Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Easyblue Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse Dongle


- I picked this up at amazon for about $35 shipped.
- It's a BKM (Bluetooth keyboard mouse switch)
- This is an interesting device that fits a particular situation.  It's a small usb dongle.  When you attach it to a PC through usb it loads some standard HID drivers that are built into windows and also creates a small 4MB flash drive which has a windows/mac tray app. The device also has bluetooth that connects to your tablet or smartphone (iOS or android).  Once you pair the EasyBlue with your mobile device you are set.  Now you can use your existing desktop keyboard to control your pc or your mobile device by toggling between the two with a hotkey (ctrl + up is the default but can be changed in the tray app).  It works seamlessly and super fast.  There is ZERO delay switching between pc and mobile device.
- This does NOT add bluetooth to a pc.  The pc side is only an HID device and flash drive.  The mobile side is all bluetooth.
- So basically you get all the advantages of a bluetooth keyboard (and mouse for android) without having a separate keyboard taking up valuable desk space.
- First thing I did was update the firmware and software to 2.0 from the manufacturer's site.  It's all in korean but it wasn't too hard to figure out (let google translate it).
http://www.easyblue.co.kr/xe/index.php?mid=down&document_srl=9125
- It has a small hole to put on a keyring.
- The tray app has a lot of settings like custom hot key, custom keymap, toggle tray notifications, toggle the LED light, etc.
- You can cut and paste text (ctrl c, ctrl v) between the pc and mobile device.  This is great for urls and such.
- Works even when inside citrix receiver with the easyblue attached to your host pc.

Highly recommended.  It's a convenient space saving device.  Sure, there are times when you need a portable bluetooth keyboard but this sure is handy if you need to iMessage somebody.  Now, if only apple would let you map enter to "send" in the iMessage app (or you can try this kludge which actually does work).

No comments: