Re: Remote Mouse and Keyboard

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

Simon.

I suspect you will soon get irritated with an IR keyboard/mouse solution,
(as I have). Seems fine for a while, until you get to the point where you
are sitting comfortably, but no longer have line-of-sight to the IR
receiver... I very quickly got fed up of having to change position in order
for the keyboard/mouse to work...

Same goes for those times when someone walks (and stays) between you and
the
receiver... contortions galore trying to point the keyboard around the
obstruction whilst still being able to operate it...

I've given up on IR keyboard/mouse solutions and have bought a Gyration
ultra set. The basic version of this has a claimed 25-foot range, and
whilst
that is presumably in open-air, and would likely be significantly less with
a wall/floor in the way, you may very well find that if the distance
between
your viewing position & the PC is small enough, its still enough to
work...
If not, then there is a higher power version available that claims 100ft
range, however that is a tad on the expensive side :-( (it would probably
be
cheaper to buy a "silent" mini-ITX PC to live in the living
room!)

The 25-foot version goes for around the £80 mark....

Other alternatives are not to use a keyboard at all, but use something like
an X10 mouseremote instead? (I also have one of these). This gives enough
functionality for basic use, - lets you move the mouse pointer around and
click on things etc... also buttons can be programmed to launch
applications, start predefined playlists etc... There are a couple of
different flavours of these around, and I believe most use *both* IR and
RF.
Radio reception through a floor might be an issue, - not sure of the range
of these though.

And yet another potential solution is to decouple the controller from the
PC
and use either xPL or xAP as a control mechanism. - Might not be so
relevant
is your case though, as one way or another you eventually have to get the
control signals into the PC in question, and if that is the closest PC to
the viewing position it seems likely that any xAP/xPL infrastructure would
be installed on that PC as well,  - which begs the question of by bother to
install an extra layer when you probably don't need to...

HTH

Paul G.




>From: "Simon Brazier" <simon@xxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
>Subject: [ukha_d] Remote Mouse and Keyboard
>Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 11:21:04 -0000 (GMT)
>
>I've managed to get the output of my main PC to display on the TV in
the
>lounge thanks to an RF modulator I had knocking around and the loftbox
I
>have installed. The only trouble is that I don't have mouse or keyboard
>control.
>
>The PC is only about 10 metres away from where I would sit in front of
the
>TV, but it is on a different floor of the house so it's not very easy
to
>run cables.
>
>How do people normally achieve control ? Would an RF keyboard and mouse
>transmit through a ceiling, is it worth trying a Bluetooth keyboard and
>mouse, or is it best to get an IR keyboard and mouse and use something
>like a Powermid to do the transmission ? Or would the best results come
>from a video sender which transmits the IR as well as audio and video ?
>
>Main reason I'm wanting to do this is so that I can play music from the
PC
>upstairs in the lounge without having a noise PC in the lounge. The
sound
>and vision works, but without mouse control I can't add any tracks.
>
>Thanks
>
>
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