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Long-Range Wireless Keyboard/Mouse?
tambo writes with the sort of problem more people wish they had: "I've just bought myself an excellent LCD TV. I'd love to be able to access my home server from it for many reasons (music, video, surfing, MAME, etc.) — but my home server is in another room, 30 feet away from the TV and 50 feet away from the couch. I've acquired some gear to send PC audio and video wirelessly (over the 5.8GHz range), so that's all good. My challenge now is trying to send input wirelessly to my PC from fifty feet away. I've thought about getting a wireless USB hub, but that would introduce an additional wireless hop that would probably add to the input latency (and might interfere with all the other wireless gear in my pad.) My best bet now is to get a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse that have an unusually good range, and some of the Logitechs seem to qualify, but it's a gamble. Advice?"
The right bluetooth equipment can have a range of up to 100m. That enough?
Gyration GO PRO 2.4GHz Optical Air Mouse and Compact Keyboard Suite. Needs only an empty USB port and gives you a 100' range.
http://www.gyration.com/p-18-go-pro-24ghz-optical-air-mouse-and-compact-keyboard-suite.aspx
Unne Liljeblad, Mix Engineer
Laptop keyboard + mouse shared to the desktop over wifi with synergy. http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
me jumping with kites I make...
I built a little homebrew ir receiver that runs on the serial port. There are only 5 components that are easy to get and easy to solder together. Plans are linked on the homepage www.lirc.org
My advice would be to seek advice from anyone with experience of using Bluetooth over long distances - does it do what it says on the tin? The OP could perhaps ask on a tech site like, say, Slashdot. However they'll probably get a load of flippant answers from people who haven't tried it... ;-)
This is where the serious fun begins.
http://reviews.cnet.com/keyboards/logitech-cordless-mediaboard-for/4505-3134_7-32319140.html
My friend is using one for just this purpose. And he's about 30' or so away, and he's going through from the first room of his house to his basement and it's working great.
As for the wireless video? Are you using so type of VGA wireless solution? With an LCD TV you should be able to receive 720p or even 1080p connect. This would require either a component or HDMI/DVI connect. There are actually DVI over ethernet adapters which will send your single over the long distance without losing quality which the wireless solution I used to use has issues with. You could also just hit up http://www.monoprice.com/ and pick up a 40" HDMI cable for about $40 or so shipped. If you didn't know you can get adapters that convert DVI->HDMI and some even support sound as well.
Most Part 15 devices intentionally have bad antennas, or bad matching to the antenna. If you don't care about the letter of the law, the easiest mod to improve range is to put a proper antenna on each end. This can be as simple as a correct length of wire soldered to the right spot.
My modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center basically satisfies these requirements (minus the video recording and SSH). I can play all my video, MP3s, etc. from the server via SMB shares, and you can easily get emulators for all of your favorite gaming classics. If you really want wireless, you can get an Ethernet-WiFi bridge. Plus there's no bulky keyboard and mouse on my coffee table, just an Xbox controller.
Unfortunately, USB cables can only be about 16 feet (5 meters) long before the connection times out..and that doesn't really help a great deal, especially since the couch is 50 feet away from the server.
I haven't used their keyboards but we use their Gyromouse products in various rooms for presentations. In addition to being a real cool motion control device (works like a Wiimote, but better, doesn't need IR) it has a really long range. They claim 100 feet and I'd believe it. I haven't done accurate range tests, but it'll go all over a fairly large room.
Seems to be very solid technology.
Now I could see your point with a small TV, but with a 50+ inch it's simply amazing. No monkeying around with media servers or wireless networks, everything was in one spot. VLC plays full screen and would correctly display the correct aspect ratios for my stuff. Showing the family a funny YouTube video was much easier than everyone crowding around the computer.
It was also nice to web browse between commercials, or check my e-mail. Not to mention the Hi-Def Apple Movie Trailer site was something to behold.
If you haven't done it yet, I would strongly recommend you hook your PC up to your TV. Especially now with the LCD ones out there, you don't have to worry so much about screen burn like I did. I'm *almost* tempted to buy a new LCD TV just so I can hook up my Mac again, it's just hard to justify a new TV purchase when the one you have works perfectly okay.
We have a Gyration keyboard and mouse set at our church. The range is awesome: The receiver and PC are at the back while the keyboard and mouse are controlled from the pulpit, well over 100 feet away.
That's how we've done the setup where I live. Bought a couple of secondhand PC's, which were shifted into media PC cases, add a PCI wireless card and S-Video capable graphics card and you're set.
The PC's sit quite nicely with the other equipment around the TV, and it's easy enough to control using the IR remotes (we use the Microsoft MCE ones).
Load MythTV on all these machines, convert all the DVD's to ISO's / CD's to MP3 / etc and throw them on your workhorse PC (Myth Server) and you're set
To my knowledge there is no wireless DVI/HDMI, which means you're probably getting the signal via a composit TV out on the back of your server, which will already be lossy as hell by it's very nature, then sending it over a lossy radio connection. The difference between a PC's TV out and an HDMI connection is very large and you are not getting the benefit of your shiny new screen if you're going to use a non-digital source.
The best advice I can offer you is to grab one of the new barebone pc's with HDMI out and build a small unobtusive looking Media PC, which can then run MythTV, Media Portal, LinuxMCE, XBMC Linux/Windows, GeexBox, or any of the other great Mediacenter solutions that are out there. I'd also ditch the idea of the KB/M after initial setup and just grab yourself an MCE remote as your main input device (they're cheap, good quality and are well supported on both Windows and Linux).
For what it's worth, I've got a 3.2TB media server based on FreeNAS with 8x 500GB drives in RAID-5. I've got a media box under every TV in the house. The HD capable screens have the Asus P2-M2A690G barebones case with X2 4800+ CPU running Media Portal (Will be XBMC for Windows/Linux when a more stable build of either is out), while the SD TV's each have a modified Xbox running XBMC (unfortunately the otherwise rubust Xbox just isn't capable of decoding H.264 on it's 733Mhz cpu).
The Asus Barebones is whisper quiet, smaller than a PS3 and wouldn't look out of place next to a DVD or VCR.
Anyway, I wish you good luck with whatever solution you choose to go with.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Minus video recording, SSH, HD playback, actually HD anything.
I so wish it would do 720p but the xbox chokes hard on it. In fact most peoples HTPC's choke on HD content.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So you get a USB cable that has a repeater in it.
I think the repeater is a one-port USB hub, so they could be daisy chained for a while, as long as they get enough power from the original port. Maybe have a powered USB hub that the wireless receiver plugs into.
Or you use a USB-Ethernet Extender, which sends the USB signals over an Ethernet cable. I don't think that is USB over IP, so you probably can't plug that into an ethernet switch at all.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Mine works great for this... I have the older model but I've used this product from 100 feet away from a laptop in a presentation.
... I think mine might be a very early version.
http://www.gyration.com/
http://www.gyration.com/p-56-m2000-travel-air-mouse.aspx
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