The Confusing Mobee Magic Charger

I recently purchased a Mobee Magic Charger for my Apple Magic Mouse.   I have been using the Magic Mouse for a few months, I love it with the exception of its insatiable desire for AA batteries.  It seems like I am always putting new batteries in it.

I heard about the Mobee Magic Charger from some Apple-related blog and thought it was a great idea.  It is a bit pricey at $49 but I figured if it saved the aggravation of replacing batteries and it was a better choice for the environment than throwing away batteries once a month, it would be worth it.

One of the interesting features of the Mobee charger is it is inductive.  This means I put the batteries in my Magic Mouse and set the mouse down on the charging pad supplied by Mobee.  I never have to remove the batteries from the mouse, just set it on the pad when I am not using it and it charges.

I was planning to write up a detailed review of the charger but Marco Arment beat me to it and his findings and reasonings meshed so well with mine that I refer you to Marco instead.

As Marco reported, there are problems with the charger.  Although not identical to his, mine are similar.Mobee reports the mouse should take up to 5 hours to fully charge, I had mine on the charger for (2) 24-hour stints and my Mac reports a charge of 76%.  Mobee indicates in their FAQ that this is normal behavoir:

That’s a normal behavior.

 

The Alkaline batteries originaly delivered with the Magic Mouse are 1.5V per cell, meaning 3V for the 2 cells when you use brand new batteries.

 

We are using NiMH batteries, these are 1.2V per cell. Thus when fully charged that’s 2.4V which means that OSX will read 70 to 80% only.

The charger flashes its green light indicating it is charging, but never stops.  I would expect a solid light when fully charged.

I have only been using the charger for a few days and will post an update a few months from now, or sooner if I decide not to continue using it.  When we purchase Apple products we have certain expectations set;  we know we are getting quality and we know how the products work as well as that they will just work.

Purchasing this charger and putting it to use it does not follow the same guidelines we expect from Apple.  Since they use smaller batteries, the charge indicator never goes to 100%.  How is this acceptable?  A novice user will be confused by this, I was confused by this.  The mouse sits on the charger seemingly never ending its charge cycle.   When I charge my MacBook Pro I know that when charging the indicator is orange but when fully charged it is green.  There is little to be confused about here.  The Mobee does not adhere to those Apple standards and my guess is, increases their support calls.

I can’t really say I would recommend this device either, it’s confusing.  I reserve the right to change my mind later after using it for a while.

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  • http://rastasia.wordpress.com rastAsia

    Just saw this blog after writing my thought about the blinking charger.. Kinda strange isn’t it.. http://rastasia.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/blinkingmagiccharger/

  • Elkie

    If you understood what Mobee was saying per the battery voltage you would stop being confused and just enjoy the functionality that it provides.

  • LP72

    I have also purchased this product from the Apple online store and would advise other consumers to avoid it like the plague.  With quite a bit of fiddling I placed the battery pack into the magic mouse. The mouse seems to charge fine in the charger but when I switch the mouse on it doesn’t work.  I tried to remove the battery pack from the mouse, but it is near impossible. The cover is such a tight fit. I popped down to my local Apple reseller who rolled his eyes when I presented the mouse and charger – he had exactly the same problem with his product and said other customers have as well. The battery pack has to be inserted in a certain way for it to work and the fit is so tight it’s near impossible to remove it again.  I have the double whammy of a product that doesn’t work and a mouse that is now rendered useless as well. I rang my local Apple store who were (surprisingly) worse than useless. They had never seen the product before and said it wasn’t their problem.  

  • Andrew

    I just bought this wireless charger. I left it in the mouse all installed over night charging. In the morning this was still saying 7%. I decided to go back to my old rechargeable batteries and put the battery block on the charging dock. To my amazement 2 hours later the light stopped flashing and remained on. I took my old rechargeable batteries back out and put the fully charged Mobee block in and low and behold the Mac also shows it’s charge at 100%.

    Brilliant!

  • Yws

    Or, if he understood a bit physics or chemistry, he won’t be as confused either. For one thing, NiMH batteries are NOT “smaller”. The 1.2 V per cell limit is intrinsic to its chemistry and however large you make the cell, it is still going to be 1.2V. That doesn’t affect the usage in most cases though, other than messing up the readings perhaps.

  • Jen

     After reading this I had a mini panic attack and made sure that I could remove the batter pack, it was simple. The instructions show to put the side with the circle in first then push the bottom in. No problems here. However my charging pad doesnt stop blinking either :( oh well…