High-end gaming mice have been malfunctioning at a much higher rate than normal lately. Browse through any gaming or hardware forum, and you are bound to encounter at least a few posts reporting premature issues with gaming mice.
The problems mentioned in these user accounts are invariably the same and are comprised of either dead or double-clicking switches. The overwhelming majority of defective micro-switches also seem to be manufactured by Omron. What makes matters worse is that Omron is generally the preferred micro-switch supplier for nearly all high-end gaming mice companies.
A Clear Case of Poor Quality Control
While one could argue that these forum reports could be a vocal minority amplifying acceptable margins of hardware failure rates, I have personally encountered the same Quality Assurance (QA) problem with two new mice this year alone.
Then there’s the fact that gaming-mouse-maker Zowie had to recall nearly its entire gaming mouse range on account of many users reporting premature double-clicking with the Omron switches. The company has since relied on Chinese micro-switch maker Huano to replace the problematic Omron parts.
Zowie isn’t the only manufacturer that has dropped Omron. Cooler Master’s brand new MM710 ultralight mouse also comes with Huano switches. Even Razer has launched its flagship wireless mouse equipped with in-house optical switches instead. Meanwhile, the Reddit and official support pages of brands that still use Omron switches, notably Logitech, are inundated with users reports of the same double-clicking problems.