There are many solutions for remote control keyboards, be they Bluetooth, infrared, or whatever else. Often they leave much to be desired, and come with distinctly underwhelming physical buttons. [konkop] has a solution to these woes we’ve not seen before, turning an ESP32-S3 into a USB HID keyboard with a web interface for typing and some physical keyboard macro buttons. Instead of typing on the thing, you connect to it via WiFi using your phone, tablet, or computer, and type into a web browser. Your typing is then relayed to the USB HID interface.
The full hardware and software for the design is in the GitHub repository. The macro buttons use Cherry MX keys, and are mapped by default to the common control sequences that most of us would find useful. The software uses Visual Studio Code, and PlatformIO.
We like this project, because it solves something we’ve all encountered at one time or another, and it does so in a novel way. Yes, typing on a smartphone screen can be just as annoying as doing so with a fiddly rubber keyboard, but at least many of us already have our smartphones to hand. Previous plug-in keyboard dongles haven’t reached this ease of use.
Nice idea. Moving the input to your smartphone has the added benefit of speech recognition as an option, or pasting from other apps.
Brilliant idea. Twice this past week I could have used a device like this.
Now looking to see if I can shrink it to EDC size.
Not bad, but . . .
I’ve been using InputStick (iOS or Android device into wireless USB keyboard & mouse) for years: easy bluetooth from smartphone to usb.
https://www.inputstick.com/
So then you’re dependent on that app to drive it, and have that app installed on a compatible device, and have that device handy too. And also dependent on the app still working on your new OS a year later.
Different animal.
This one is agnostic: anything with wifi and a web browser can talk to it.
Mostly true, but I don’t need wifi to use it AND it has been working without problems for over 10 years. The InputStick it self is about the size of thumb drive.
Give the browser developers a moment, they will find a way to make this not work. And the use of the word “anything” when speaking of devices with WiFi and a browser involves a lot of stuff that will not work. Please don’t use the word anything like that.
android tv has had this feature for years. but recently, as part of their “break everything for no reason” initiative, google has broken the android app that drives it
so if you connect it to the pc with the web interface, you have a complex autorepeat. neat!
Oh, I didn’t know how much I needed this. I use a software KVM for a bunch of hosts, but some of them have physical monitors but no HIDs. Something like this will solve a real problem for me.
I should build or buy a few USB-stick form factor ESP32s for this.