Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever. The new head of Logitech discusses the company’s return to growth and plans to reduce its carbon footprint by half.
Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever. The new head of Logitech discusses the company’s return to growth and plans to reduce its carbon footprint by half.
Logitech’s Hanneke Faber discusses the future of the computer mouse.
The other day, in Ireland, in our innovation center there, one of our team members showed me a forever mouse with the comparison to a watch. This is a nice watch, not a super expensive watch, but I’m not planning to throw that watch away ever. So why would I be throwing my mouse or my keyboard away if it’s a fantastic-quality, well-designed, software-enabled mouse. The forever mouse is one of the things that we’d like to get to.
What made the mouse a forever mouse?
It was a little heavier, it had great software and services that you’d constantly update, and it was beautiful. So I don’t think we’re necessarily super far away from that.
I’m still stuck on, “You’re going to sell me a mouse once and it’s going to have ongoing software updates forever.”
Imagine it’s like your Rolex. You’re going to really love that.
I’m going to ask this very directly. Can you envision a subscription mouse?
Possibly.
And that would be the forever mouse?
Yeah.
So you pay a subscription for software updates to your mouse.
Yeah, and you never have to worry about it again, which is not unlike our video conferencing services today.
But it’s a mouse.
But it’s a mouse, yeah.
I think consumers might perceive those to be very different.
[Laughs] Yes, but it’s gorgeous. Think about it like a diamond-encrusted mouse.
The forever mouse, and the forever mouse could be the mouse that you keep and we just send you software updates, but it could also be the mouse that you turn in at Best Buy and we get it back or Best Buy takes it back and refurbs and resells it, which is another business model. We’re starting to do that but not yet at the scale that we need to.
"Forever mouse"
"Supported by paid subscription service"Forever mouse
Oh nice, a mouse I pay for once and will keep using forever?
I pay once?
Why the hell does a mouse need software updates? It points and it clicks. That's it. No need to make it any more complex.
Their software doesn't even work correctly with some games and who knows when they'll fix it, for example I have a g502 and in order to use a mouse click in a macro I have to run their software in admin mode. This was a fix I only found on reddit 3 years ago and still no change.
Imagine it's like your Rolex, the CEO says to the journalist who probably makes like 70k/year if they're lucky
Sounds just like a Rolex, really expensive and not worth the money.
Weren't old rolexes somewhat affordable and really durable? Like during the 40's weren't they cheap?
It depends but yeah, Rolex weren't a super luxury brand until they featured heavily in the Bond movies and when swiss watches were worn by pilots and got some prestige. That's also one of the cheaper ones to buy nowadays (2000~USD) since a ton of pilots would buy them so they are the 'mass-produced rolexes'
I'm sure the early watches were cheaper, but idk much about watches. I've used my phone as a watch for 20+ years at this point
Rent seeking shit. Capitalists are the fucking worst.
Moving away from planned obsolescence by making everything a subscription model instead is so comically capitalism-brained.
Some of those old Logitech mice basically do last forever.
So you pay a subscription for software updates to your mouse.
Yeah, and you never have to worry about it again
fundamentally not now subscriptions work. in fact, exactly the opposite.
I worry about the monthly charges every month when I check my credit card bill. I would never stop worrying about my mouse.
Wait. So now I have to pay a subscription for my mouse?! So it's a forever mouse I forever have to make payments to?
This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard of.
fucking vampires. are they also gonna bill you for each click?
Think about it like a diamond-encrusted mouse.
but it's not going to be diamond-encrusted, is it? it's going to be another thing with which to spy on you. i don't know if anyone's falling for the subscription = premium bs anymore, no matter how fancy it might look like. besides, you get a mouse for its functionality. there's stuff like programmable lights & ofc the brand name itself adds to the cost. but like, you can just get a cheap, basic mouse if that's all you need.
i hope i'm making sense here. shit like this makes me irrationally angry.
are they also gonna bill you for each click?
god don't give them any ideas
ClickCoin.
bill you for each click
These fucking parasites want a subscription for a mouse
subscription
never have to worry about it again
I don't think it works like that
Imagine it’s like your Rolex
The rage when I read this, gonna go
So it's not even a mouse designed to last forever, but a mouse leasing program with free replacements.
Or, when your old mouse breaks, order a replacement, put the broken one in the box and return it. Free replacements for as long as they keep making that mouse
We give you one mouse, you pay us for 50.
"Always online" as a requirement for your fucking mouse to work.
like. i've never had a mouse break, or had to pay for software updates. because a mouse doesn't fucking need software updates.
stop acting like you invented something other than a new scheme for extracting money from your victims. assholes.
This might be good, actually. If they are just charging for driver and hardware client upgrades, you can just use a generic or open source driver.
yeah, i cracked my computer mouse to run a homebrew FW so I can use the open source drivers.
I have a Logitech Trackman Wheel from circa 2004, and it works just fine, thank you.
At work I have the wireless equivalent from around 2015? It works fine, too, but isn't better than the old one in any way, plus you have to worry about pairing the dongle and replacing the battery.
My mouse already lasts forever and it doesn't have a subscription service.
Damn, mine keep breaking every 5 or 6 years of heavy use
I've never had a (quality) mouse break on me. The closest to broke I have is my current mionix mouse has something wrong with the cable and sometimes if it's bent just the right way it stops working. But as soon as I adjust the mouse cable it works. This issue only happens like 5 times a year, and it's my mouse at work so I've never bothered to replace it. Outside of that in 20 years I've never had a mouse fail. Same with stick drift on controllers. Honestly I think it's just user error.
Scrolled through the interview because I couldn’t believe these quotes were real. From the parts I skimmed this woman seems comically vapid, speaking mostly in buzzwords. Though she is talking to a journalist, maybe she just knows she can’t say what she really thinks about Logitech.
Best part I saw, right before the bits about the rent-a-mouse, was when the interviewer offhandedly mentioned smart homes. And she said (paraphrasing) “those are discontinued.” So the interviewer asks what people who bought smart homes will do and she answers:
We’ll continue to support, of course, what we’ve sold for some time.
Which we can agree is probably a blatant lie unless smart home owners would have grounds to sue. And then almost immediately after that they start talking about her new forever mouse.
Do Rolexes have a software subscription now? I'm not very dripped out this isn't my area of expertise, and this woman sounds pretty "out there"
Can there just please be foss linux software for controlling the lighting that works well please. Solaar doesnt detect my g203 for some reason
Usually solaar problems are actually old version of ratbag problems.
In your case though it looks like solaar applies the 103 section of the config file to detected 203s.
Bro Logitech couldn't even pay me to use their crappy mouse software. I remap my shit using a different software and never touch ghub at all.
Unless they enforce the hardware to connect to the internet and verify an active subscription i dont see how they'll get anyone to pay for this
Are you ready for subscription level replacement parts?
It would be a shame if your scrollwheel would die every 3 months and be a $30 replacement before $10 shipping.
Replacement buttons every year or so...
They want your business forever. They can't do that for free, they need you to keep paying them regularly.
Covid fucked this country up in so many ways. Most of us are forever renters in fucking everything
This makes the 1776 cosplaying characters extremely funny. Americans are so subservient to anything capital says, and again, have been since Covid
I've yet to see a subscription that doesn't abuse it's customers. Time and time again predatory practices are employed by massive multibillion dollar companies like adobe, amazon, planetfitness (and all of the f'ing gym memberships..)
This is not to mention all of the predatory landlords who simply live off of the hard work of others akin to slave ownership. Primary housing shouldn't be an investment. If you want to rent a home the renters should become mandatory purchasers and get proportional equity to how much money you put in it, a system can be divised to sell shares in housing that you can sell out.
Fuck rent. Same goes for the telcos 'renting' services to us. We pay for the subsidies to put up the fiber lines anyway, why are we paying again for them? The real costs are a small fraction of what we pay.
cool idea dude but i think what I'm going to go ahead and do is just buy a new one and return your planned obsolent trash back to you in the same box
I've been using a g502 for over 10 years. The braided cord is completely fucked and the material over the plastic on the bottom is all gone but it still works great
I went from a MX518 to a G502. That describes, like, my last 15 years or so of computer mice. I should probably buy a new G502 while they're still available and the build quality is decent, so I'm prepared when this one wears out...eventually.
"To re-enable two-button mouse mode and disable this reminder screen, please update your payment information."
watch this space for standard hid protocol shenanigans
my mouse is the cheapest one walmart had 8 years ago
What made the mouse a forever mouse?
It was a little heavier, it had great software and services that you’d constantly update,
Lol lmao. I am still using my Trackman Marble from 2009 or whatever.
Who is standing outside of my house and screaming "UPDATE YOUR MOUSE"? Show yourself coward. I will never update a mouse.
