The real magic mouse is made by Logitech, not Apple

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We may never know why Apple insists on you charging its mouse upside down, like a beetle with its legs in the air, year after year after year.

I know that if you want a mouse that feels magical, you can get it from Logitech.

I don't have to place my mouse on a dock or plug in a cord when I want to charge it. I don't think about charging at all. It does. A very generous brother-in-law bought me a wireless mouse at Christmas.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The Powerplay Wireless Charging System is a mousepad with a wireless charging system that beams electricity to a special puck. It has been sold by Logitech since last year, nearly as long as Apple has been selling it.

Here is the complete description of what I did after I received this product.

• Opened the packaging
• Placed the charging slab on my desk
• Plopped an included soft cloth mousepad on top
• Removed my Logitech G502 Lightspeed mouse’s wireless USB dongle from my PC
• Plugged in the Powerplay’s USB cable instead
• Snapped the magnetic puck into the bottom of my mouse
• Switched the mouse off and on

I never thought about charging my mouse again. Not until this very story.

It has been three months, and I have never had to lift a finger because it charges on its own. Always. It was automatically done. Just by using the mouse.

There is magic.

Image: Logitech

I haven't reviewed a perfect product before, and I wouldn't want to jinx myself. Some customers claim that their mice stopped charging and that the mousepad had to be taped or glue on. It's very expensive at $120 for the mousepad alone, no mouse included. It only works with its own magnetic puck, which only fits into a few of the priciest Logitech mice, and it doesn't double as a phone charger or use Qi.

It has a 4.7-star rating on Amazon and only one negative review. I haven't noticed that nearby speakers or headphones pick up a hum when it's charging, the most common complaint.

There is nothing to notice so far. It works. No switches, no on-off switches, nothing to adjust. It is true that the charging coil doesn't cover the entire mousepad, but I have never had to think about it. Every morning and evening I play a game.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

It probably doesn't hurt that I'm using it with the Logitech G502 Lightspeed, our pick for the best wireless gaming mouse, whose comfortable grip, loads of well-placed clicky buttons, incredible performance andadjustable weight put it head and There is no discount on a bundle with both of them. The cheapest compatible mouse, the G703 Lightspeed, will cost you $70 on sale, and the Powerplay charging pad is rarely on sale.

You could get a mouse, use it until the battery dies, and then add Powerplay. Find a brother-in-law who is generous.

Andrew Coonrad, who was technical marketing manager on Powerplay, wrote the reviewer's guide back in 2017: that was kind of the idea. It was designed to be the ultimate solution for those who wanted to solve charging once and for all.

There was still a stigma against wireless gaming mice, and battery life was part of that, while the Razer Mamba and the Logitech G900 convinced me that low-latency gaming was possible over wireless, neither could hold much of a charge after a couple years of use. The G900 used an order of magnitude more energy than the newer Hero sensors, according to Coonrad.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

At first, it didn't like what it saw when it looked at wireless charging. Keeping your mouse in a fixed spot was what wireless charging meant. The HyperX has a wireless charging cradle. If you removed the instant-charge supercapacitors from the charging pads, they wouldn't work, so the mice had to be sold as a pricey set.

The R&D lab in Lausanne, Switzerland came up with a set of loop antennas that could slowly charge the mouse, even while you are moving.

I called it the dogbone when I first saw it, says Coonrad, who took a trip to the R&D facility during development.

He explains that the transformer is a giant modular transformer that has a smaller winding coil that transfers to the higher coil.

The old A4WP standard is the same as the new one, according to an FCC filing. Coonrad wouldn't say how much credit Logitech's partners might deserve: for instance, both the charging pad and the transmitter circuit board are labeled by their manufacturer.

The Powerplay mousepad is not just a charging device. I keep it inside the mouse for easy grab-and-go, so you don't need to leave the mouse plugged into your PC anymore. There is a full 32MHz Arm Cortex-M3 computer and a working Bluetooth antenna inside, though Coonrad suspects the Bluetooth was never actually used. He says that it is not a functional part of the final product, and that it is connected to the mouse using a proprietary wireless stack.

Image via FCC

The Powerplay system has remained the same since 2017: even the packaging hasn't changed. Does this product sell? The compatible G Pro Wireless, G Lightspeed, and G Pro Wireless Superlight are the most popular mice of all time according to Coonrad. He can't give sales numbers. He admits that he doesn't use them himself, but rather the smaller G305 that doesn't have a space for a Powerplay puck. He keeps a box of Energizers under his desk.

The G Pro X Superlight boasts 70 hours of battery life, compared to 60 hours for the previous generation, which is double that of the generation before. Less feature-filled mice can easily cross the 200 hour mark now.

If this is so awesome, why isn't Logitech making a bigger stink about it? The war on wireless is over.

You don't need to spend a lot of money to get a wireless mouse that doesn't die every week. It isn't as magical as never needing to charge at all.