The most embarrassing thing I ever had to admit to spilling on my laptop keyboard was instant soup. The laptop seemed to work fine for a few months, but the technician who came to fix it when it finally did stop working gave me uncomfortable disapproving and disappointed glances as he explained that the sodium and chemicals had started eating into parts of the motherboard. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head at the time telling me to “now imagine what it’s doing to your body!”

While Logitech’s new washable keyboard wouldn’t actually have solved my laptop problem, it could prevent many of the different variations of the situation. The keyboard can be submerged in water, washed with soap and has a drain in the back for easy drying. Not only would I have been able to drain the soup out instead of just hoping it magically disappeared, I could even have rinsed through all the salt and chemical residue.

How easy a purchase will be to clean is something most of us only usually think about when we’re buying white carpets and clothing or maybe considering self-cleaning ovens.  How clean our gadgets stay is rarely a consideration. But there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. Keyboards in particular get dirty easily since they have sticky, greasy fingers on them all day with a lot of nooks and crannies to catch dirt and food particles.

When you’re choosing tech, or in fact anything else, is cleanliness something you consider? Considering the growing concern about protecting kids and adults for atmospheric toxins, I would think that we would have seen a lot of things all-of-sudden being produced in easily washable versions. And yet, this Logitech keyboard seems to be a first. For all you savvy consumers and techies out there: keep an eye for a possible trend!