The one I really don't understand is wireless keyboards and mice for desktops. Sure, let's add a battery, some unreliability, and clutter up the radio spectrum for two objects that never move relative to one another.
As for keyboards, a lot of people move their keyboard. For example, I move mine from my standing desk when standing, to a keyboard tray when sitting, since no one can seem to manufacture a standing desk converter with proper ergonomics when sitting. The keyboard always ends up at desk level, instead of just below. Unfortunately, they don't make a wireless version of my favorite keyboard, and the wire is always getting in the way when converting.
With 2.4Ghz instead of blutooth, the reliability and latency problems are gone. Wireless mice, at the high end, have no more latency than a wired mouse. No issues with reliability in my years of owning them.
The battery also lasts a week or two, with some clever software tuning so it runs at a lower polling rate when not playing games. It charges in an hour or two.
Once you've experienced a proper wireless mouse, going back is impossible. They're so freeing. You can move in any direction and amount with NO resistance. Never fight the cable again. It's the way mice were meant to be.
Wireless keyboards are a bit more dubious. In theory they can have way better battery life due to the size, but in practice most still use crappy bluetooth so they have shit polling rates. I wish I could have it though, because it's more clutter on my desk and constantly gets in the way. I move my board around a lot to put down notepads, eat, etc.
EDIT: To be clear, my battery life is a result of using an ultralight mouse with a small internal battery, for game reasons. If you want one with AAA/AA, you'll likely get months out of it no problem.
I have used a wireless mouse (I have one right now cause it's what work bought me). It is no better than a wired mouse.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m705-wireless-m...
This M550 mouse is rated for two years using the Bolt wireless adapter.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m550-signature-...
The K400 keyboard+trackpad I have routinely lasts at least couple of years despite only rated for 18 months, but it didn't get as much usage as a regular kb+m as it was mostly used as a couch keyboard or as a quick debugging combo for working on machines on a workbench.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k400-plus-...
I think I may have also replaced mouse or keyboard or both a while back, with identical models, so call that two battery changes in five years, if you want to be conservative. Maybe it helps that they're disposable instead of rechargeable.
If you travel a lot you might have to replace the USB dongle once a year, in my experience($5).
It is still used weekly or so!
That is surprising. I could have sworn we were way above that threshold now. I remember using some wireless Logitech mice that I never powered off manually and they lasted over 6-7 months of all day usage on one or two AA-batteries.
If you don't do any gaming and are fine with 125/s, you'll get a lot longer life.
My last mouse that used one AAA lasts ~3 months on a battery.
That's not remotely long enough for it not to be a pain to manage. Being battery-powered is my primary objection to wireless mice and keyboards.
That said, I do have a use case where the presence of cords are a larger problem than the hassle of being battery-powered and use a wireless mouse and keyboard there. But for everything else, nothing beats a cord.
My Logitech MX Anywhere 2 mouse would last me a few months on a single charge before swapping to this trackball. A recharge took like an hour or so, normally I'd get the low battery notification like in the morning, plug it in when I went to go to lunch, and it would be fully charged by the time I got back and be good for a few months. Or I'd get it near the end of the day, plug it in overnight, and it would be good for a few months. Really not a hassle in the slightest.
Cords on my mouse and keyboard (aside from the one use case I mentioned) give me exactly no trouble anyway, so wireless stuff solves no problem I generally have.
That was until I stepped away from my computer (on my desk at home) to have dinner and came back an hour later to it being dead (mouse buttons worked, just didn’t pick up movement).
I contacted support and they couldn’t offer any kind of support, I asked if they could do a firmware reset and they said not possible.
This was about 9 years ago now and last piece of Razer hardware I ever bought.
It can still be used while charging. So when charging it's not any different than a wired mouse.
Granted that I'm not the most avid gamer, the mouse I use on my gaming PC setup is a Logitech G604 Lightspeed which gets the better part of a year on a single Eneloop Pro AA battery, which I can swap out for a charged battery in seconds when it finally runs out of juice.
Wifi on the other hand...
I also prefer wireless mice on a lot of things because my main work machine is a laptop. Its way more convenient to just have it connected pretty much all the time. Its bluetooth as well, so I don't even have a dongle or nub constantly plugged into the laptop its just always there.
I'd really like to get a wireless mouse for my gaming desktop, but all the wireless gaming mice are pretty pricey, have relatively short battery lives, and sometimes have other oddities. Having a lower polling interval and normal DPI is fine for basic work stuff, but when I'm playing a twitch shooter like Counterstrike its just not going to cut it.
I have a wireless keyboard because it helps reduce desk clutter, and it pairs to multiple computers. Press F1, its on my personal machine. Press F2, its on my work machine. Press F3, its on my phone. This could kind of be done with a KVM switch, but why buy additional equipment when the keyboard can do it natively?
In the end the battery lasts months on a single charge, even with the backlight on. It charges with the same cable I have already on my desk for charging any USB-C device. Charging it for a few hours every few months isn't really a hassle at all. Meanwhile its normally cord free and can easily swap between devices very quickly.
The wire is less of a problem for keyboards and I don't use a wireless keyboard for my desktop, but there are still some use cases.
I find it's nice not to have that wire on my desktop, it would keep bumping on other stuff I like to have close.
This substitution has the additional benefits that a stylus is much more comfortable, faster and more precise than a mouse.