also they wouldn't invest in something that lasts forever (without it costing an absurd amount of money or the subscription requirement). I like this video that shows the issue pretty well. (TLDW: Communist Germany made glass so durable it didn't break as a product to sell to the west. No company would purchase it though because they made most of their profit from selling replacements. The glass is now what we call Gorilla Glass, which is really only available on phones, which are designed to be replaced every few years anyway.)
100 years ago there was a meeting amongst lightbulb manufacturers that all collectively agreed to only design light bulbs to last about 1,000 hours. They were known as The Phoebus Cartel and Included Phillips and GE. Up until this agreement lighbulbs were typically lasting up to 2,500 hours. The manufacturers essentially created the concept of planned obsolescence because people weren't buying as many lighbulbs as they wanted and it was decided to stop making longer lasting bulbs with higher costs. The whole thing started falling apart (competition of non members that were making bulbs, but they were all small operations, as well as patent expirations that GE had) and the start of world War two pretty much broke it up, as the Cartel couldn't keep everything regulated and tested due to all the travel restrictions and such. But it still remains as the first global wide creation of planned obsolescence.
Extra fun fact: the common light socket screw design/size has remained the same since 1880.
That is mostly a myth. They did agree of the lifetime, but it wasn't planned obsolescence like people act. The lifetime of a bulb is directly related to how bright it is. If you make a really dim bulb it lasts a long time, which is how that one in the firehouse is still alive. It's so dim it's effectively useless. The group met to decide on a luminosity target, which also is a lifespan target effectively.
Yes, A dim bulb is extremely inefficient, it will use a lot of electricity for a very small amount of light.
On the other hand you can make very efficient lightbulb that will be very bright for a small amount of electricity but last only for a few minutes.
The 1000 hours limits is a nice middle ground.
And what of the noble gas filled bulbs that were both brighter and longer lasting?
i mean, all incandecant bulbs are filled with a noble gas, Argon. If they didnt any bulb would have a lifespan measured in seconds.
Back in the 1920's and earlier they were commonly just in a vacuum.
Not if you read/believe most of the info on the wiki. US government fined GE over it in 1949.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
No, even the wiki (under "purpose") says the myth is probably not true. It was a cartel though, and therefore illegal in many/most places. It just wasn't because the planned obsolescence. Lowering lifespan also led to selling more bulbs though, so it was useful for that.
Businesses could save a lot of money by just firing their CEOs
If anyone's job could be replaced with ChatGPT, it's these chucklefucks.
And now I no longer wish to buy Logitech products...
I no longer wished to use Logitech products after using G-Hub. Most horrible software.
I set my settings using ghub then stored it on the mouse and uninstalled ghub. Works really well for me
I stopped when they added AI to their software
Logitech's desire to put AI in my IO devices is exactly why I am moving to a different manufacturer. I want solid hardware, not hardware as a service. HP also is trying this with printers and it's total bullshit.
If I am paying a monthly fee, I'd better not also have to buy garbage hardware. That better be provided for free and replaced when it inevitably fails.
Logitech pissed me off years ago when they didn't honour a warranty because I bought a flawed product before they extended the warranty on them.
I have not even been tempted by their products because there are so many other peripheral manufacturers out there that put out great products.
I hate this approach to business.
Coupling subscriptions with forced obscolecence is a nightmare. If HP made the best printer money could buy, using it with a subscription model would be a hard sell. But they make shit printers that die at the drop of a hat, so coupling them with a subscription is asinine.
Logitech makes a decent mouse, passable webcams, and shit keyboards.
Just in case anyone from Logitech ever reads this, I own 2 MX Verticals, an MX Ergo, and an MX Master 2S. I love them all, but I'd rather use an OEM bog standard Dell mouse than pay for a subscription.
They don't even make good mice technically because of planned obsolescence.
Their switches die, intentionally, long before the life time of any other components on their mice. And have for nearly 10 years now.
They way I got introduced to hardware as a service is that it was a solution to planned obsolescence.
In theory, a hardware subscription means that if you pay for X months of that hardware, you gonna get it. Doesn't matter if it breaks, it should be replaced while your subscription lasts.
So taking that into account, the less the hardware breaks, the more profit they have. So not only should it eliminate planned obsolescence, it would make engineering for durable products an actually very profitable business.
So, what is the difference between this approach and just selling an extended warranty?
With subscription you don't own the product, but also you don't pay up front.
With subscription, you should be able to buy as many months as you want. With extended warranty, I think companies usually only sell 1 extended warranty per item.
(I'm pulling the prices out of my ass, don't try to calculate which one is more "worth it".
Extended warranty:
30€ for the mouse (3 years warranty) 5€ 1 year extended warranty.
You are sure to have the item for at least 4 years. After that, you can use it until it breaks.
Subscription:
1€/month
You get to use the mouse for exactly the months you paid for. No more, no less
Also, with subscriptions you are likely to get a second hand item. But when you buy the item you are gonna get 1st hand unless you shop at Amazon.
I personally wouldn't buy a subscription, I prefer to own it. However, I'll admit that it's not black and white, and subscriptions also have some benefits.
Another way instead of per time window is per use. For example, in the case of a mouse, per clicks.
So if you buy 1.000.000 clicks and rarely use the computer, you get to own the mouse for a very long time for very cheap, just in case you ever want to use it. This is basically today's planned obsolescence, except the item doesn't become trash, the company would just reset the counter and you or the next client can keep using it. If you use it a lot, it's going to become real expensive real fast though.
I used to just buy Logitech when I needed something because it's good quality and good value, they seem to be intent on moving away from both
The Logitech k120 is a worthy warrior. Id never get an expensive keyboard from them though
It's really insane that they want the good press and loweree manufactured volume of a quality item... But also for it to fail and you need to buy up whenever they arbitrarily say so.
It's horrifying. Absolutely broken fucking mindset that only works if we truly are trapped having to buy from them and I just don't see how that can be true before someone says fuck it and competes.
It's so grossly profit seeking I just will feel really defeated if it actually works.
The Logitech UltraX Flat was hands down the best keyboard I ever used in my life. Sadly after decades of use (with a ps/2 to usb adapter) at some point some key pressure sensors started failing, so I had to switch. But I swear if I ever see a new one on ebay, I'll get it in a heartbeat.
I've already got a Forever Mouse though... I'm using a $25 Logitech M705 I bought 10 years ago, before they cheaped out and replaced the metal scrollwheel with a plastic one. Works great. I have to replace the battery once every two years or so. I've got an 11-year-old Logitech mouse at work too.
My MX510 from 2005 died recently. I'm sure it's just a cable issue since if I straighten it out perfectly, once in a while I can still get a signal through. So I'm contemplating of desoldering it and put a new one in, it was otherwise flawless.
MX Master Series has a metal scroll wheel. It's an amazing mouse for my purposes.
Expensive, yes, but I have no doubt it'll outlast a lot of other mice.
My g9x is getting flakey, and I'm very sad.
Man, we had to replace the fuse on ours four times before we gave up on it; I don't think 'product longevity' was a major factor in the brand's downfall. It also did a shit job of cooking rice.
I also highly doubt Logitech's ability to make a "forever" mouse with how many I've had to RMA due to faulty left click switches. Get your product design, supply chain, and QA in order before you start trying to tie people down with wholly unnecessary and unwanted subscriptions. Shitty ent seeking MBA vampires fucking everything up for everyone.
Instant Pot didn't simply go bankrupt. It was busted out by private equity.
Oh see I didn't interpret the forever mouse as a single product, more likely they'd like to use even cheaper switches and components and make RMA/replacement normal under the subscription. New mouse every year for just $14.99/month - what a deal! Right, guys? Guys?
The Instant Pot is actually great at cooking rice using the pot-in-pot method: put a plain metal bowl with your rice and water (usually 1:1 ratio) in the Instant Pot on a wire rack and add about 1 1/2 cups of water to the Instant Pot. Steam for 10 minutes for white rice. Perfect every time.
We just got a rice cooker instead
Yeah I’d love to but I already have too many kitchen gadgets and not enough storage space 😂
Another proof ceo's that most of those cunts in charge either got there by winning the birth lottery or bullshitted their way up and are complete clueless idiots. Any sane person with an idea of what they are doing knows its all bullshit.
The answer to this is simple. Go private. Get a buyout and delist so you aren’t literally required to permanently and constantly grow your company bigger and sell more than you did last year for the rest of eternity in the name of the almighty shareholders.
Sell great hardware to people who need it, develop a loyal fan base, and treat them right, forever. I guarantee that the rate of valid, reasonable purchases of high-quality, durable new mice and keyboards is more than enough to sustain a very healthy company full of very talented employees forever, as long as they aren’t required to always make more money than ever before.
Oh wow I never wanted to stop buying Logitech before. I guess there's a first time for everything. Fuck this noise.
yeah, I've always gone for Logitech and they have had great customer support. i guess I'll have to look for something else next time i replace a peripheral.
Really? They went to shit over a decade ago. Cheap $30 Chinese Amazon mice surpassed Logitech in quality around 2013. I was getting so sick and tired of spending $80 on a mouse with a middle click that was going to break in a couple of years.
I really like their master MX master mice. I find them much more comfortable than alternatives.
Yeah I bought a Logitech mouse and a little after a year the right click went bad. It would randomly click twice, never stop clicking, or not click at all. I ended up ordering some replacement japanese switches on digikey for like $5, unsoldered the old ones and resoldered the new ones. It's been close to 10 years now and with the new switches, it's the best mouse I've ever owned. I'm not happy with Logitech but I am happy with my custom mouse
2013 might be an exaggeration, but yea most Chinese brand mouses (Lamzu for example) are solid picks unless you care about software
Welp, looks like I just bought my last Logitech mouse. I've sworn by them for over 20 years.
Nope, fuck you Logitech.
same. every logitech peripheral i've ever had was great, and the one time an old mouse i'd been using for 2 years broke, i emailed them about it and they sent me a MX master 2S, which was several tiers above the one i had, for free.
oh well. time to find a new mouse brand
Their flight sim stuff is absolute fucking garbage
Weird, because I'm pretty sure all other mice can be used forever, as long as they don't break.
I'm pretty sure the 'forever' part refers to the payment model.
Then I will "forever" not buy anything from them
Allow me to translate the business language to understandable terms....we (Logitech) will sell customers (us) a hook. When they bite, they bite forever. They will pay us (Logitech) to use their own hardware! What a bunch of idiots!
Additionally I would like to propose that we don't sign up for apple or other fruit rentals or delivery subscriptions. If you want a banana, go to the market and get one. Then eat the banana. It should cost only a few cents since you basically consume the thing. Now, if you want a mouse, go to Amazon and buy one from there that is not Logitech. Then just hook it up to the computer and use it! That's it! In fact, if you don't return it, your compromise with the seller ends when they deliver it to your door. Both you and the seller walk away happy. There's no fucking subscription to a mouse! WTF! That's a company with two legs just about done shooting one off.
Not yet
Well switches for their MX Master series break all the damn time.
I hate that I keep buying them, but they really are a perfect mouse other than the fatal flaw that pops up about 19 seconds after the warranty expires...
Yeach unfortunetly purerly from ergonomical point of view those mf truly make the best mouses at every price point . Cheap 10 dolars mouse and keyboard, still the best ergonomics for this price. Lift , ergonomical mastery ,pure joy to use. Unfortunetly switch broke after a year and a half and since it was company provided mouse from the time when they went on a shopping spree for office equipment they dont have then anymore ( i literaly took the last one ). Now the only replacment i got is the cheap mouse and keyboard also from Logitech that on the other hand refuses to break and i want a goddam excuse to buy myself something better.
I'm at the point where I'm maintaining three classic thumbball mice with a bag of replacement microswitches. I wouldn't consider that viable for the typical consumer, but it works for me. Also these particular bluetooth models come with their own USB-A receiver, so I don't rely on software updates either.
That said, the ploopy thumbball may be my next daily driver.
Trying to make a flagship product and keep it pumped up through subscription sounds a lot like live service games.
And those all fucking suck.
Fuck that, no thanks! How about you build repairable mice that can last forever instead?
With open source firmware. Preferably QMK + VIA.
User-serviceable switches would be so nice...
Meh, I'm going to hold out for a subscription-based AI-enabled mousepad.
With OneDrive ....
This is intended to appeal to investors instead of customers.
Hey I need my mouse drivers to do chatGPT api calls, how else will I be able to email my toaster when I want to put bread in?
Yeah I really can't imagine any scenario where I want my mouse to... Help me prompt AI??
Oh I have a Forever Mouse. Bought a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical in 2001 or so. Still works. Use it with my Raspberry Pi sometimes. Also bought another Microsoft wireless laptop mouse like a decade ago. Still works just fine.
...The Logitech mouse that I bought against my better judgement in 2020 is starting to show signs of fatigue.
Also how the everliving hell do you add AI to input devices? Are they just going to guess what I'm pointing at?
Maybe they mean one with a nuclear battery.
Think one of those UI's that move your mouse to an "OK" button, but even worse, and everywhere (..ehm, everywhere it feels like). Add a Crowdstrikeability potential and you've got your AI crap. What's not to love about it? (and by "love" I mean "hate"...)
Bite my shiny metal PS/2 adapter
Hard pass.
I don't see the point of this. Why would a mouse need constant software updates? I could plug in a 20 year old mouse and it would work just fine on my PC, no updates needed.
There is no point... This corporate parasites justifying their new scam.
But like. AI. Ya know? Predictive mouse algorithm to make you clicky more gooder
"This is a premium feature. To unlock the right-click menu, just enjoy this 30 second ad, or click to add to your monthly subscription."
And I don’t want to buy it. Not everything needs to be a subscription.
Or an app.
More like "[almost] everything needs not to be a subscription!"
Yep. Products should never need subscriptions. Only services. Things like Photoshop even, absolutely shouldn’t be subscriptions.
And they wonder why we pirate.
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A MOUSE
This reminds me: I got a Logitech mouse as a gift a while back, and to get it functioning I needed to install a settings app for it for some reason. Today, I find in my Task Manager that they somehow installed an AI assistant platform thing using that settings app. I'm currently in the market for a new mouse lol.
Man the Logi settings app was utter trash, so slow to run or even change settings.
Ratbagd + Piper gave me the ability to change my DPI (no switch on the super light) without any bloat.
That sounds perfect for what I need actually. Thanks for sharing that!
Was another perk switching to Linux, my keyboard I can bake in profiles (using a windows VM) then dispose of that VM once my keyboard is setup the way I wanted.
SteelSeries software is horrendous, up there with the Razer.
The first thing I did after purchasing an MX Master a few years ago was block the update server, after realising it downloads update binaries over plain HTTP and tries to automatically run them on boot 🤡
Very nice mouse tbh, just such a shame the company and their software is toilet water
I use Solaar to change the mouse settings
So many CEOs these days have their heads completely up their own ass when it comes to the concept of "buy it for life".
Reminder that getting a subscription service means moving away from something you buy occasionally to something you pay forever
Not only that, but there's a 100% chance they sell this shit to you as a forever mouse, then in a few years if it's not making them money hand over fist, they'll discontinue it and keep your money.
Since we’re pretty much all in agreement that Logitech has enshittified with the Great Ones like Ubisoft, Hewlett Packard, and more, let’s talk about our last great products they made that we will no longer recommend! 😃
These are all my products that I love, and have been extremely high quality. All of them work just fine to this day!
Oh Logitech. Why can’t you just make products we can own instead of following the greedy “As a Service”? Ah well! Bound to happen one day (Steam, please please don’t ever become public).
I have a Logitech G710+. After years (like 8) of use, the keycaps were starting to crack with age. I reached out to Logitech and they sent me all new keycaps, free of charge, despite being several times past the warranty period.
Truly amazing customer service.
That's quality right there. You probably would have bought those key caps, but they just sent them to you for free. That's going above and beyond, and that's how you keep a customer. Noctua is all about that, and I'll continue to buy their products and recommend them.
Such a shame, Logitech. You were great but now you're turning into crap.
yea, would have happily paid for keycaps, since i was so far past any kind of warrenty.
Ended up buying some nicer, PBT kecaps 4 years after that anyways. Still use this keyboard, even if part of the backlighting has failed in the... 12 years.
https://i.imgur.com/anIU1RQ.jpeg
That’s a good looking keyboard right there mate.
Nice keycaps! Can you please provide link to them? Thinking of getting some fancy ones myself.
Same with me! I bought that keyboard because at the time it was the cheapest mechanical keyboard I could find that wasn't an Aliexpress special, and it's still working well for me.
The keycaps for that keyboard have a known design issue - the plastic part that connects it to the key is too thin and breaks easily - which is why I think they're willing to send out free replacements.
The aggressive enshittification of everything is why I've started downloading games from gog instead of steam.
Its why i have a jellyfin server.
Now its why ill have to find a new favorite mouse to use and have multiple backups of (once my g502 wireless and the backup finally die)
Hello fellow GOG fan! I own 620 games on GOG, and I license 214 games on Steam. Granted some of those Steam games do not have DRM, so consider that an estimate.
Man you sound almost exactly like me lol. A lot of angry persons who have been burned by companies are becoming like us. What sent me over the edge was when Ubisoft threatened to shutdown their legacy activation servers, which would have led to me losing the DLC I purchased for my physical Wii U copy of Splinter Cell Blacklist. They backpedaled after significant fan backlash, but now I’ve been radicalized. I avoid “as a service” to the best of my ability and am deliberately hostile to these corporations.
I bought half a dozen G502's when I found out they were changing them many years ago, and I've only opened 1 of them. Pretty sure I'm good for life at this point.
I like the M705 for my work PC. Wireless and the batteries literally last for years. They do eventually die to the 'double click of death' so no points for longevity of hardware.
Also have a G13 that I like. Never found a better gaming half-keyboard but they stopped making them a long time ago.
did you ever watch the youtube 'deepdive' into the double click?
Turns out they are using an older switch which, while great at the time, wants a higher voltage than modern, electricity diet, mice.
https://youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA
I have not but I'll check it out later. Thanks!
Dude, the G502 is such a great mouse. Mine has lived through so many years of gaming and is still chugging!
If you get ~7 years of life out of the M705, I would consider that to be quality since it would last through thousands of hours of usage. Any less and I would consider it a dud product, but that is certainly my opinion only there.
Never heard of the G13 before, so I looked it up and I think that's pretty cool! This would have been a product I would have to try to see if it would fit my use case for gaming. A mini keyboard with a joystick seems cool, and admittedly I'm hovering my left hand in the air and trying to mimick what that would be like. Hard to conceptualize without actually trying it! I hope you got good use out of it, it does seem really cool.
If Logitech didn't enshittify, they should've made their own version of the Power Glove. 😀 The Power Glove was way before my time on Earth, but man that would've been cool to see for PC.
I have never found anything as nice for my hand as the G502, and it has the perfect amount of buttons. That's why I had to stock up!
The G13 got really popular AFTER Logitech discontinued it, because there really hasn't been anything like it on the market. I went looking to stock up on those too, but I was too late - they will go for a couple hundred bucks or more, used, when you can find one!
Such a shame too because I always recommended the G502. I love the feel, the ergonomics, and the button placement. I love the customizeable weights you can swap in. I used to play with all the weights, but then over the years I took them all out and now use none. My aim got better in FPS games - I went from steaming hot garbage to just regular garbage LOL.
I'm going to watch a couple review videos of the G13 to see if it's up my alley. And if yes, I'll add that bad boy to my watch lists and pick up a used one if I can score it for a decent price.
Interesting... I've had one for 10 years, use it nearly daily, and haven't had any issues.
I’m on my 3rd or 4th one now. They still always last a good 5 years.
I use their webcams and I'm not very impressed with the results. They haven't updated the technology in a decade or more.
That's a fair point. It's interesting because this month I was considering upgrading my webcam to a 1080p 60fps one and certainly was going to consider them. I probably would have lightly researched a new Logi webcam and then bought it considering their track record and how wonderful my products have been.
I want to give companies my money in exchange for good products, but it's weird! My morals won't let me for some reason. It's like I don't agree with Logitech or something! Oh well! I'll keep my money in my pocket and save it for a better product that doesn't treat their customers like cattle.
It's such a pain to find things. Would be nice to just have a list of products that work decently without subscriptions or printer ink economy bullshit.
When enough people are burned, that list will arise spontaneously. I'm sure there are some that are out there, but they probably are not well-known yet.
For example in the privacy community, Privacy Guides is one of the golden sources. I expect we'll see something soon for products that avoid enshittification.
If you don't mind spending money on a good product, the Insta360 Link is a fantastic webcam. It has a 3-axis gimbal which lets you pan, tilt, and rotate. It has an AI feature that's actually useful - it can follow you as you move around.
Their control software only works on Windows and MacOS but I'm working on something similar for Linux.
My previous logi mouse lasted for a decade before giving up.
My current MX mouse lasted almost 3 years before the rubber started separating from the case at the palm area.
I don’t know if I will buy another logi mouse.
I hear you dude. That 10+ year reputation is what drove me to buy their stuff, along with all the glowing user recommendations.
I heard that you can make the rubber last longer on mice by periodically cleaning them to slow their chance of breaking down, but I never experienced the rubber actually separating. That happened to my spouse's Razer mouse (heh, that rhymes).
But I suppose that, apart from this whole post's focus on "as a service", that possibly Logi products have begun to go downhill quite recently. I wouldn't know, all of mine have been great. Sucks for your MX mouse, but I feel you on the uncertainty of buying future Logi mice.
You know, a subscription-based, AI-enhanced mouse is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm so pumped! And for only $200 upfront plus a monthly subscription? Sign me up!
I hope they'll also make it easy for me to top up my monthly mouse-click credit through an app that just needs to know my precise location and my contacts and be allowed to display itself over other apps for accessibility reasons. Hopefully I can even check my mouse's status remotely through the app too, and adjust the colour of its LEDs to reflect my unique personality.
And maybe they'll even be able to personalize my mousing experience so my mouse can serve me better, by anonymously tracking what I hover over and click on. That'd be fantastic. And if the AI could also use this information to notify me about relevant deals and offers from their trusted partners, that would be the cherry on top.
This is going to be great! Thanks Logitech - I love it!
Weird, I've had my mouse practically forever and it works just fine. I guess I better throw it in the trash so I can jump on this subscription based opportunity.
looks down at right hand resting on a Logitech M570 I've made several repairs on
I can see their strategy. Keep using microswitches rated for 1,200 clicks and you might need a subscription to these things if you don't know your way around a soldering iron.
I'm curious what monumentally terrible ideas they have for adding machine learning or LLM features to HIDs.
I'll go out of my way to avoid ever owning any of them, but I'm curious.
So its a 'Forever Mouse' as long I 'Forever Pay'
This line made me think that maybe the subscription was a different thing? So I googled and found this interview: https://www.theverge.com/24206847/logitech-ceo-hanneke-faber-mouse-keyboard-gaming-decoder-podcast-interview:
Okay...
Also from that interview:
Guys, you are not giving Logitech enough money! You can do better!
Oh good grief. Do they really think they can adopt the subscription-for-heated-seats model, and get people to use their high-end computer peripherals as some kind of flex? I just don't see people holding their "Logitech^tm^ Gamer PC Lease" over anyone else's head.
My optimism has me thinking that this CEO is deliberately tilting at windmills in order to appease shareholders, because Logitech has been around long enough to be steady-state (not growing much) at this point.
It felt like a joke based on the tone.
4 coffee???? Damn
I think this idea is even stupider than it seems, and that's already pretty fucking bad. I don't think this idiot understands that people who still buy mice are people who didn't "upgrade" to iPads or just use their phone as their only computer. We are power users, and are more likely to smell the bullshit than anyone else.
Yeah that's gonna be a no for me dawg.
Last mouse I bought from them had a 2 years warranty. I thought okay fine. 1½ year after purchase, it started double-clicking.
Reached out to customer service, proof of purchase and everything. Agree that mouse need to be replaced, so they send me a new mouse, but for some reason they shipped it from the US to Canada and the custom duty was almost the price of a new mouse.
Big wtf, next time I'll ask for either a refund or some kind of way to get a free replacement from a store in Canada..
I havent bought a mouse in 15 years. My current one was a spare while working IT.
My previous mouse lasted about 15 years, replaced it with an MS intellimouse and it's been going for about 3-4.
Customs fees are BS, but I've never had to pay them on a replacement product. Yet. I'm waiting on a couple OtterBoxes from the USA next week
I'm not sure Logitech can build a forever mouse anymore with the way their QA's gone. Who's buying new mice regularly anyway?
I've owned a g502 for over a decade now. I know their products are such shit now, I don't know what I'll do when it breaks. Definitely not get a mouse subscription, at least
I was a flunky of Logitech for most of my life, but after multiple mice in a row that developed the double click issue in far too short a time, I have vowed to never buy another.
I've been super happy using simple, cheap assed mice and I can't tell the difference in the slightest.
$20 mice ftw.
If you have basic soldering skills and care enough to do this, the mouse buttons can be replaced for less than a dollar each. Not that this excuses Logitech's poor QA, but my
g502g305 will last damn near forever if I keep replacing the switches like I have been.Yep,
I tried this, but damaged my middle click in the process.
did you ever watch the youtube ‘deepdive’ into the double click?
Turns out they are using an older switch which, while great at the time, wants a higher voltage than modern, electricity diet, mice.
https://youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA
I haven't, but I'm also an electrical engineer so I'm pretty familiar with the issue haha
Fun thing you can do, is open your mouse and look up the PN of your switch on DigiKey. Filter for components with the same package/footprint, then sort by actuation force. Get a few different ones and try them out. They sell good brands there.
I play a lot of shooters, so my left click is real easy to press, and my right click is ~3x harder.
the video makes a point that the wetting current for the switches Logitech uses is... i think 5v, however modern mice use much lower voltages. He doesn't attribute it to malice, more "we have been using this part for 2 decades, why switch"
I ordered in these myself: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004754399010.html but damaged the middle mouse click during disassembly.
My latest issue is the rubber on the g604 is starting to warp. No idea how I'll ever fix that in a satisfactory way.
The true Achilles heel of Logitech gear is their rubberized feeling coatings on things. My mouse's coating started to fail from daily use in a couple of years.
Mine started rubbing off after ~6mo
oh man that's what killed my MX Ergo. I'm back to using M570's with a simple plastic shell because they don't rot.
I have an old M560 that I actually really like. Other than ABS shine, the only sign of age is that the "back" button you click by nudging the scroll wheel from right to left does double clicks. Do you happen to know if that is similarly fixable?
I really should have done that. I replace capacitors in monitors and do other bits of soldering, including making my own audio cables. Seems like a natural extension. I bet I still have those mice in a storage tub.
You're supposed to get fucked and enjoy it.
I mean, for like half of the humanity this is unironically true
This is how you lose your fanbase. I'll never ever pay for something like this.
Yeah, I bought two expensive Logitech mice and my impression was they got WAY too much cash from me for it. Their reaction? Nope not remotely enough. Need a guaranteed stream from all customers.
I think I've bought my last Logitech product. I also have one of their keyboards and one of their webcams. In all cases they are semi okay products and the only reason I bought them is how bad some the other options I found out there are. Not that I looked at their lines and said "oh these seem great." They were always a last resort.
Logitech already offers a forever mouse for many years: G502. There is noting more to add to a perfect and lasting mouse.
And now they want to reinvent the wheel? Sounds like this is already going wrong.
I love the new magnetic wheel. Got right after my g502 died
I don't see any mention of changes to the wheel
Maybe they could focus on making better mice! The super light x 2 is falling behind more and more every year
If I made my thoughts known about this development, I'd be permanently banned from lemmy.world.
Buy a ploopy mouse and have your mouse forever. It is fully open sourced with QMK software.
Why my favorite mouse company gotta start with this bullshit. GOT-DAMN!
I will continue buying cheaper (and wired) mouses from no-name Chinese brands.
I have a Steelseries Rival 3 I've used for years now, it's a lower end cheap one, but the quality is really good, and it's still as good as new.
I'll never buy a wired mouse again 🤷♂️
I never want to have to worry about charging my mouse 🤷♂️
A mouse that takes AA batteries are the best! No charging needed, just replace the battery once or twice a year.
Or use rechargeable AAs.
I am getting sick of one-off proprietary batteries in a form factor I'll never see again or worse are permanently baked into a device.
Takes an hour to charge my mouse, and the charge lasts for ~2months. My mouse becomes a wired mouse for that hour.
Reminds me of what happed to GE’s lighting division. They used to have a steady stream of income from people replacing burned out bulbs. The CFLs and LED bulbs came in.
GE made a ton of money selling the new bulbs to homes, businesses and cities, but then the money dried up because the new bulbs lasted way longer.
Then they started scrambling to do weird shit with lighting. Like cramming cameras and sensors into bulbs so lights could be used for surveillance in cities and stores. They were basically struggling to find a new reason why you’d want to by a new bulb.
The LED elements last a lifetime, but the driver transistors burn out as frequently as traditional bulbs
My entire house is LEDs. I was a pretty early adopter and I still have the OG Phillips bulbs floating around my house.
In 10 years I’ve only had one bulb crap out. With incandescent bulbs there were always several a year that needed to be swapped. Back in the day I used to have a box of extra bulbs in my closet. I no longer keep that box because it’s just taking up space for something that is almost never touched.
Most articles confirm my experience and show that LEDs have muuuuch longer lifespans.
Oh God if they put AI in the MX Master Mice then I'm boned.
Not everything has to be a subscription.
Unless you’re a greedy CEO. Then everything should be a subscription!
Damn Logitech, you've been my go-to for peripherals for a couple of decades now
Don't fuck this up
You know they will, just making a good product isn't enough, they need to somehow sell us more bullshit so they can make infinitely more money than ever all the time. So Logitech will absolutely go through with something like this
Logitech CEO can fuck right off.
Logitech's quality has been steadily dropping. Got fed up with thumb trackball buttons failing in less than 2 years. Logitech was my go to for most computer peripherals, but I just can't justify replacing all my family's trackballs every two years at $60 a pop.
Switched over to Elecom because they are one of the only brands selling wired thumb trackballs and so far they are great. It's unfortunate, my first Logitech trackball lasted at least 10 years. It never broke, just got lost in a move. Used to love their stuff but, the only thing left from the Logitech I bought my first trackball from is the name.
Never heard of Elecom. Thank you for that.
And I want whoever came up with this idea to spontaneously combust, but neither of us is going to get what we want.
Magnesium mouse
OR
Forever subscription
Hard to decide here, fellas. Idk.
If I mistake your shit ideas as an Onion article, you should be fired. Who would pay monthly on a mouse?
More like the never mouse, you can keep the monthly sub peripherals.
Logitech stuff is already sort of a subscription based service, since their stuff is designed to fail after around 2 years.
Really? Been using a logitech trackball at work for 14 years now. My k750 keyboard lasted me almost 10y until the battery completely gave up and I wanted to upgrade. My Mx keys has lasted me for years since.
Similar stories for my mice, none of them have failed, I've only upgraded because I wanted lighter, more/less buttons or for other reasons.
My trackball mice have had parts deteriorate at around the two year mark before. After this one breaks, usually the scrollwheel or the left click key, I'm switching to an opensource trackball system.
Their recent offerings have been a big disappointment. Gone were those days where you'd buy a logi mouse and keep it for atleast 5 years.
given how much is going on in the diy / open source keyboard community, I'm sure there's going to be some options
100%.
Even today, you can buy a component kit and 3D print your own custom shell for a DIY mouse. (the hardware quality is alright)
I can only imagine what the OSS community will do once companies like Logitech try rolling this crap out on a larger scale. It's like the outrage against all things wrong with printers, except so much lower tech that almost anyone could build their own.
In the DIY space, I think trackballs have seen more development, mostly because there's really only three or four companies that make usable trackballs at all, and one of them is Logitech.
Try getting them to last longer than 2 years before the scroll wheel breaks before you try to stump this shit
There's one way subscription-based hardware might be a good idea: it would motivate the companies to focus on quality and repairability, because they would be the ones who have to deal with that stuff. Unless of course if the EULA of such hardware is complete shit. Which of course it will be.
It will be much cheaper for the company to replace rather than repair, then they don't have to pay technicians
CEO : No, not that kind of forever
I use a computer a lot, and I have an expensive keyboard and mouse. I'm the target market in a sense; if there was a compelling enough upgrade to either, I'd probably buy it.
I can't imagine what software features they could possibly offer that would qualify, doubly so as a subscription. I picked my mouse because it has lots of buttons, a responsive sensor, low-latency wireless, and it runs on a standardized replaceable battery. It would be hard to improve any of that with software.
MaaS?
Considering I've only ever bought a new mouse with an old one broke, and therefore did not work at all, I can't foresee any possible reason to buy one of these things. Unless they're made of fucking titanium with and have an 80-year power supply. In which case they probably cost like $200 and I'm still going to just go buy one for 10ish bucks because I can always replace it in a few years if necessary and it's still cheaper.
Guess I'm either stocking up a couple extra 502 mice now, or I need to find a new mouse. I'm not looking forward to trying to find a new mouse, the 502 is perfect in my hand.
lol
it was these keycaps: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001681753913.html
Came with the wrong size space, so had to order a smaller in (not shown in the pic), which isn't listed on Ali anymore.
Who here uses the vendor supplied software with their mouse?
In my experience it's almost entirely useless, except for remapping buttons maybe.
Buttons mapping is the exact reason to use the software. There are only a rare few models that fulfill my requirements for a mouse... Currently I'm using a Razer, the software is heavy, clunky and obnoxious, yet I need it to properly function.This is also unfortunately one of the main obstacles for me to switch to Linux, because it's not supported.
Mousepad subs coming soon
Insanity. I spend $5.00 or so on $eCommerceSite and am perfectly happy with the result.
I make that expenditure maybe every four or five years. I don't need a 'forever mouse,' they already last practically that long.
I used to always say I want the cheapest mouse I can find. That was about $20 the last time I bought one like that, many years ago.
Pass
No.
They can try. I'm so used to Linux that driver updates aren't a concern of mine.
If they somehow make it windows only then I'll have an issue
I think it's time to stop with subscription bullshit.
I understand that they prefer that, but it quickly becomes the only purpose fulfilled by these devices which is not fulfilled by more normal ones, while the main purposes suffer, looking closer to an excuse.
Also the argument of businesses going bankrupt when something is done too well - that's by design. Progress works via removing bottlenecks one after another. Businesses which were located at those bottlenecks die. It's fine, the society doesn't need them anymore. Management and employees have mostly transferable skills and experience. If they earn less, then maybe their work is worth less, since the business failed. Investors lose money, and that's fine, it's the purpose of investment - judge wisely and win, judge poorly and lose.
It still irritates me how sometimes socialist-minded people say that it's bad that in capitalism businesses (and whole industries) fail, and this should be fixed, but then blame capitalism for the results of preventing businesses (or whole industries) from failing.
I have internalized all the leftist arguments heard here, some are fundamentally and practically very true, but sometimes fixing the thing you have would yield results just as good or better as looking for that better thing you don't know where.
OK, I've diverted from the point.
Somehow businesses making nails and screwdrivers don't complain about making too good a screwdriver. Because, well, the good screwdriver still dies after sometime, and the amount of people who need tools grows, yadda-yadda.
This should work the same way in computing, but hype-scamming customers is such a norm there, that doing business the normal way seems the way to bankruptcy to them. They should all fail. We are doing - for the real-life useful output, not for FLOPS and IOPS, - just a bit more than in 90s, but for orders of magnitude bigger cost.
No they don’t, assuming your talking about democratic socialists not old eastern bloc socialism.
I'm talking about people without ideology, who just want for the government to make it "safer" to do business so that businesses wouldn't fail. They are also usually in favor of safety nets, regulation, wealth redistribution, which is why I said "socialist-minded".