Logitech is apparently working on a mouse that’s so packed with premium features, the company thinks you’ll pay a subscription to access its miraculous wonders. The revelation of a subscription Logitech mouse was made by the company’s CEO Hanneke Faber in a recent interview with The Verge, where Faber revealed that the “forever mouse” isn’t “super far away.”
The crux of the reason why buyers might want a subscription to a Logitech mouse seems to be that it will have premium software features, with regular updates constantly opening up new possibilities. However, given how little most gamers actually change the settings of their best gaming mouse, it seems unlikely a mouse could ever provide enough constant extra utility to justify a subscription.
Faber says that the “forever mouse,” which was demoed to the CEO at Logitech’s “innovation center” in Ireland, would be analogous to buying a premium watch, such as a Rolex, that you’d plan on keeping forever and maintaining physically. Faber also went on to say that you could “think about it like a diamond-encrusted mouse,” inferring that the build quality is premium and there would be some means of physically keeping it updated.
Ultimately, though, after several back-and-forth questions pressing the issue of how a subscription model would work, and whether the subscription would be for software updates, Faber said “Yeah, and you never have to worry about it again, which is not unlike our video conferencing services today.”
The idea of any computer component being more repairable and upgradeable is absolutely one we applaud. It’s why we liked the Endgame Gear OP1 8K so much, for instance, because that mouse is easy to take apart to swap the switches, and Endgame Gear provides switch and glide pad upgrades separately. If that was the business model with the forever mouse, we’d be all for it, but the implication here is rather different.
There’s also no word on whether we’re talking about a gaming mouse or a productivity-focused mouse, such as Logitech’s MX Master mouse – we suspect it’s the latter. For a gaming mouse, a lot of software features are of debatable value, but the MX Master range does include some quite clever extra software features, such as the ability to copy and paste data from one device to another just by switching the device to which the mouse is connected.
Again, though, it seems a stretch that Logitech could produce innovative functions like that at a fast enough rate to warrant a subscription. That said, if there’s little to no upfront cost, and the subscription rate is low, it could be a tempting way to get hold of a capable mouse without an initial cost of $150 or more, which is the price of some top-end Logitech mice.
You can read our thoughts on Logitech’s latest gaming gear by checking out our Logitech G Pro Superlight 2 review, as well as our Logitech G Pro X 60 Lightspeed review, where we put its latest top-tier mouse and keyboard through their paces.
