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Building the mouse Logitech won't make

(samwilkinson.io)
450 points sammycdubs | 7 comments | 25 Aug 25 15:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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bityard ◴[25 Aug 25 16:53 UTC] No.45015917[source]▶
My favorite mouse is the Logitech Anywhere MX. It's highly comfortable despite being pretty small. The back/forward buttons on the side are indispensable for web browsing, file management, and switching weapons in first-person shooters. It takes two AA batteries which last for months and take seconds to swap out. The dongle is small and has good range. The scroll wheel switches between clicky and free-scrolling.

It's pretty much the perfect mouse, IMO, to the point that I built up a back stock by hoarding new and open box on eBay. But there are two main problems:

1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).

2) The dongle is USB Type-A only. Logitech actively refused to make a USB-C unifying receiver. I assume they wanted to shift to bluetooth but they still made unifying receiver devices for years and years after bluetooth was everywhere, so I dunno.

As far as newer iterations, the Anywhere MX 2S is somewhat tolerable, but it has a built-in battery which must be charged every couple of months, which is annoying. All of the newer Anywhere MX mice are even worse because they changed the basic functionality/features of the mouse with each revision. Oh, yes and they cost $90 (!) retail now.

So basically one of my side-projects, one of these days, is going to be to try building an open source Anywhere MX clone. Should be a fun yet challenging endeavour. I know there are a bunch of online communities making their own keyboards from scratch and at great expense, is there such a thing for mice?

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Liftyee ◴[25 Aug 25 17:08 UTC] No.45016111[source]▶
Not sure about online mouse communities, but it intrigued me that you prefer replaceable AA batteries to built-in rechargeables. I realise now that because of my dislike (leaning towards hatred) of single-use alkaline batteries I unwittingly dismissed the benefits of having quick replaceability.

Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage. For more power, 14500/18650/21700 cylindrical lithium cells are my go-to.

Personally though, I find it more convenient to have a charging cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby. When the built-in battery eventually goes bad, I am confident that I could replace it myself (not a universal position).

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1. swiftcoder ◴[25 Aug 25 18:19 UTC] No.45017050[source]▶
I too was surprised by this view when I started at Oculus, where the game controller folks who had come over from Xbox were adamant that players would rather swap in a fresh pair of AAs than plug into a charging cable.

Personally I've never come around to their side of things, although I do recognise the inconvenience of charging cables while you are using a peripheral (Apple Mouse charging port location especially :D )

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2. mmh0000 ◴[25 Aug 25 18:58 UTC] No.45017583[source]▶
For me, I'll always choose a device with standard, user-replaceable batteries over a built-in battery.

1) If the device battery is dead, I can swap it out in seconds and be up and running immediately.

2) Built-in batteries fail, and replacing them ranges from difficult to near-impossible and often involves damaging the device's casing to get the built-in battery out.

When I'm spending $100 on a computer mouse, I'd really like it to last longer than the life of the battery and not have to destroy the casing to get to the battery to replace it.

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3. swiftcoder ◴[25 Aug 25 20:56 UTC] No.45018893[source]▶
Yeah. Though to be fair, the alternative in the controller space in that era was hot-swappable rechargeable battery packs - a ton of 3rd parties provided them for Xbox 360 controllers.
4. xp84 ◴[25 Aug 25 21:06 UTC] No.45019012[source]▶
IMHO Sony nailed this pretty perfectly 30 years ago on devices like the Discman: Have a footprint which can support a number of standard batteri(es), but engineer it so it also accepts and detects a specially-designed NiMH pack. When the special batery is present, allow the battery to be charged anytime external power is provided.

Now you have the best of both worlds: Economical rechargable use for the 90% of the time that the user's in their normal routine, and easily ability to swap temporarily to universally-available alkalines in exceptional situations.

Note: When I had one of these, I just used my own NiMH AAs and jammed a folded-up piece of cardstock against the detection switch, which worked perfectly fine.

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5. xp84 ◴[25 Aug 25 21:11 UTC] No.45019079[source]▶
Regarding #2 the fact that probably the majority of battery-powered non-toy devices now are designed not to ever have their battery serviced is indicative of a (in my opinion) diseased mindset of disposability. Each of the components including battery and other wear parts are only spec'd to last about 12-18 months. We're being conditioned (by one-year warranties and by the lack of repairability) to think that it's normal and expected that you discard and replace everything smaller than a car every 18-36 months, and a car every 7 years or so because "obviously" anything older than these milestones is "obsolete anyway."
6. mitthrowaway2 ◴[26 Aug 25 06:05 UTC] No.45022817[source]▶
I still use my Xbox 360 sometimes, and the only controllers that still work are the ones with AA batteries. The rechargeables have long since died completely.
7. account42 ◴[26 Aug 25 13:22 UTC] No.45026182{3}[source]▶
IMO just having the battery pack replaceable without tools is what matters more than using a standard one. As long as the device is even remotely popular there will be cheap replacements available.