TECH REVIEW
When The Weekend Mix asked me to review Logitech’s new Spotlight 2 presentation remote, I seemed a reasonable choice.
I spend a fair amount of time standing in front of audiences talking about astronomy, museums and occasionally why eclipses are not signs of the apocalypse.
The first challenge was getting into the box. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Apple.
Their products emerge from their packaging with all the grace of a theatre curtain rising. The Spotlight 2 experience was rather different.
After several unsuccessful attempts to locate the correct flap, tab or hidden mechanism, I resorted to brute force and ripped the top off. Inside I found the remote and a QR code.
No manual. No quick-start guide. No charging cable. Just a QR code.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my phone handy.
Somewhere in a Logitech design meeting, somebody had clearly decided that every customer has a smartphone permanently attached to their hand, a drawer full of USB-C cables and an instinctive understanding of how these things work.
I use a Mac. The QR code led me to Logitech’s Options+ software. It wasn’t in the App Store. A visit to Logitech’s website followed, then a download, then some permission issues.
At this point, had I bought the device myself, I would have put it back in the box and made a cup of tea.
But journalism requires sacrifice. Eventually, the software installed after several minutes of watching computer mouse animations. Not actual mice, sadly.
I am not making this up.
The more I used the Spotlight, the more I suspected I wasn’t the intended audience.
Logitech appears to imagine its customers striding confidently on to TEDx stages to explain how artificial intelligence will transform the future of artisan yoghurt.
I am a sixty-something astronomer whose speaking engagements are more likely to involve Rotary clubs, friendship clubs, Probus groups and the occasional Masonic lodge.
When Logitech offers me a breathing exercise before a presentation, I can’t help feeling there may be a slight cultural mismatch. Most of my audiences are perfectly happy if the speaker remembers where he left his glasses.
To be fair, the Spotlight does some very clever things.
The spotlight effect will be really useful in larger venues. The timer can discreetly vibrate when your speaking time is running out. The battery charges quickly, and the device feels solid and well made.
My only real disappointment was the red laser pointer, which seemed surprisingly dim.
After several presentations, I reached a simple conclusion. If you regularly lecture, teach or present to audiences, the Spotlight 2 is a genuinely useful tool. If you only occasionally give talks, I’m not convinced you need it; many of its more advanced features feel like solutions in search of problems and the forward and backward keys on your laptop still work remarkably well.
I suspect Spotlight 2 was designed for keynote speakers, TED presenters and corporate trainers and not for a museum director who spends much of his life explaining eclipses to community groups.
That may explain why Logitech and I occasionally seemed to be having different conversations.
By Ian Griffin
