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.