When a Mousepad Becomes a Wireless Charger

Logitech has produced a mouse pad with a built-in wireless charger. One downside is that it’s a proprietary technology.

Seeing your wireless mouse run out of battery is certainly one of modern computing’s annoyances, often prompting the realization that you didn’t quite get around to recharging a spare battery and you’re going to have to hope you’ve got a disposable one handy.

Whether dealing with that irritation is worth a high price is another matter altogether. The Logitech product, the PowerPlay, includes a charging pad with reversible soft/hard mousemat surfaces, along with a wireless receiver for the computer and a wireless power source that clips magnetically to a mouse, with the package costing $100.

The compatible mouse models will sell separately, with the two launch models costing $100 and $150 respectively. Both are high-performance gaming mice, which makes sense as it is a market where people will run down batteries quickly.

The big disappointment is that it’s not a standard charging technology, which rules out useful features such as the mouse mat being oversized to leave you room to throw down a phone for a quick top-up. It does also lock you in to using Logitech equipment if you later replace the mouse and don’t want the pad to become redundant.

While Logitech isn’t going into detail, it’s still based around the common method of magnetic resonance. The company says that unlike some charging pads, the mouse will continue to charge while moving, regardless of where it’s positioned. Arstechnica speculates that might not be down to a clever solution but rather simply having multiple antennas across the pad to give continuous coverage.

The company also says that it’s use of a “Frequency Agility Mechanism” rules out the risk of the magnetism interfering with the signal passing between the mouse and computer/